One of my favorite web site’s I visit daily for my entertainment needs, www.ninjavideo.net, recently published it’s manifesto, here it is, you be the judge!
Hello and welcome to the NinjaVideo manifesto. This one is a bit different from the rest, in that I’m the only
person on the line. I’m Phara by the way – just in case you didn’t know, or you’re new to the NinjaVideo
podcasts – and I’ll be doing this one solo.
This is partially scripted, partially free thought. And I’m going to try and keep it as light-hearted as I can,
but at the end of the day this is probably the most serious podcast we’ve ever done.
This is our Mission Statement; it doesn’t really get much clearer than that.
We decided in light of our recent traffic spikes with the start of the fall season and the havoc it wreaked
with our system that maybe it was about time to explain who and what we are as an entity.
I think it’s become quite obvious that NinjaVideo is a bit of a monster to run, and a lot of you are probably
curious as to why we do it. So for this podcast I’m not only speaking to you as Phara but also as the voice
of the administrators, the moderators, the entire NinjaVideo community, and in a way as one of the
representatives of the on-line video world, and perhaps through this you’ll gain a better understanding of
why people like us spend such a giant amount of time doing what we do.
By the way, I take the title of representative of the on-line video world very loosely, nobody put me in this
position. I’m not quite sure if I want to be in it, but it’s a reality and though this might open me and my
website to a bit of unwanted scrutiny it’s something that we as a community felt needed to be done.
So, that’s me, that is Ninja.
And let me now explain who this is for.
This is for everyone.
To everyone that’s ever watched a video on-line, to anyone that’s ever viewed a clip on YouTube, to every
uploader and downloader, to those within the scene and the peer-to-peer, to the bootleggers that have
gotten locked up for selling their warez on the street corner, to the cammers that risk their freedom every
single night in movie theaters. That’s one side of it.
This is also for the other side. We’re doing this all encompassing. This is for the lawyers sending out
notices; this is to movie producers and studio heads; to all the scriptwriters and the actors.
This is for everyone.
I’m not going to go too much into what we do, as I think if you’re listening to this, you most likely know. But
in a sentence or two:
We are a high quality video site (probably the best one out there, and I say this as a user of my own site
and not just as the Admin). We provide TV primarily, as well as a significant documentary section, new
movie releases and sporting events in addition to a few other things. We’re loved by millions, but we’re
hated by quite a few, and as to how we started, most of us at the top were already members of this on-line
video community, and we just saw an emphasis on quality lacking, so we came together to create the
highest quality site on-line.
That said, let me explain a little bit about Ninja Main.
We’re realists. We know what brings people to NinjaVideo – Ninja Main in particular – it is zero hour
releases on TV and movies. But while they’re here they can learn – from our documentaries to the depth of
our forum we are a classroom in so many ways, as well as an outlet for your general entertainment. We
did this very consciously.
We could have a third of the videos that we do on the Mainsite and be equally as successful but we chose
not to. We wanted to educate. We wanted to be different from every other site out there by establishing a
community that revolves around the Mainsite.
Our community has its own rules and hierarchy but it’s one where people can shed the superficialities of
the physical world and discuss everything from good TV, to good music, to land reform in China, to recent
and upcoming elections. And they can do this with complete freedom – as long as it’s done in a respectful
manner. People have dedicated enormous chunks of their lives to creating this home of ours online and if
one was to skim through my boards they would see it in it’s full glory every day.
Though it may be argued that we – as an entity – are the ultimate leech for what we take from the film and
the TV industry, my community and those that helped build it are anything but. This is not an anonymous
place of fake thank-you’s and ignorant requests, but the closest that the Internet has ever come to an
extended family. There’s really no way for me to explain it and do it justice, but I suspect that if you were
to register and to lurk the boards for a few days you would understand what I was saying quite clearly.
So with all that being said, let’s get to some of the central points of this podcast:
Why do sites like NinjaVideo exist?
Why do people like us prefer this online world to theaters so much at a time?
What is our take on studios and Hollywood and the businesses that we are so closely tied to, but not quite
friendly with?
I’m just going to speak a bit broadly here and go into what is probably the whole point of this, the meat of
this.
