One man battles Dubya armed with 'Fahrenheit 9/11' downloads
Your support helps us to tell the story
From reproductive rights to climate change to Big Tech, The Independent is on the ground when the story is developing. Whether it's investigating the financials of Elon Musk's pro-Trump PAC or producing our latest documentary, 'The A Word', which shines a light on the American women fighting for reproductive rights, we know how important it is to parse out the facts from the messaging.
At such a critical moment in US history, we need reporters on the ground. Your donation allows us to keep sending journalists to speak to both sides of the story.
The Independent is trusted by Americans across the entire political spectrum. And unlike many other quality news outlets, we choose not to lock Americans out of our reporting and analysis with paywalls. We believe quality journalism should be available to everyone, paid for by those who can afford it.
Your support makes all the difference.Marc Perkel is spending $2,000 (£1,100) in the hope of ensuring the result of the United States presidential election. Not by buying television ads ($2,000 wouldn't go very far) but by offering Michael Moore's film Fahrenheit 9/11 as a free download from his site in the hope that watching it will encourage people to vote against George Bush.
And at least half of his hope has been fulfilled: thousands of people have downloaded the film from his site in a format that can be watched on a computer.
Yet despite offering a box-office hit backed by heavyweight producers such as Harvey Weinstein, available for free over the internet, Mr Perkel, of San Bruno in California, does not fear being sued, as one would normally expect.
Instead, he insists that "Michael Moore wants me to distribute this" - although he admits that Moore has not spoken to him specifically. The $2,000 is the cost of one month's high-speed connectivity for his site, where the digital versions of the film are stored - and if download numbers are any guide, he has found a receptive audience.
Since he put the films online, more than 300,000 people have downloaded them in full or in part.
The film has become famous for its criticism of President Bush's handling of the threat from terrorists prior to 11 September 2001, and for his policies afterwards. That inspired Mr Perkel to make a digital copy of the film, and offer it for free.
"This election is extremely important to the future of the planet," he told The Independent. "If I can make a difference, it's worth $2000 to make that happen. According to my [site] logs, which I don't trust because I don't think it can distinguish failed attempts, it has been downloaded 337,756 times. But I don't count downloads, I count votes. How many voters are converted or how many people are motivated to actually vote? That's the score that counts to me. I am trying to prevent World War III and possibly the fall of civilisation."
Mr Perkel says he has the tacit backing of Moore for his venture. "Michael Moore has made public statements encouraging people to download it and to distribute it over the internet for free. At no time have I seen any public statements from a copyright holder to the contrary," he said.
Indeed, Moore said in July: "I don't agree with the copyright laws and I don't have a problem with people downloading the movie and sharing it with people as long as they're not trying to make a profit off my labour."
The distributors of the film in the US, Lion's Gate, had no comment yesterday.
Join our commenting forum
Join thought-provoking conversations, follow other Independent readers and see their replies
Comments