A Pirate's Life, Just Not For Me?

I came across this thoughtful post (titled: Piracy was my shot at equality) in my morning trawl through the internet, and it really resonated with me; if you replace "Bulgaria" with "India" throughout this piece, and made a few other contextual amendments, I could've written it!

Piracy has become a four-letter word. In the public square, everyone agrees it's bad. Then everyone not in the US goes home from the debate, starts up uTorrent, and downloads Season 1 of House of Cards...

A lot of these people are 'pirates' only because Netflix is stupid enough to (despite being, y'know, an online company) not optimize its access to the global market-place. Or because the big evil "Studios" demand distribution in this country and not any other (this doesn't really apply to House of Cards though, methinks?) Others (even so called rich young brats) pirate it because they simply don't have the money to buy it. Still others pirate it because their government has decided that the depiction of duplicitous politics and (gasp!) sex and swearing is a no no for its populace of tender asexual lambs.

But is it really all that bad a thing? This is a question I've struggled with pretty much ever since I got access to the Internet - what, a little less than 20 years ago? What follows then, is a rumination on this still unresolved conundrum...


First, here's the money quote from that blog that got me thinking about this:

I pirated the shit out of western culture. Star Wars, The Shawshank Redemption, Half-Life, Nirvana, Adobe Creative Suite – I did it all. At a time and place where knowledge of western languages was the most precious asset and the state educational system was heavily lagging behind, I learned English at quite a decent level, at the cost of no more than my internet connection. To add to that, I acquired skills in using specialized software for design and video production, as well as knowledge about peer-to-peer networks. … Just as Lawrence Liang points out in his article “Beyond Representation: The Figure of the Pirate”, piracy accomplished for me all the things the state and the educational system could not.

Many westerners have scolded me when I’ve told stories of the obscene amounts of music, movies and software I have pirated. What they fail to understand is that I used this mode of distribution for the lack of any realistic access to an alternative. In some cases, a given movie would never even come to cinemas or air on TV. Some bands would never sell their CDs in local stores. And obtaining a legal Adobe Creative Suite would have meant selling most of my organs.

Artificial Barriers

Listen, we live on an increasingly connected globe. If content providers are not making their wares available globally, the 'market' will correct itself by making 'warez' available. (Urgent to Netflix!)

Throwing up artificial country based firewalls on streaming content, region-locking on discs, and so on only creates flimsy barriers that even the mildly curious can overcome (and get branded as criminals in the effort). Not making content available at all in some markets but not others is also just plain silly in an age where the digital revenue stream is fast becoming a lucrative thing.

Then there's the question of governmental oversight of content markets/ censorship. Let's face it, internet piracy is one of the few ways for citizens subject to an oppressive regime to inform themselves and break out of the 'thought bubble' that the state has created for them. Would you really begrudge a participant in the Arab spring a viewing of "V for Vendetta" or a reading of "Fahrenheit 451"?

The Economics

There's another aspect to this obviously, around a consumer being able to afford to pay for content he or she likes. The "equality" in the title must carry a whiff of economics, by the very nature of the subject.

Popular culture abounds with "he pulled himself up by his bootstraps" type stories... Consider this: if a high-school dropout in a shitty job borrowed a book on, oh I don't know, film-making, let's say, and he started in a menial job in a movie studio and one day became a film-maker... that would be an inspirational downright capitalist tale wouldn't it? Would you really begrudge this man of few means access to cheap/ free copies of content that helps him grow into the man he will eventually become?

Yes - I know, creating that content cost money. Someone spent sleepless days and nights, away from their family, to create this labor of love. Someone invested money in creating and distributing this content, and they rightfully expect a return on it. I'm not saying they shouldn't all be paid. But what constitutes a 'fair' price? Where is the demonstrable harm from piracy? As the article I've linked to points out, distributing copies of digital content does no harm to the content itself. It isn't "theft", it is copying!


Hope in Volumes

Here's the silver lining, from one of the oldest content industries the world has known, and one that to my mind, is (again) showing the way for how to deal with piracy in a connected world: Books.

I have no incentive to pirate books because I have access (via ebook/ 'real' bookstores) to almost any book I want. Amazon, Google Play, and Flipkart, all deliver almost any book I want. Can't say the same of the very regional, closed marketplaces that exist where I can get music or movies or TV content etc. now, can I?

Amazon even lets me sample books (sometimes entire opening chapters) before I buy it. It makes content I buy ubiquitous across a vast ecosystem of devices. Sure, they've still got DRM, and an Orwellian ability to wipe content off my device remotely that I absolutely hate... but here's the thing: I pay oodles of money to them to buy books. I've bought more books in the last 2 years over my Kindle than I bought in the five years before that when I viewed each book I bought as a thing I'd eventually have to lug around when I moved (or let go of)... and despite the ebook revolution, there remains for me a charm in sitting down and reading a paper book. Titles I really admire I end up buying in hardback/ trade paperback even if I have digital copies. In fact, I'll sometimes download an e-copy of a paper book just so I can have it with me wherever I go...

They've got the economic thing figured out with books as well, tellingly. Libraries, though woefully inadequate (and increasingly so) these days have always been a bulwark against inequality. In an ideal world, they would be accessible and available to everyone - but even in the world we have they don't do too shabby a job!

What has happened with books is each channel of delivery for the content has its own compelling features and a loyal fan-base. Yes, there are still issues like bookstores going out of business, the online market-place is still immature and so on... but those are regular economic disruptions where Piracy with the big P is largely immaterial.

Authors are OK with the fact that book borrowing happens. Not every 'consumer' is a 'customer' to them, and that's fine. There is an argument to be made that the authors themselves are inadequately compensated and the publishers and so on make far too much money - but in the book industry there's an emerging "self-publication" model birthing that may in the long run provide answers to that issue too.

And finally, books have one really great feature (well, most books) - they enter the public domain after a bit. This is why Sherlock Holmes collections are cheaply available and Guy Ritchie and Steven Moffat can both "pirate" the ideas in it. Music, movies, and TV distributed digitally need to arrive at a consensus on the public domain idea, stat. Make oodles of money for 20 years, sure... but after a good long while surely, there is a case to be made for a Casablanca or a Sholay to become freely available?

Coda

Still not convinced? Let me give another example...

On the walls of my home hang three Van Goghs. Not originals, but copies. Pirated copies (arguably) because I downloaded high resolution images of some master-pieces, cropped and processed them, and printed/ framed them at a local photo-stop to put them up. It cost me money, but I suspect none of it went to poor old earless Vincent!

I solemnly swear thought that this did him no harm, and did not in any way diminish the value of his original art in the market-place (in fact digital distribution and popularity like this arguably even raised the price a bit over time). Collectors will still pay top dollar to get one of them!

Still, if you're so inclined... I suppose I have a bottle of rum lying around somewhere. Yo ho ho, I guess?