Hundred Hand

Right now, The Pirate Bay, a bit torrent hosting site, which contains by and large copyrighted material, is undergoing a lengthy lawsuit. The site is hosted in Denmark, where laws on this type of thing are rather lax. The terms of the most recent ruling are very fair; remove the torrents which have been identified as linking to copyrighted material or be fined $7,500 per day, starting in 3 months.

This seems very reasonable to me. The site was clearly setup as a way to transfer illegal files, and it’s developed quite a reputation and following for that. They’ve fought the lawsuit as much as they can, and are likely appealing this decision, but in the end, I suspect they’ll have to comply.

I was reading some of the comments people left regarding this news, and what amazed me was just how angry and worked up certain individuals are getting. They blame this on evil capatilists, who in their mind already are rich and are being greedy by working to get their material removed from these sites. In practical terms however, these people have been getting free stuff for years, and believe they have some right to continue receiving it. Meanwhile all these goods have been developed under the assumption that the people who made these games, movies and songs would get compensated. There is one group of people who are working hard to get a reward, and there is another who is doing no work and getting rewarded; and which of those two groups are the greedy ones?

I’d of like to give those kids what they want, and make it totally legal to distribute anyone’s intellectual property. How long would it be before entertainment simply dries up? Movies would still do alright in theatres, at least they are being presented in a way that most people can’t match at home; but the budget for most movies would go way down as most don’t break even until sales of the DVD’s and merchandise. Musical artists would have to rely solely on concerts for money, which as I understand makes up about half of their income. They wouldn’t bother recording high quality CDs due to the high costs, so most recordings you’d hear would be either live-recorded or demo quality. Video games would just completely die out since they are made to be played by individuals in their homes.

As a whole, the quality of entertainment would drastically go down because you get what you pay for.

But as Americans we are used to having the best things, at some of the highest costs. It’s one of the attributes of capitalism. Our schools, our hospitals, our products, our cuisine all are unmatched by countries where there is less incentive for individual contribution.

I don’t think the people complaining about this have taken the time to truely appreciate how our economic ecosystem works. They are just angry that they have to look someplace else to get free stuff.

And as for my viewpoint, I don’t condemn piracy, just those that outspokenly advocate it. I do think it’s wrong to take a product without paying for it, but it’s relatively low on the list of wrongs in the world. I used to pirate most of my electronic goods back when I was a poor college student, and now that I have an adult’s income, I buy the things I want, like an adult. I understand that it’s in the interest of the people who own this material to protect it, and that it’s in the interest of consumers to be entertained for as cheaply as possible. That’s how capatilism works, and I think it works pretty well.