The One With Aldacron

I’ve made my stance on digital media piracy very clear on this blog. I think people who copy and distribute the hard work of others are scum, even when doing it for no profit. Those who then take advantage of the situation by downloading such illegally distributed content are worse. But being against piracy does not mean I am against common sense.

The Problem

Despite what major software publishers want to believe, I think it is totally acceptable to install software on more than one computer as long as you have legally purchased the software and own the computers. I think it’s perfectly fine to copy your audio and video content to as many devices as you like, assuming of course that you purchased all of the content legally and own all of the devices. The idea of “licensing” software is ludicrous, as is the idea of restricting digital content to certain devices. I also support the idea that you are free to give away or sell software and other media that you own, providing that you transfer the originals and keep no copies for yourself in the process. After all, if you sell a television that you own you no longer have a copy of it lying around. People want to treat digital content differently than that of the physical world, but as I see it there is no difference. When you want a commercial product, you pay for it. You don’t steal it. But once you do pay it’s yours to do with as you please.

Yet morons continue to claim that they have some sort of inherent right to copy and distribute all digital content freely. They claim that information is free. In their minds, digital content and televisions are not the same. I’ve heard the arguments again and again: obtaining pirated content is not “stealing” because the owner loses nothing. Assuming that were true, then what happens when no one at all pays for the content? How then is the content creator to be compensated for his labor? Are musicians, movie producers, and software developers supposed to devote their lives to the creation of free digital content for the masses, relying on donations from a few kind souls to support their families?

The concept of free software, as defined by the GPL and the Free Software Foundation, is a noble ideal — not to be confused with freeware, which is a fantastic concept itself. I have several free programs installed on my computer, both those that are free as in “libre” and free as in “gratis”. OpenOffice.org is what I use in place of Microsoft Word. I use Firefox to browse the web, Thunderbird for email and newgroups, Java, Eclipse, MingW, DMD and Crimson Editor for software development. These programs were all released to the public freely by the developers, as free software and/or freeware. But no where on my computer will you find commercial content that I did not pay for. All of the audio files on my system come from my CD collection. My shelf is full of DVDs bought from a legitimate store (outside of which a stand selling pirated DVDs is set up on the sidewalk). In other words, I get free content for free, but I pay for commercial content.

The concept of free information is also a noble ideal. The sharing of information leads to the advancement of knowledge in diverse fields, which can be a boon to social and cultural evolution. Classifying software, music, and movies as information is a bit of a stretch in my view, but those pirates who copy in the name of “free information” do classify such content as “cultural information”. Such people are activists who passionately believe that what they do is for the betterment of mankind. To them, copyright laws are evil and should be abolished. But they have lost sight of one important fact: copyright law was brought about in order to guarantee that information would be free and available for the masses for posterity.

One of the most prolific writers in American history, Benjamin Franklin, was often plagiarized in publications both at home and in Europe. He lamented the fact that there was no protection for his work. The introduction of copyright law guaranteed that authors could publish their content, freely or commercially, with the assurance that they could seek restitution from anyone who copied it without their consent. They could for the duration of the copyright, should they choose to do so, profit from their work without the fear that someone else would take credit for their efforts or, worse, sell the plagiarized work in competition. It was an incentive for people to continue to create works that the public could enjoy. The critical part of copyright law was that it was limited. Eventually, the copyright law would expire and the content would be available to all to copy and distribute, commercially or otherwise.

The current anti-copyright movement is the result of a failure of government. The original intent of copyright law in the United States has been obscured by the efforts of powerful corporate lobbies. What once was a sensible law is now utterly absurd. The duration of copyright protection has been extended to ridiculous limits when major corporations saw the expiration of their copyrights on the horizon. It’s no wonder that some people want to abolish it. By pirating copyrighted materials, be they e-books, audio, video, or software, these anti-copyright hippies, as I call them, hope to force the issue. But abolishing copyright law is not the answer. It will send us back to the same situation that Benjamin Franklin lamented. There is no utopia on the other side. What incentive will people have to create? Oh, sure, some people would still create in their spare time. But the incentive to create content full-time would be gone. It may be romantic to label oneself a starving artist, but there’s nothing romantic about living in a box.

