“Alternative Freedom” is a childish, foolish piece of cinematic nihilism that promotes itself as a “documentary about the invisible war on culture.” The film is actually little more than a feeble attempt to defend the pirating of copyright-protected material and the flaunting of intellectual property regulations.
By making weird and unsubstantiated claims that personal freedoms are threatened by “outdated copyright requirements,” the film seems to think that all people have the basic right to ripoff other people’s work and freely distribute it across the world (or at least across the Internet). Some scruffy characters such as Richard Stillman (founder of the so-called Free Software Foundation and a proponent of open source software) and DJ Danger Mouse (who earned the wrath of EMI by his unauthorized sampling of Beatles’ tunes) appear to babble incoherently that everyone has a right to help themselves to copyrighted material.
“Alternative Freedom” is directed and produced by a duo calling themselves Twila and Shaun – it is surprising they don’t call themselves Rocky and Bullwinkle or Bugs and Daffy, given their belief that nothing copyrighted is sacred. The filmmakers pad their mix of talking head interviews with tons of irrelevant stock footage and found footage, often using irrelevant material that bears no relation to the nonsense permeating the soundtrack.
This shot on video endeavor never rises to the level of professionalism. In fact, it is an utter piece of s**t.
