Director “Won’t think less of you” for Downloading Hit Movie on BitTorrent | TorrentFreak

John August is awesome. From Torrent Freak:

John explains: “My Google News Alert feed showed the inevitable had come to pass: there was a DVD rip of The Nines online. Given the subtitles attached (Spanish and French), it was almost certainly the North American retail release, which I haven’t even held in my hands yet.”

Normally at this point, one could expect those involved in the movie to start shouting about how piracy is evil – and maybe back that up with a call to an anti-piracy outfit such as Media Defender. John August takes a more relaxed view about the leak. “That’s okay. Not ‘okay’ in the sense of ‘legal’ or ‘right’. But okay in the sense of c’est la vie” he says. Once a movie leaks to the internet there’s very little that can be done, something John is resigned to: “People are going to watch the pirated version, and there’s nothing I can do about it. Sony, Interpol and the MPAA will do their best, but as the guy who made the movie, I honestly want people to see the movie. If the only way you’re going to watch The Nines is illegally, so be it.”

That’s what a reaction to Bittorrent should look like. Intelligent artists realised long ago that piracy is promotion, and promotion = more money.

John talks more on his own Blog about the issues.