The Cultural Lure of P2P

Originally published by Tom Koltai at 10:19AM (EST) on February 13, 2009 

Or “No sir, we cant sell you the movie – It’s no longer in Production.”

I was born in 1958 in New Zealand to Hungarian Refugee Parents.
My first English word was not uttered until in 1963, six weeks before my fifth birthday, I was forced to attend St. Benedicts School in Khandallah, Wellington, where my crying mother placed me into the hands of Mother Lucille, a penguin.

Yes of course we went to the shops and church, and we had a radio set, that regularly made announcements in English, so although I had heard English, there was no real need for me to learn or speak it until I realised that no matter how hard I tried to make her understand, Mother Lucille – couldn’t or didn’t want to learn Hungarian.

So I learnt English. This strange language where everything was in reverse, and ugly in its brevity of expression. In Hungarian, every request is flowery with praise for the addressee, the description of the request, the benefit to the requestee of granting the request and the long litany of the many religious blessings that would no doubt fall on the head of the grantee.
In English it was “Give me the pencil”. Well, if you were polite and not just learning English, you might add a please at the beginning or end to ensure that you didn’t wind up in a punch up.
But I didn’t quite Grok “please”. So I decided to omit its use entirely, which of course meant that I became quite proficient with my fists – rapidly.
And Mother Lucille and I learnt to talk in English. Well at least, there was eventually an occasion where I talked and she nodded understanding.

Growing up in a “wog” household teaches the children of immigrant parents an unusual lesson not available to children in English speaking countries born of local English speaking parents.
And that is – your parents are fallible. Their English sucks. You always have to correct them.

So I grew up and learnt the mantle of authority by being an English tutor to my father and mother.

And in return, my parents tried hard to instill into me the historical culture that came with being a Hungarian. I listened to Hungarian classical music, Hungarian folk tunes, Hungarian Gypsy music and Hungarian cabaret (stand up comedy). Hell I received so much culture at home that I didn’t
even know there was such a thing as “pop” music until I was twelve and brought my first transistor radio.

When I turned 17, I escaped from home to attend advanced education and ended up in Australia and from there eventually in Hungary, the land of my ancestors.

I was like a little kid in a candy factory. I had relations, cousins, aunts, grandmothers, great grandmothers, grand aunts, great grand aunts and more cousins and unlike Mother Lucille, they all spoke Hungarian.

And I started buying culture. Cassette tapes, VHS tapes, Books. I hoarded this treasure and on my regular semester break trips home (to Oz), paid enormous sums for extra baggage.

Unfortunately I have discovered that Cassette tapes and VHS tapes have a maximum shelf life.
Especially if you live in the tropics. My experience is that cassette tapes turn gummy after three wet seasons and 2 dry seasons. Quicker if you leave them in the car whilst it is parked in the sun.
VHS tapes turn similarly “sticky” after about twelve years if stored in a dark cabinet, occasionally air conditioned.

So here I am, living in Sydney with a collection of gummed up music cassettes, records for which I no longer have the “humungous” stereo system and VHS tapes that keep winding around the spindle of the player and jamming.
The obvious option is to jump onto Amazon and buy copies. – Nope – Titles not available.
eBay – nope – titles not available. This shouldn’t be that hard. Some of these movies are less than twenty years old. One of them is only ten years old. Why cant I find them ?

Because they no longer exist. They have moved so far into Deep catalogue that the Hungarian Production Houses cant be bothered to re-issue them for the small Hungarian Population that might want to buy them.

In the Western World both Sony Corporation and Philips realised this problem a few years ago and started a Disk on Demand service for their deep catalogue items. Both firms have since cancelled their service due to costs.

Who has created a collection of these Historical Hungarian Movies for preservation? No-one.
Who has made these historical movies available for viewing by the public? No-one.

So what option do I have to recover my lost content ?
According to the Law. None.

Curiously, on the P2P networks, almost every single one of my Hungarian movies and music collections are available. Donated by kind souls who, with foresight digitized their aging VHS tapes before it was too late.

The law hasn’t been tested on this topic anywhere in the world.
I wonder if I should just download them using P2P and ensure their safety.

My dilemma is a moral one. I have no issue with the movies that I purchased in the eighties. As far as I am concerned, I am replacing a faulty sub-standard  manufactured product with a digital version. (There was no warning on the label that if you lived in the Tropics the tapes would turn sticky.)

My problem is with all the new titles available. WOW. I could sit here downloading till the cows came home and totally sate my cultural needs for a considerable time.

How can I pay for these new titles? In fact some of the companies that made some of these titles are no longer in existence. Oh I’m sure that someone owns the copyright, but how can I find out who? Oh, they’re in Hungary. Oh, it’s a lawyers office. Nope, they’re not interested in selling me a legitimate copy. There aren’t any. The film is no longer in production. Could I send them a cheque if I can get a copy elsewhere? No – they don’t have any system for accepting a cheque.

In other words, they don’t want my money - this then produces a dilemma for the Copyright Industries.

Copyright was designed to protect the commercial interests of the inventor/artists.

Is there now an argument that if the copyright owner is no longer interested in selling the content, then he can no longer be afforded the protection of the copyright law ?

If you enjoyed this article, Tom Koltai Blogs at http://kovtr.com/wordpress/
He can followed on Twitter at http://twitter.com/tomkoltai

Keywords:  copyright precedent, immigrants, Hungarian, Grok, ancestors, video, VHS, TV, trend, technology, Radio, music, Meme, Home Theatre, eBay, copyright, Amazon