Nodal Bits

I’ve been waiting quite some time for the SF flick, Snowpiercer, to appear in U.S. theatres or for the DVD to be available. Apparently, I’m not alone. I noticed this week that if you search for “snowpiercer download”, you can find about 11 DMCA takedown notices removing 21 results from the listings in Google:

Snowpiercer, is based on a graphic novel from France named “Le Transperceneige,” authored by Jacques Lob and Benjamin Legrand, and illustrated by Jean-Marc Rochette. The novel set in a dystopian future where there was apparently some failed attempt to halt global warming that instead resulted in a new Ice Age that kills off all life on Earth except for a group that lives on a train called “Snow Piercer”, which runs around the planet, powered by some sort of perpetual-motion engine. Over time, a class-segregated society develops on the ever-zooming railroad, and the story focuses upon how a struggles emerges between the rich/advantaged who live at the front of the train versus the poor at the back.

The concept sounds fairly unbelievable, but the visuals in the trailer along with a compelling cast that includes Chris Evans, Tilda Swinton and Ed Harris have made me want to see it. The kookiness of the concept also attracts me to it!

Since I frequently work along with various attorneys on reputation management cases, I’m accustomed to seeing takedown notices at the bottom of search results — Google and Bing have very kindly taken down materials that can be proven to be defamatory or otherwise illegal, such as in the case of copyright infringements covered by DMCA. But, I don’t recall running across a search results page with quite so many notices at once.

It’s also interesting that there appears to be no official website for the film as of yet — and provision of one would further displace secondary pirate sites, most likely, rendering them marginally less visible to consumers.

What’s further interesting about this is that I think the slowness to distribute in the U.S. has perhaps driven a lot more piracy and copyright infringement than it needed to. Many SciFi film buffs and comic book enthusiasts are interested in viewing the film, and are frustrated to be unable to get access (I count myself in this set). (more…)