The IRack

A fanatic geek

The scene takes place in Cannes, in the south of France.

We see a number of artists climbing up the glamorous staircase of the Cannes Film Festival Palace, treading the well-known red carpet.

A crowd of fans are cheering and asking for autographs while the paparazzi are taking photographs.

In the background, we can notice two stars waving at the crowd.

Meanwhile, a teenager wearing a tee-shirt printed with an Internet symbol (“@”) to portray him as a computer geek is getting an autograph from a famous actor or film director who seems to be in a bad mood/bad-tempered.

The latter must be annoyed by what the teen just told him, namely that he loves his movies and has pirated them all, which means that the kid has downloaded lots of movies illegally.

The actor/film director is escorted by a woman, probably an actress, who looks proud, arrogant, disdainful and haughty.

On the other hand, the teenager seems to be delighted, even overjoyed.

The message of the cartoon drawn by Chappatte is put across mainly through the balloon in which the teenager’s words sound like an accusation/denunciation/criticism of illegal downloading from the Internet.

The boy claims that he loves the actor’s or director’s films, which is a nice thing to say, but what he adds suggests that he does not care at all about artists’ copyrights.

Therefore, the cartoonist means that the Internet enables people to illegally download any film or music they want without respecting authors’ rights.

The actor/film director has a surly face, which is perfectly understandable because the kid’s illegal downloading habits are a violation of his author’s rights and deprive him of a lot of money.

Thus, the cartoonist’s goal is to criticize this widespread practice by using humor.

 This teenager is probably representative of his generation insofar as most young people download music or movies illegally nowadays.

He seems to consider this as normal and legitimate though it is not legal. He seems carefree and enthusiastic about what new technologies enable him to do.

We may approve of the cartoonist’s criticism of illegal downloading but we must admit that the Internet has allowed millions of people to have access to culture and knowledge which did not use to be at everybody’s disposal before the digital age.

Besides, the outrageously high price of CDs and DVDs before illegal downloading almost put an end to the music and film industry partly explains why so many people have resorted to illegal downloading, not to mention the fact that all these cultural goods are easily available on countless Web sites.

Finally, it seems really difficult and even maybe useless to crack down on illegal downloading as Internet users will always find ways to circumvent the law.

That’s why artists and the show-biz industry must find new ways to make money out of their art. The huge increase in rock concert attendance, for instance, is one of the ways in which musicians can make up for the loss of a large part of their income due to the prevalence of illegal downloading.