So what’s the difference between downloading a movie or an album online for free and walking into a store and stealing that movie or album? To millions, the difference is apparently huge.
Your average college student would claim to have never committed theft, but ask them if they have downloaded copyrighted media for free from the Internet and they might as well reply, “Arrgh matey, I be a pirate!”
Then they will tell how they saw “X-Men” before it came to theaters or how “The Hurt Locker” is their new favorite movie, and they didn’t have to pay a cent to see it. And that new Eminem album? Aye aye! Windows 7? Yo-Ho!
Ask them to explain how their online plundering is not stealing and does not cause artists and producers of media and software to lose profits and you will always be met with generic responses: “It’s too easy!” “Everyone does it!” “You can’t get in trouble!” and finally, “They make enough money as it is!”
The truth is, as unwarranted as these claims sound, these hearty pirates are right. First, it’s important to make the distinction between theft and piracy. Theft involves removing the original object being stolen. Piracy on the other hand simply makes a copy of the object, leaving the original intact.
Now that we have that out of the way, let’s move on to piracy. Yes, it is illegal to consume copyrighted media without permission from the owner and yes, owners will do everything in their power to make offenders walk the legal plank.
The problem is that prosecuting every person who owns pirated licensed media and software from the Internet is like attacking the Black Pearl with a water noodle.
The sheer extent of copyrighted material on the Internet, available and already downloaded, accounts for the common claims of ease and availability.
Sure, prosecutors might punish, to the tune of multimillion dollar lawsuits, the occasional pirate to set an example, but honestly, you probably have a better chance of meeting an immortal peg-legged pirate at a bar complaining about how he spent all his cursed treasure on rum.
Pursuing individual pirates doesn’t seem to be the best strategy, so what about going after their boat, or even better, their treasure map and the place where it leads? As for the boat – or Internet service providers – trying to steer the ship while doing inventory on massive records of Internet activity is going to get the boat nowhere fast. Alternatively, hiring a new crew to do it for you means less profit as a direct result of government inquiry.
In a market that is supposed to be free of government intervention, service providers probably aren’t fans. Also, sifting through someone’s Internet activity, pirate or not, seems to be a serious infringement of privacy. The treasure map itself should not be too hard to get a hold of – a simple Google search should suffice.
Take the aptly named “The Pirate Bay” website for example. They make no secret of providing 100 percent free licensed material and have been providing sanctuary for pirates for years!
If consuming copyrighted material is illegal, then providing it is sure-as-the-salt-in-the-sea illegal too – in the U.S., that is. You see, The Pirate Bay is based in Sweden. United States law does not apply in Sweden and what The Pirate Bay does in that country is completely legal.
As for profits lost by artists, producers and the likes, the game has changed. No one actually purchases video media anymore. Instead they watch it on TV, On Demand, and legally on websites supported by advertisements, or rent it cheaply from companies like Netflix or Redbox who have quickly succeeded in putting normal movie rental stores out of business.
Profits for video media does not come from DVD sales. It comes from selling rights to renters, advertisement, and most importantly and extensively, box office profits which turn more than enough profit to keep everyone involved much richer than your average college-age pirate who probably can’t even afford a cool parrot named Polly.
It’s the same story in music. Profits come from ticket sales for tours, advertisement and royalty payments; not from individual consumption of albums in a world where a couple clicks will stream it online for free on sites like YouTube and Pandora.
As for software, one word: freeware. It’s a movement headed by dedicated software engineers – basically hippy nerds in the eyes of Microsoft – to provide equally useful alternatives to costly software that are completely free. Great examples include the Linux operating system and Mozilla Firefox.
So the seemingly unreasonable cop-outs by your average Internet pirate actually have basis in reality. It is all too easy to join the abundant and rewarding world of piracy, but unlike violent and ugly piracy at sea, setting your compass toward a bounty on the Internet is relatively safe and socially acceptable.
With far-reaching international connectivity lacking equally extensive agreement on issues of copyrights and piracy, people will continue to set their sails towards the foreign sanctuaries of free downloads.
Instead of participating in an unwinnable war with pirates, the entertainment industry, where fame seems to be the ultimate road to riches, should instead see it as an opportunity to reach millions of technically savvy, media-oriented fans quickly.
The label of pirate is, after all, only the label; the last real pirate I saw was on TV being shot in Somalia …