Some thoughts on piracy

Arr... Ye filthy land lubbers best pay heed to what me gots to say or you'll soon be walkin' tha plank.

When you think of the term piracy, talk like the above sentence is most likely the kind of thing that enters your mind. And today's internet "pirates" don't talk that way either. Well most of the ones that have made it as far as second grade don't anyways.

What interests me however, is to know who came up with the idea of calling the exchange of licensed media over the web piracy.  Despite what may or may not have actually happened historically, the idea of a pirate has been romanticized in fiction and the media to the point where pirates are seen kind of like Robin Hood. They steal from the rich and give to the poor.

The concept has become such that pirates are the rebels fighting against a corrupt establishment and freeing people,goods and information. They are made out to be the heroes. They defend the rights of the little guy by sticking it to the man. If you think people don't like rebels, remember who the good guys are in Star Wars.

How on Earth do the corporations think they stand a chance of smearing the names of such people and making them look bad? They take greedy, often childish, wealthy entertainers and try to make them look like the victims. It is ridiculous.

Is there any truth to the rumor that internet piracy is ruining the chances for today's entertainers? Not a chance. The people that are popular enough to get their content pirated are never in any danger of starving. And studies have been done that prove in fact that pirated content leads to an increase in sales for the actual media owner.

Due to piracy are people hearing content that they did not pay for? Yes, but the same thing occurs when a song is played on the radio. Someone directly paid for it, but it wasn't the person listening. And no matter how many people are listening the same amount is paid for that one radio play of the song.

How is my downloading  a copy of it any different? Do I openly admit to having done such a thing? Of course I do. Nearly every person in this country is guilty of some form of digital piracy. And denying it is ridiculous.

As long as it is cheaper and easier to get content illegally than it is to do so legally piracy will exist, no matter how hard the "establishment" fights to prevent it and no matter how hard they strive to punish people for it.

But there are things that content creators can do to limit the amount that their particular content is pirated. There is a publishing company that gives away free copies of books on its website. They have found that by giving people access to something for free, it helps increase their sales. The company appears to be friendly to it's customers and as a result their customers are more likely to open up their wallets.

And one internet personality that I know of releases multiple "flawed" copies of his work for download on the same day that his new material comes out. The flawed copies at a quick glance seem to be the same content. They are the same length and size. But say ten minutes into a video it will suddenly be static or the audio may be turn to gibberish. Paying customers get the good stuff. And people attempting to avoid buying it have to go through dozens of different torrents to find one that is not flawed.

While it would cause an enormous public outcry, if I were an entertainer making millions of dollars a year and was worried about my content being "stolen" by the common man, I would not sue every person that illegally downloaded my music or videos. No siree. Instead, I would hire a programmer to write a data destroying virus to wipe the hard drives of the people downloading my content illegally and I would personally upload it to all of the torrent sites and other places that people uploaded my media illegally.

Not that that could ever really be an issue. As long as I was making enough money to get by I would never fault another for getting something from me for nothing or for turning a profit from my work. If some other guy comes along and finds some way to make a buck off of my efforts, kudos to him for coming up with something that I failed to.

Anyways, if we make piracy more difficult or more expensive than not pirating it will disappear. Otherwise it will continue forever.