One of the highlights of this year’s SXSW festival in Austin is going to be the movie Downloaded.
DOWNLOADED is directed and produced by Alex Winter and co-produced by Maggie Malina.
Several years in the making, DOWNLOADED focuses on the advent of digital file sharing, including the rise of game-changing company Napster and its controversial pioneers Shawn Fanning and Sean Parker. The digital revolution ultimately created a technology paradigm shift, upended the music business and musical artists and changed the world.
Winter filmed many participants in this saga besides Fanning and Parker, including artists such as Noel Gallagher, DJ Spooky (who also did the music for the film), Mike D from the Beastie Boys and Henry Rollins to name a few; label heads including Don Ienner, Chris Blackwell, Seymour Stein and other industry executives, government officials and leaders in the world of civil and digital rights, such as Grateful Dead lyricist, poet and essayist and “cyberlibertarian” activist JP Barlow and Harvard law professor and political activist Lawrence Lessig.