Actual Results May Vary

PART 1: Piracy

Before I launch into a rundown on piracy and illegal file sharing, I will let you know right now that my expertise (if you consider an honours thesis to be an area of expertise) is in communication ethics, not law, so if I say things that make you lulz and say “Silly Bosun, why do you suggest this thing that is dumb” then please, by all means, enlighten us as to the legal shenanigans that I have missed out on.

This is my first post in a series about copyright from the perspective of an after-hours ethicist. For those of you who are lazy and don’t want to read the rest of this, my point is that our current copyright system isn’t up to scratch but it still doesn’t justify you, me, or Aunt Martha being a freeloading scab. Read on below the break for the longer and snarky version.

I am a strange being. I am a nerd with a high-speed internet connection who uses it pretty much to watch stupid YouTube videos, play World of Warcraft, and download podcasts from the ABC website. I don’t generally download pirated stuff (more on those exceptions later – they’re ones I have thought through quite carefully). I also think that copyright is clunky, stifles innovation and sharing of ideas, and the only thing it fosters is a “This is mine DON’T TOUCH IT YOU SMELLY THIEF PERSON WHO WISHES TO APPROPRIATE MY IDEAS AND STEAL MAH STUFFZ” mentality. But I’m digressing. This post is about music piracy – my views on copyright reform and intellectual property will come in later posts. How do we justify our piracy? Is our justification legitimate?

Some people justify their huge collection of pirated stuff by saying that most of the money goes to the record label anyway, so really it’s just hurting a giant faceless corporation which isn’t really hurting anyone. Sorry, but on this one I call bullshit. In fact, I call big, steaming, smelly pile of BULLSHIT. Yeah, it hurts Columbia Records or whoever your boogy-man of music is this month. You know who else it hurts? It hurts The Artist, who actually gets some money from the recording company. You know, The Artist you think is so hard done by because the recording company didn’t share? So, yeah, you’re screwing the man. You’re also screwing The Artist. Way to support them.

Others don’t care that they’re screwing The Artist. They make heaps of money, I hear people say. They’re millionaires, they have everything they need, they don’t need more money. Well guess what? I’m going to call bullshit again! If you think they don’t need more money, don’t buy their album. It’s that simple. In philosophy (and Law, I believe), a contractarian agreement has to be acceptable to both parties and mutually agreed upon. I can’t walk up to you and say “I like your shirt, so you will give it to me in exchange for this 5c piece and some gum I have scraped off my shoe” as this would make me an arse, and a jerk. It would also get me laughed at.  Same applies to this situation. Essentially, you’re walking up to The Artist and saying “I like your music, so I expect you to allow me to listen to it at any time, free of charge, never mind the fact that it cost you financially and personally to write and record this. I like your music, but do not feel that my enjoying it should lead to any reciprocal extension on my part”.

So, they’re the two justifications I hear most often. They tend to belong to the Type A Pirate. If you’re Type A, when you pirate music you’re telling The Artist “I like your music. I really do. But, sorry, I’ll be damned if I can bother scrounging up the thirty bucks to shell out on an album. Yeah, I know I just spent ninety bucks on a shirt that’s going to be out of fashion in six months, but hell, I don’t care. If I can get your music without paying for it, I will. Screw you, sunshine, and the recording studio you rode in on.” That’s just damn rude, folks, and being a rude little twit doesn’t justify you pirating music. The RIAA will try and convince you that all pirates are Type A – they just want stuff, they don’t want to pay for it, and if you disagree you can stick it in your pipe and smoke it.

Of course, the other option is that you’re one of those misunderstood pirates who would very much like to try The Artist’s music but don’t want to have to buy an album to find out whether or not you like their music. Of course, you’re only downloading their stuff because they’re not one of the thousands of The Artists who stream their music on MySpace or last.fm – right? And after you’ve listened to it a few times, you either delete it or go out and buy it, right?

I suspect that most pirates think of themselves as Type B Pirates, misunderstood and struggling to find a decent song in the mire. Heck, when I pirated stuff I was SO sure I was a type B pirate. Very few of us are Type B Pirates, though. Very few of us are Type A, though, hoarding music and downloading it just because we can. We make noises about buying the stuff we like, but then we just decide we don’t really like it enough to buy (but nor do we dislike it enough to delete it). We’re not doing it because we’re rude little twits, but nor are we golden-hearted angel children who are acting in the best interests of The Artist. Most pirates are Type Meh – they pirate cos they really don’t care one way or another. We’ll buy some stuff, we’ll download others, we’ll have The Artist’s entire catalogue on our computer (including that rare live bootleg from Poland) but, you know, we’ll download the odd album too.

The solution to eliminating illegal file sharing is not going to be a three-strike rule (guilty when charged by the RIAA or local equivalent, apparently), or draconian DRM (which just annoys legitimate purchasers, not the people who download it after it’s been cracked). Basically, the only way we’ll see the end of illegal file sharing is if it becomes legal or if there’s a legal alternative, and that’s only going to happen if there’s money in it.

One option that has worked well for Cory Doctorow (Author, speaker, blogger, and copyright reform advocate) is to release pretty much everything under a Creative Commons License. Creative Commons is a whole lot of flexibility in use and distribution whilst still preserving the right to assert one’s self as the author and originator of a work. Doctorow has it easier than recording artists in one way – book readers tend to like actual physical copies of a book, whereas music is now just a file you whack on your media player. I’ve read almost all of his short fiction, and I’m currently trying to find a local stockist for his collections. By releasing his books under CC, not only has he enabled his work to reach a much wider audience than he would normally, but he’s also managed to build a very strong professional reputation as an “expert” is copyright reform, social media, and personal security rights (all strong themes in his books). He doesn’t make his main pay check from being an Author (although he certainly makes money from it). He makes money as a speaker, as a theorist, a consultant. He did all this while rejecting traditional modes of copyright and control over intellectual property. I’ll explain more about Creative Commons and other methods of intellectual property distribution in a later post.

One caveat though: If you can no longer purchase an album or a book (e.g. it was released on Vinyl thirty years ago, it’s out of print and no longer carried by book stores), then I don’t think there’s a problem with downloading the item. I have Vampire: The Masquerade rule books for the old versions that are older than I am (scary thought) in .pdf format, and I have a recording of Ella Fitzgerald: Live in Berlin that was recorded from the LP that my in-laws have. No harm, no foul. The problem is when we convince ourselves that pirating a new release is a “no harm” situation.

Coming Soon:

Part 2: Plagiarism

Part 3: Copyright Reform

Posted on September 28th, 2009 by Bosun McShiny
Filed under: Ethics, Philosophising