so i acquired a copy of an old 60 minutes segment from october called pirates of the internet.

how does this kind of irresponsible garbage pass for journalism? this piece was nothing but a mouthpiece for the industry. it is totally one-sided: lesley stahl begins the segment by pounding home the point that piracy is stealing. she states it herself as an appetizer, then for extra effect we're treated to several courses of industry hacks who repeat the point over & over again. once lesley (& producer rome hartman) have properly framed the debate by stating the industry's view as fact, it's time to dig up scary (& questionable) details.

at one point stahl basically confesses that she is absolutely clueless about the subject (she says "sometimes i think i'm the only person in the world who's never downloaded anything." well congratulations on being a luddite, but what the fuck are you doing reporting on internet issues? they might as well have brought in jack valenti to do the segment). then right when you think they aren't even going to attempt to show an opposing view, former grokster prez wayne rosso is brought in only to be demonized, then cut off before he can make his argument. they are nice enough to let rosso give his opinions of spoofing attacks on p2p networks, but they clearly have no intention of letting him defend the legitimacy of his business, let alone make any statement on the overall piracy issue any deeper than "it's stealing". i mean, this is textbook work here: bring in someone from the other side, to give off the illusion of objectivity, just don't let them actually say anything of substance.

it should make for nice sampling material, though, since stahl does say "pirates of the internet"...