Miragelog

Piracy the Phenomenon

File sharing, right or wrong?

Today I would like to talk about file sharing, or as the media say, piracy. Yes I'm referring to the unauthorized copying of digital data.

Almost everyone has spoken up for or against piracy, but one thing is clear: everyone is doing it, and nobody can stop it.

Attitudes Towards File Sharing

However, it appears that everyone who have spoken out in support of file sharing has been saying that most people is only sampling songs or apps, or that it doesn't mean people will buy the data they downloaded for free.

Not that those arguments are without merrits, I have been arguing along the same line of logic in the past. However arguing like this means validating the claim that file sharing is foundamentally, ethically wrong.

"What?" I can just imagine people asking me, "How can it not be ethically wrong? Isn't it just like stealing? Just like any other property? Isn't that why these things are called intellectual properties?"

And those questions leads to the central idea of this article, more and more I've come to believe that not only is file sharing and the so-called piracy ethically, foundamentally right; it is also the natural, inevitable direction society is moving toward given the change in our technology and the condition we're living in.

Why Does It Even Matter?

Well, as we said before, everyone is doing it and nobody can stop it. So does it matter if file sharing is perceived as morally wrong? Of course! It matters because somehow you have been made to feel guilty, somehow it has become shameful to talk about file sharing, and those people who do not condone it are somehow entitled to some kind of moral high ground.

Not only are you forced to feel bad about the whole ordeal, but this mutual feeling of guilt makes it nearly impossible to abolish the unenforceable legislation; not only that but we take the risk that governments would in the future neuter the net in their attempt to "contain the beast", which in effect would stifles human and societal advancement.

The Premise

It has been the unspoken rule, since ancient times; that unpopular and unendorceable laws will always end up being repealled. And it is also believed that if an idea is widely supported or practiced, then it must have merit and justification.

So now we look back upon the current affair of software and digital media "piracy", is it not in a state that is widely practiced, but outlawed through unenforceable legislations?

So then with the popularity piracy enjoys and aforementioned unspoken rule, is there somehow justification for this act of "theft"? Just how can there be any?

The Argument

Now first I'm going to reiterate an argument that has been said before, that is the term "intellectual property" is an intentional misleading term, because the term "property" does not apply to digital data. How can you lay claim to a "property" that can be practically copied and spread with no cost and little effort.

Then one asked the important question: "So how can it not be a property? Doesn't it have a function? Couldn't it be used as a tool? Doesn't the content creator deserve fair compensation?"

Well now, let's turn our eyes toward another item that has similar properties as the current "intellectual property" - ideas.

Now, ideas can have a function and it can also be used as a tool. Mathematics, science, philosophy, poetry, stories and songs; these are all ideas.

Can you try and restrict people from spreading math? Scientific methods? A philosophy like democracy, communisim, socialism; or attemp to charge people who want to spread them?

Of course not!

Can you try and restrict people from spreading poetry, stories and songs?

People have tried, such as charging for books or performances, but can you try and prevent people from learning them and enjoy singing? You can't.

So why do people think that basic ideas must be free, while more complex ideas have more leeway for restriction? It is because it's impossible to restrict the spread of basic ideas, and it is simple enough that you don't need it to be written somewhere to be useful.

So now you see, digital data is just like ideas, it is the idea that works itself out.

With the ease of the net in spreading ideas, what it does is making complex ideas easy to spread. It disrupted the conventional rule of thumb that the more complex an idea becomes, the harder it is to spread, and therefore there's profits to be made to make the transfer of idea easier.

Yes, you can write it down in a few hundred pages, or talk for days trying to get the other party to understand but why bother when you can get it done for fair compensation?

But now complex ideas are easy to spread around, isn't it backward to try and say "Hey, you can't do that, I can make it harder and I want to charge you for it!"

Isn't it just like media companies? They're founded on making access easier for people, and charging for it. Now they've turn around and say "I'll make it harder, and I'll charge you for it, because that's how we've always operated."

Could you still say it is ethically wrong to sharing the files? Times have changed, society moves forward. When cars were invented, everyone's life improves, but there's always people who depended upon the business model of yesterday who have to cope with the loss of livelihood and need to adapt, just like people who make horse carriage, just like there were people opposing every invention.

So now what we have now is the technology that make complex idea easy to spread, and as we know, it is next to impossible to restrict the flow of easy to spread ideas. Then why should any guilt be assigned? There's no guilt!

What about the authors and content creators?

So what about content creators then? We covered the distributors holding onto a dying business model, but those content must come from somewhere, that can never change, what about their fair compensation?

Of course they will be compensated, even in the past when the spread of ideas wasn't easy, they have consistently only earned a tin fraction of what the distributors collected. Now with the distributor's profit lowered, they still hang onto their old distributors, of course their compensation is hurt as well.

What they need to do is find new ways of making profit from their creations, not from the restriction of it's distribution. Some suggestions from me could be making the distribution even easier, or distribute the idea while garanteeing the quality of its content, he can also take advantage of the prestige of being the author/creator - don't you see that items worth more if signed by their author? Also much value could be derived from merchandising and branding. There's much the author/creator could offer that others can't.

Profits should be made from offering benefits, not from restricting freedom of the public.

Finally

I'll leave this article at this point, there's more I want to talk about this topic and I'll leave that for future entries. Thanks for reading.