“Have you seen this?” a friend asked brandishing a VHS Cassette, a tape that that appeared to have had many lives from the appearance of multiple layered labels. But it was the writing scrawled in in red felt tip, “Natural Born Killers” that got everyone’s attention.

“It’s Banned”, “It just came out in America” and other similar comments were spoken in hushed tones at the the sight of this audio visual “contraband”. This grainy, shaky, documentary style satire mesmerized us for the hours that followed.

Ultimately yes it was a pirate version of the film, a hand-held-camera-sneaked-into-the-back-of-a-showing-of-the-film-version, recorded somewhere in North America. Despite all of these “technical” flaws, all of Oliver Stone’s directorial brilliance shown through, it was and still is a masterpiece of satire. The video tape was viewed many subsequent times and referred to in high esteem over that summer. It was the “film we should not have”, we were quite tame suburban teenagers and this was the wildest thing we had ever seen.

Years later wandering through a high street “multimedia outlet” which has since gone the way of the dinosaurs, I came across a DVD version of “Natural Born Killers” and bought it immediately, ironically due to the fond memories it conjured. Excited by my purchase, I couldn’t wait to get home.

I should have known by the glossy case and sleek packaging something was terribly wrong. As soon as the film started it was clear, and that was the problem, the film was crystal clear, long gone was the grainy, voyeuristic layer of hand held camera filter. The “film we should not have” filter was removed and in it’s place was this for want of a better word was this “product”. Oliver Stone’s directorial skill and master storytelling was still present, it just didn’t feel right. Maybe it was rose tinted glasses but for me a lot of the magic had gone, disappeared with the cleanliness of the commercially released product. It was like falling in love with a rough and rugged live concert version of a song only to be let down by the clean shaven topped and tailed version offered on a studio album.

I don’t ever think it was the piracy aspect of the video that made it so risky for us, we had grown up in a tape / disk swapping culture of the 1980′s and 90′s, it sadly never felt wrong to do so. I don’t know what ever happened to that tape or the lad that owned it but I would give up my store bought DVD for it any day.

A similar thing happened to master film-maker Stanley Kubrick’s “A Clockwork Orange” which was removed from distribution at his request, but when you are a teenager if it’s not available in the shops “it’s banned” and you want it even more (Government policy makers please take note). I can remember again seeing a similar tape-to-tape-to-tape-to-tape-to-tape-to-tape-to-version of this which had been secretly passed around like some handwritten bible before the printing press had gotten involved. Again it had a “should we be seeing this” feeling about it, “you can get this as a book, in the library but why not the video?” was the subject of much speculation. People didn’t feel they were pirating they were fighting against censorship, quite the opposite of feeling bad for being “pirates” they were liberating art, or so it was thought.

Time moved on and DVD players replaced the VCR and entire collections of videos were simply left in the past. It was years later when I encountered a “A Clockwork Orange” again this time, I was a film student, and like the great cliché working in my local cinema and by then I had had a complete change of heart.

To my absolute horror and passion for the work of Stanley Kubrick “A Clockwork Orange” was given a cinematic release? Why not dig up his corpse and animate him like a Teddy Ruxpin for a press conference. Sorry, I was upset that the studios chose this film to release right after his death. I can remember boycotting working the the screen that was showing “A Clockwork Orange”. I completely refused to clean or man the door of a film that “we shouldn’t be seeing” and I risked being fired and was subsequently demoted for doing so.

So where do I stand on things like “piracy” now? I don’t tolerate it at all, my belief is when you download illegally / steal music, film or video games you steal peoples time, the time they have given up to create something for you to engage with. I’ll stop there I am not here to preach about my views. I just found it an interesting paradox that for me the grainy pirate version of “Natural Born Killers” added something to the mystique of the film, the dodgy way in which you had to access “A Clockwork Orange” did the same. Something their clean “commercial product” available in major supermarket counterparts lacked.

I also find it interesting that several films since the days of the VCR such as “Blair Witch Project” and “Cloverfield“ and countless others utilise this lo-fi grainy, hand held, cut in and out of badly tracked video tape approach to imply that your seeing something you shouldn’t, something that has been found, something special and a little bit risky. TV Dramas, music videos, documentaries and even main-stream news even use this approach, for this very reason. It’s not to say that piracy brought about this style of editing and “filtering” but I would certainly argue that it has helped make it more prevalent, and more understood by the modern viewer. It for me at least is a case of art imitating piracy, or is that art pirating art that is being pirated?