The anti-copyright movement isn’t really all that big, though, from what I gather. There are, of course, people who pirate for other reasons. Some claim they do so to fight the evil of corporations, the leaders of which take advantage of and grow fat off of the hapless lower and middle classes. That’s another romantic notion, but one that rather falls flat on its face when you consider that many, not all, of the people who say that just as happily pirate music from garage bands who self-recorded, or games from indie game developers who work alone or in small teams with low budgets, all of whom do what they do because of the dream that they can get paid to do what they love. How then do the “evil” corporations suffer when people pirate software developed by a guy in his bedroom each day after work?

The truth is, most people pirate either because they don’t want to pay for something that is freely available online, or because they just don’t think it’s wrong. A woman I knew in a multi-player game a few years ago, an average American female in her mid-thirties, told me that if it were wrong for her to copy mp3 files from Kazaa then the files wouldn’t be available. I have since learned that this sort of logic seems to be more prevalent than I would have guessed.

The Consequences

Whatever the reasons a person pirates, legitimate consumers pay the price. We are seeing this more and more. Games are sold with obscene copy protection programs that fail to work on some system configurations. Sony distributed audio CDs which stealthily installed a rootkit intended to protect the content. Audio content purchased from Apple’s iTunes store will only play on Apple’s iPod — and consumers are limited in how many systems they can copy the music to. However, these are all insignificant compared to what is coming.

Very soon, we will be paying an even higher price for the actions of morons who pirate. If you want to see just how high a price that is, read this document by Peter Gutmann describing the workings of Microsoft’s new Windows Vista operating system. The gist of it is, every consumer who uses Vista will be penalized for using it to play/view their existing digital content. They will even be penalized for using existing hardware, such as graphics and sound cards. Any content you try to play on Vista that is not protected by new standards, or distributed in new formats, will be downgraded in quality. Any hardware that doesn’t adhere to Microsoft’s specifications, or that compromises Microsoft’s idea of content protection, can be disabled.  Microsoft’s dominance in the OS market ensures that top hardware manufacturers will implement such features in their products, potentially causing problems for users of other operating systems such as MacOS or Linux. Users of Windows XP probably won’t be able to upgrade their hardware unless they upgrade to Vista as well.

Microsoft has focused primarily on Vista’s security features in their marketing efforts, but very little has been advertised about the Digital Rights Management features of the OS. Many are are agreeing with Gutmann that this is a suicide move by Microsoft, but I fear that it is a clear signal of things to come. Media companies are determined to control how consumers use their content. Whether or not consumers do the sensible thing and boycott Vista, digital content publishers will not be giving up their fight. They will continue to wield their influence in government and in the hardware industry in an endless effort to prevent piracy. Sincere anti-copyright and anti-corporation activists will continue to pirate with the goal of defeating them. Casual pirates, like the lady I mentioned above, will continue to just get things for free. Meanwhile, the small digital content businesses, like independent software developers and garage bands, will continue to suffer the effects piracy has on their businesses while legitimate consumers will constantly be faced with challenges to the use of digital material they purchase.

What You Should Do

Considering the circumstances, it is tempting to take the opportunity to thumb our noses at groups like the RIAA and just get as much free content as possible. But that is not the answer. In order to change the situation we need to work within the established framework of law. Boycott products, like Windows Vista, that restrict what you can do with the content you legally purchase. Email or call your senators and representatives to demand that they listen to the consumers and not the corporations. Push for a revision of copyright law to something sensible, not to abolish it entirely. But whatever you do, don’t go to the dark side. More piracy will only lend legitimacy to the DRM efforts.

If you are a pirate now, whatever your reasons, I hope you consider what I have written here. Please think seriously about the consequences of your actions, for they do have consequences that are far reaching. In the United States, we already have too many people in government who are more willing to produce laws tailored to protect the interests of big business than to protect the rights of consumers. Don’t prove the corporations right.

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