When did the American pastime of going to the movies become a luxury? Honestly– when? When did
family night at the movies start costing fifty dollars without popcorn? As a wise moderator of mine once
said, “When did leisure get taken hostage?”
Look around you… the world is in crisis, economic as well as social. Why was one of the few escapes
available to us as a society taken out of the layman’s reach? I want to point something out. Your
numbers– they’re so wrong. You break record numbers every season. $200 million opening weekends.
Every year, those at the top of your business get richer and richer. And we, your loyal fans, pay more and
more to view two hours of regurgitated plot. You say that piracy is killing you. But do you honestly think
that the thousand people who watched a movie online would be the same thousand that would go to the
theaters if that option were taken from them?
Your Statistics Are Lies.
If nothing else, it is through Internet word of mouth that so many otherwise obscure films succeed.
I’d like to ask you a question sometimes. Perhaps I’m being naive, but honestly, why can an actor be paid
$20 million for a movie? Why are there doctors out there paying off student loans for fifty years, but
someone who essentially “lies” for a living makes millions? And this is for the entire entertainment
industry. Sports players are very much included in this, mainstream musicians…
And if the comparison to doctors is a bit off, why do you make so much more than your writers? Why was
there a writers’ strike last year that halted TV production for the first time in years when someone like
Jennifer Aniston or Jerry Seinfeld was making a million dollars per episode for a twenty-two minute
sitcom?
And why – and this is probably more important – Why have we as a society accepted this? Why do we race
to newsstands for glorified tabloids mimicking news? Why is CNN reporting on Britney Spears rather than
the Congo? Why am I supposed to care that Angelina Jolie had or adopted another child? Why (this is so
upsetting) why are we so obsessed with this disgusting celebrity culture where someone like Paris Hilton is
a heroine and children don’t know who Mahatma Gandhi is? Why in a world where for the first time true
knowledge is accessible to us via a few keystrokes are test scores plummeting? Please explain to me why
college in the United States is utterly unaffordable. This pains me. This pains me so much.
My generation, we’re a generation of cynics, apathetic to all around us, indifferent to all around us. But
when did being those things mean that we had to become ignorant? When did that happen? There are
times when I find myself bewildered at my own inability to feel compassion but at the same time I’m
plagued by these overarching ideals.
I care not for the man standing next to me, but I sob for humanity. I weep for these ideals that I feel are
being lost. I fail at paying my own rent on time, but I can stare aghast at someone who doesn’t know
there’s a conflict between Israel and Palestine, or that there’s still war going on in the world.
There are giant issues out there. Enormous issues that are so much greater than generic media
consumption. Issues requiring attention far greater, far more attention in general than I could ever bring to
it. And yet I see millions being spent squashing a minority like mine. One that at its core espouses the
kind of groupthink necessary to enact change. One made of leaders that want to reach out across the
world and help each other – even if its via something so small as uploading a newscast, or even a TV
show.
But we’re labeled pirates. We’re called thieves. We’re raided and arrested and we’re forced to hide behind
aliases while we weave and we bob through these grey areas of laws not yet written. We’re this
amorphous Internet scum looking to rob your industry. Right? We are so far from.
You… YOU have done this. You… The studios with your inflated budgets and your ridiculous salaries.
You have fed the mob insignificant tidbits about celebrity antics in order for them to pay out their retirement
funds in popcorn prices. But not all amongst this mob are sheep.
There are those that refuse to cater to such condescending pandering. And at heart that’s what it is. It’s
condescending. It’s patronizing. It’s insulting to us as a generation. Sites like NinjaVideo force innovation
upon you. This entire community does. The record profits that you have been making prove that people
still go to the movies. Ad spots starting a $250,000 for thirty seconds prove that people still watch TV.
How will you keep your audience? Why should they pay you any longer when it is clear that you care
nothing for them? Will you continue to repackage the same story lines? Will you continue to shun
independence? Will you continue to force us to read publicist drivel on high school dropouts with the
Mickey Mouse club on their resumes? Honestly, it’s time to stop.
Just stop.