Matthew C. Applegate, widely known as Pixelh8, is a multi-disciplinary artist and chip-tune musician who has been a vocal opponent to the Digital Economy Act and has been a central figure in the campaign to save Bletchly Park. You can buy his music on iTunes, or via his website and for information on forthcoming performances and great conversation, you can follow him on Twitter.

There. I said it, and I suspect that anyone who follows me on Twitter will hardly be surprised by the fact.

I’ve been talking a lot about the Digital Economy Act lately, the way in which it became law, the lack of scrutiny the intense lobbying from the recording and other industries.

It may seem that I’m anti-artist, that I’m just another “freetard” who believes that they have a right to have whatever content they like without paying and without considering the consequences. This is far from the case.

I believe in the importance of art, I think it’s fundamental to society. From the cave paintings of Lascaux to the works of Pixelh8 art is core to humanity and the way we connect with the complex world around us.

In order to artists to be able to fully pursue their vision, they need to be able to earn a living from their work. Copyright should support the artist, or creator, and enable them to make a living from their work without having to compromise their integrity.

Copyright law was (I believe) first introduced in the UK in 1710 with the Statute of Anne which endowed “exclusive rights upon the author of books not yet printed or published for a period of 14 years and for a further 14 years if the author was still alive at the end of the first period”. Today, thanks to copyright being increasingly held by large corporations, lasts for between 70 and 125 years depending on the circumstances.

Whilst copyright law has been amended over the years, it has not been updated to reflect modern society, business models and technologies.

It’s widely pointed out, for example, that copying the music from a store-bought CD onto your iPod is – technically – illegal. As is copying it onto tape so that you can listen to the music you’ve purchased in your elderly car stereo. In practice, people are not prosecuted for doing either of these things, but it acts as an accessible example for the need for copyright reform.

All this is by way of background for the following, I’m going to tell explain what I download, what I don’t and why.

Music

I have boxes full of albums that I don’t listen to, I bought them on the strength of the one or two singles that the label released to the radio, and expecting the rest of the album to be like those sample songs, I shelled out my hard earned money. The rest of the albums were not even remotely as good, and I was dissapointed, time and time again.
So now I download albums I’m interested in via the PirateBay, I listen to them and if I like them, I’ll buy it on iTunes. If I don’t, I delete the files. It’s a form of try-before-you-buy, and is far more meaningful than the 30 second clip that iTunes offers by way of a preview (which is often completely useless).

If the recording industry can find some way of allowing me to do this without resorting to P2P, I’ll happily do so. Low quality free versions, perhaps, or let me listen to it all online via streaming – there are ways of allowing the consumer to make an informed choice about how they spend their money, without risking loss of income for the artist.

Movies

I format shift, I’m of the generation where I have a sizeable collection of films on VHS. I can’t watch VHS cassettes on my laptop (nor can I watch DVDs – it’s a netbook, that’s another story) and I’m not willing to pay for a second copy. The movie studios didn’t have to re-film it in order to produce a DVD version so I’m not willing to re-pay for it. Again, if the studios made it possible to obtain a digital copy legitimately when you have bought a physical media copy, I wouldn’t resort to P2P.

TV Shows

I love the BBC, I think they’ve done great things with the iPlayer. But there’s a problem. Programmes are only available for 7 days from first broadcast. So if you’ve missed the first 2 episodes of the new landmark Attenborough series you’ll be able to catch the second, but the first has gone. If I still had a video recorder I could have taped it and could watch it whenever I wanted and as often as I wanted. So the way they’ve implemented the “new” technology is worse for the consumer than the old version.

The same comes with big American shows on DVD. We’re fans of Stargate Atlantis, and have bought all the seasons on DVD, but we still download them. Why? Because the experience of watching them is so poor. If I want to watch one 40-something minute episode, I have to sit through around 20 minutes of unskippable copyright warnings and advertisements (including a 4 minute ad for the programme I’m actually trying to watch). I can get the same AV quality (well, I can’t tell the difference, but then I’m not an audiophile) on a download with none of that, when I want to watch an episode, I double click the file and it goes straight in to the episode.

Yet again, the legitimate, legal option is a worse consumer experience than the illegal download.

These issues aren’t uncommon. Many people who download are doing so for similar reasons, were not depriving artists of genuine sales, but were not daft enough to pay for the same content over and over again. When recorded music came along it represented a threat to the sheet-music industry, music survived, artists thrived, the industry adapted.

If the film, music and TV industries genuinely want to reduce copyright infringement via the internet, they need to engage with the consumers who are fed-up of being milked for cash and delivered a poor experience. We need to amend copyright law in the UK and then we need to group together to tackle those who are making profit from reselling other people’s work.

