Michael Moore’s Sicko Yanked From YouTube

Michael Moore is having problems with the internet. Not only does the flipping thing keep crashing every time Michael Moore tries to order over 50 pizzas online at the same time, but his new movie Sicko has been spewed all across YouTube too.

A pirated version of Sicko appeared on YouTube this weekend, broken into several 14-minute chunks, and Sicko's distributors Lionsgate and Weinstein Co have made a copyright claim to get it removed. Perhaps the reason why so many people think they have a right to access Sicko for free is because it's not the sort of movie that requires a cinema-sized screen to enjoy it; something Michael Moore is trying to counter with a new edit of Sicko where the final scene is of Michael Moore parachuting into Cuba in a jumpsuit and machine-gunning everything in sight until it all explodes, before landing and riding a golden unicorn back across the sea to Miami to the sound of Don't Stop Believin' by Journey.

Michael Moore doesn't just make films any more. Every time he puts a new documentary together he basically just sets up an obstacle course of headaches for himself, too. It's a given that Michael Moore will meet with huge resistance when making a film - in the past Disney refused to distribute Fahrenheit 9/11 and then an angry vet tried to sue Moore over it - and history looks set to be repeating itself with the release of new Michael Moore documentary Sicko.

Although deliberately less inflammatory than Fahrenheit 9/11 - it'd be hard to find anyone who'll openly wish that the sick would be treated worse than they are already - and reportedly featuring less footage of Michael Moore shouting at the outside of a building than ever before, Sicko has still managed to draw fire from the American government, angry that Michael Moore went to Cuba without telling anyone first. It's a claim that Michael Moore is investigating with the help of his renegade lawyer squadron.

But that's not all, because now even the internet is turning against Michael Moore. It has been reported that a 124-minute version of Sicko has been posted in segments on YouTube for everyone to see for free, when everyone knows that the internet is just for watching fat children almost fall out of rollercoasters and that right way to experience a searing commentary about the money-hungry state of the American healthcare system is to pay a bunch of cash in a cinema for the privilege. The Baltimore Sun reports:

YouTube cited a copyright claim by Lionsgate, which is distributing the $9 million documentary with Weinstein Co. A 124-minute version of the film had been posted on YouTube by at least two users. It could be watched in 14 video clips. Each segment had received 500 to 600 views before it was removed… Weinstein Co. was "responding aggressively to protect our film," spokeswoman Sarah Rothman said in a statement last weekend.

Sadly, all the clips of Sicko have now been removed from YouTube, meaning that viewers will now just have to illegally download it as a torrent in one go instead. Don't worry if you missed out on the free YouTube Sicko show, though, because the experience of listening to Michael Moore making his point by saying some bad facts in a miserable Barney The Dinosaur voice with sad music playing over a montage of corpses and then trying to interview a bottle of Tixylix only to declare its silence as confirmation that Michael Moore is right at everything will only be heightened once you've paid to do it sitting in the dark surrounded by idiots who feel the need to vocally approve all of Michael Moore's points in order to show how clever and compassionate they are.

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YouTube Pulls Pirated Versions of Moore's Sicko - Baltimore Sun