Free Distribution of “The Cove”

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    Last week, animal rights activists mailed free copies of “The Cove” were mailed to every household Taiji, Japan. Here’s a short report about Taiji’s reaction, from Sunday evening’s “Bankisha” news program:

    Louie Psihoyos, director of “The Cove” and founder of Oceanic Preservation Society, said, “The people in Taiji deserve to know what millions of others around the world have learned about their town by seeing ‘The Cove.’ ”

    “The Cove” was released in summer 2009 in the U.S., Europe and other countries. Theaters in Japan began showing the movie, edited specially for the Japanese market to hide the identities of Taiji fishermen to protect their privacy, last July.

    The couple Taiji residents interview say that they won’t be watching the DVD. One woman says she wasn’t interested, so she threw it away.

    The packages had no person’s name listed as the sender, something that is apparently quite odd in Japan. The distribution was supposedly the work of an anonymous group that calls itself “Umi o kangaeru gurupu” (a group that thinks about the ocean).

    A few days ago, it was also announced that the Japanese dub of “The Cove” was being distributed for free via the film’s official homepage. It isn’t mentioned in the above report, and there’s a good reason for that. If you try to access the download page from a Japanese internet connection, you will receive the following message:

    Our systems detect that you are based in Japan. We cannot allow viewing or download at this time.

    The Cove DVD is available for purchase and rental in Japan from Medallion Media.

    So, there you have it: they’ll distribute their movie for free in Japanese, but not to Japan. Great activism…

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