I’m not going to talk about the final story of the Tenth Doctor’s reign, except to say that David Tennant did the best he could with the script he was given and that I was totally awed by Bernard Cribbins’ heartbreaking performance.

With Stephen Moffatt taking the helm for the new season, I’m very hopeful for the future of everyone’s favourite Time Lord.

There’s lots of things that I’m really pleased with, but I’m most proud of our agreement to support the World Land Trust. We are donating £50 for every new client that joins us (enough to protect an acre of threatened habitat and it’s population) and a further £25 for every month they stay.

We have also worked hard to get our carbon emissions as low as a limbo-dancer’s back pocket, we now produce less than a tonne of CO2 in a year!

There’s lots of good stuff to come, and I’ll try to keep you up to date with the latest developments as they happen! In the meantime, I’m intending to enjoy a relaxing Easter with lots of Doctor Who, Red Dwarf, Mythbusters and chocolate bunnies.

Have a great holiday everyone!

Don’t get it? Start here and work your way forward.

At the moment I’m working through the House of Cards trilogy, adapted by Andrew Davis from Michael Dobb’s novels.

Ian Richardson is fantastically, coldly, evil as Chief Whip (and later First Lord of the Treasury) Francis Urquhart; that much I remembered from the series’ original airing. What I didn’t remember was how good Diane Fletcher was as the Lady MacBethian Elizabeth Urquhart.

If you haven’t seen the series already, I heartily recommend it. A study in the corrupting influence of power and an insight into the backbiting and two-faced nature of party politics.

Makes a great contrast to Yes, Prime Minister – which I’m also enjoying again.

All performances begin at 19:30 unless stated otherwise

Mozart – The Magic Flute:
January 24th, 29th & 31st (18:30); February 7th (14:30 & 19:30), 12th (signed), 14th (18:30), 20th & 26th

Pre-performance talk on 31st January (14:30) with Nicholas Till.

Puccini – La Bohème:
February 2nd, 4th, 6th, 11th, 13th, 15th (15:00), 19th, 21st (18:30), 24th (signed) & 27th; March 4th, 6th & 8th (15:00)

Pre-performance talk, Will Kerley in conversation with Jonathan Miller, on the 4th February (17:30).

Adams – Doctor Atomic:
All performances start at 19:00 unless specified otherwise

February 25th & 28th (18:00); March 5th, 7th, 11th, 13th, 16th, 18th & 20th

Pre-performance talk on the 28th February (16:00) with Anthony Arblaster.

Janáček – Jenůfa:
March 12th, 14th (18:30), 17th (signed), 19th & 21st (18:30)

Pre-performance talks on the 17th March (17:30) with John Tyrrell.

Britten – Peter Grimes:
All performances begin at 19:00 unless stated otherwise

May 9th, 11th, 14th, 16th (18:00), 18th (signed), 21st, 23rd (18:00), 28th & 30th (18:00)

Pre-performance talks on 16th May, Philip Reed in conversation with Edward Gardner, at 16:00 and 21st May (17:00) with Philip Reed.

Mozart – Così Fan Tutte:
All performances begin at 19:00 unless stated otherwise

May 29th; June 4th, 6th (18:00), 11th, 13th (18:00), 17th (signed), 19th & 26th; July 2nd & 5th (15:00)

Pre-performance talk on 6th June (16:00) with Nicholas Till.

Puccini – Madame Butterfly
Revived in tribute to director Anthony Minghella, who passed away in 2008.

June 10th, 12th, 15th, 18th, 20th (18:30), 25th & 27th (18:30); July 1st (signed), 4th (18:30), 8th & 10th

Pre-performance talk on 20th June (16:30) with Sarah Lenton.

Saariaho – L’Amour de Lion
July 3rd, 7th, 9th & 11th (18:30)

Pre-performance talk, an interview with Kaija Saariaho, on 7th July at 17:30.

Tickets can be purchased online, at eno.org, or by telephone on 0871 472 0600.

The idea of having a rotating display in two “windows” (one in the nose, the other in the right eye socket) rather than a dial which overlays the design is unusual, and might take some getting used to.

You can get it now from Net-A-Porter, but with a price tag of £180 it’s not for everyone’s pocket (including mine…boo ;-)

This got me thinking – which actors have spent the most time as The Doctor? Now any long-term fan will be able to guess that Tom Baker tops the list, but where does Monsieur Tennant fit?

So a bit of research and a few calulations later and here’s the result.