Reincarnate yourselves. Utilize us. Don’t shut us down. Make a stand. You’ve made your money. Why
don’t you make your statement now? Now that the networks and the MPAA stand together, why don’t you
embrace the Internet? And I know that you have too a degree, but it’s lacking. Sorely lacking. Why not let
those well-versed in this scene help. You must set aside the status quo. For it is being set aside for you.
Your screeners are being leaked by your own insiders. Let me repeat that for you:
Your screeners are being leaked by your own insiders.
Embrace the peer to peer. Embrace the crowd at your door that would help you acclimate to today’s
technological revolution before they blast through your bureaucratic ineptitude. Your very own structuring
inhibits your growth. You have generations at the top that know nothing of this new world and cannot
grasp the fluidity of the Internet and its rapid-fire growth. Your industry is an industry made up of
connections and cronyism and casting couches.
This is the time ripe for change. Be that change.
Once upon a time, visual media was heralded for the positive impacts it made upon society. Once upon a
time a cold war was destroyed at the hands of reporters who showed millions that life was different outside
the communist bloc. Once upon a time I cared to listen to what CNN had to say to me. Once upon a time,
copyright law favored the small, and not the hidden vaults underneath a 500-acre studio. And isn’t that the
ugliest part, honestly… that your writers are forced into the cold with picket signs, while these glorified
Barbie and Ken dolls prance around the world for more money than most countries make in a year.
Please, please understand this anger. You must. It’s enough. You have become complacent through
your success. You have taken an industry barely one hundred years old and destroyed its public integrity.
You have made fools of us and forced a discontent that is exponentially swelling through the ranks of the
computer literate.
You and only you opened the door for NinjaVideo. Sites like mine are a direct manifestation of your
apathy. You can’t hold entertainment hostage any more. You can’t hold news hostage.
If Rupert Murdoch wants to play FOX news on five different channels, then I’ll build an Al Jazeera category
and give it love on Ninja Main. If a documentary maker is saddened that his work will only be seen by a
few thousand via a public broadcasting channel, then I’ll give him an audience millions strong.
If you want to take advantage of the fact that the youth of my generation, some of them adults now, are
lazy, we will make that youth a force to be reckoned with and give them a home on-line to gather and think.
And that’s it. That is the point of all this, of NinjaVideo in particular. I truly, truly hope that this did not
come off as a rant. I guess what I want, what we all want, is to be left alone. I don’t want to go to jail… or
court. None of us do. And if we can’t be accepted, how about we’re acknowledged? Not as pirates but as
a generation you can learn from. Work with us. Learn from us.
This is what we do. It’s part of who we are. Instead of sending a takedown notice, how about sending an
introductory letter? Conference with us about what the evolution of this game should be about, because I
assure you – whether or not you ever take NinjaVideo down, there will be more of us. This game can’t be
stopped: so how about it’s understood?
We’re a community, made up of millions. We come from every country, every walk of life, and every
economic level. And we’re smart. We’re young. We’re articulate. And we’re your audience.
But we’re tired, and we can fight back.
And this is by no means a challenge; it’s just the reality.
Can I afford lawyers? No. Not at all. But will there be a hundred people to take my place if I step down?
Yes… believe me there will be.
So if the moves towards peace could ever be made between our worlds then I would suggest that you take
us, NinjaVideo, up on such a reconciliation. We’re grown, we’re educated, and we – more than most – are
willing to listen. Perhaps if you are one of those lawyers or studio heads or actors, and for some odd
reason you’re listening to this right now, take a moment before you pick up that phone and truly think about
what I said.
There is an opportunity here that has never been laid out before.
This has been the NinjaVideo Manifesto and it’s time to wrap this thing up.
We’re your future. We’re here and we’re strong and we’re not moving.
I’ll leave you all with a quote. I tried searching for a few choice ones on piracy and I found myself much
more attracted to the ones I found on revolution:
Samuel Adams once said:
“It does not require a majority to prevail, but rather an irate, tireless minority keen to set brushfires in
people’s minds.”
We have lit that flame and it can’t be put out. Will you help us harness its power, or will you let us all burn
with you alongside?
Thank you for listening to the NinjaVideo Manifesto.
This has been Phara, with all of NinjaVideo behind me.
