For many, “online piracy” appears to be a bad thing. The music, film and software industries and governments want to convince us that IT IS bad. Bad not only for the poor artist or programmer, but also for innovation and for society as a whole. However, many practice it. Many copy songs, movies or software using the Internet. And I say, many do a good thing.
Before the Internet, people could indeed photocopy a book, copy a record on tape or duplicate a movie on VHS, these were possible, though somehow cumbersome and quality-reducing mechanisms of reducing the cost of our “intellectual consumption”. Without them, many people would have probably read less books, listened to less new songs and watched less stories on the screen. Nevertheless, the scale of it was small, thus its social effect tiny. Today, the liberty and usability feature of the Internet have opened unimaginable venues for these “unauthorized” reproduction of intellectual goods, the scale is, indeed, very, very relevant. Thanks to file sharing, hundreds of thousands of people have at their disposal a myriad of intellectual products that were unattainable before, be it for price or accessibility. Thanks to “piracy”, these people, adults and children, are expanding their intellectual scope, they are probably becoming more demanding, in search of more and more varied things.
I see in this a very good development. A society made of individuals that have much easier and cheaper (even free) access to intellectual products is a better society. Some would say, that people are all consuming the same, action movies with the same cliches, nothing to be proud of. I sincerely doubt it, there are some (probably many) that are finding new perspectives of life and expanding their knowledge thanks to the variety of books, courses, software, films, music easily available on the Internet. Others would say that with more piracy, companies will have less incentives to produce these products, so one day, it will end, production and innovation is gradually killed. I think the contrary is happening, more people are innovating and producing – e.g. podcasts -, because it is easier and cheaper to do it, you basically need good ideas. At the same time, when people like something they still buy the product on physical support – e.g. Radiohead new record that was donationware online until it was released on CD, selling very well. Production and innovation are not killed by sharing intellectual products on the Internet. The only ones that should be afraid of this should be those that produce the same over and over again, those that do not create an intellectual added value, to which a person can feel attached in ways that generate more consumption and revenue for the producer.
Overall, “piracy”, defined solely as file sharing (not for economic benefit), is a social good. It does produce clear benefits, it should be promoted it. The only ones that should be trembling are those that have been profiting for years of a captured market under oligopolic rules, in which the consumer was forced to swallow the small range of products that was offered to him/her for a very high price. Luckily, this is finished, or is it? I am afraid big companies and their captured governments will not concede defeat without a good fight. We shall see…
NB: This post was originally written on February 12 2008 on my previous blog (Blog of Change)
