Why you shouldn't be pirating
What every pirate misses
There has been a recent surge of piracy and IP discussion on Hackernews (here and here) and given that today is January 18th, the official anti-SOPA blackout day, I decided to write a little. First of all, this is not a post about whether there should be IP or not and in which capacity. This is about why I think piracy is wrong, no matter what your beliefs are.
Intellectual property is a construct that was invented by society in the belief that it would encourage and/or incentivize the creation of useful arts and technological innovation. A society that implements IP believes that the benefits of certain protective rights such as temporal monopolies to create desirable products, art and technology is worth the cost of such monopolies. Clearly, there is high controversy whether this is actually true, in practice or in theory.
Actually, I lied, I'm going to present one argument of each side:
- Pro:
- There exists a subset of technological invention and arts that requires significant financial investment and risk. Society can either directly invest in it itself, or reduce the risk for return on investment by granting limited monopoly rights.
- Contra:
- Even without IP law, there are plenty examples (open source software or indie bands) where innovation and arts get created without the need for an incentive that possible destroys collaboration and creativity.
As so often, both sides have a point. Both sides also generally point to the same problem: It is about the balance between the significance of "expensive" creation vs the significance of "cheap" creation. While I most certainly not able to quantify that balance, we as a society agreed on that little thing called democracy: Individuals can believe whatever they want, but eventually, the majority has to rule (simplified).
Embrace democracy - the good and the bad
It is clear, that most democratic societies have decided to implement an IP law. We as citizens of democratic societies who disagree have therefore only two options:
- Accept the fact, get over it and abide the laws.
- Keep on disagreeing, try to convince enough people to get the majority behind your opinion, but still abide the laws.
- (Sue your government for violating the constitution).
So if you think you are a pirate, but for some reason you justify that being a pirate is ok, or the right thing to do, then I must utterly disagree with you: You have your opinion and you might think you are right, but that does not give you the right to violate laws. The user experience of legitimately buying a creation might be much worse than pirating it, but that does not give you the right to violate the laws. Just because everyone pirates and it is impossible to stop it from happening, that does not give you the right to violate laws.
You have no authority
Just because people think a particular law is unjust, unfair, wrong, stupid, ridiculous, retarded, it does not give them the right to violate laws. I know this comparison might be far stretched, but where would we be heading if people would feel that they for some arbitrary reason have the right to violate laws? Can I steal from my grocery shop because I think they are offering a poor user experience? Can I steal money from my bank because I think the banks are greedy and don't handle my money well. Can I kill people because I think they are destroying the whole society? Those were the reasons for pirating in this post.
We (most of us) like to live in a civil, democratic society, in which we celebrate our differences and not undermine others by insisting on being right. In a democratic society, the one that has the majority behind him, has the power (besides constitutional restrictions). Disagreeing citizens should abide the laws and take the desirable route of democratically changing a law instead of just violating it.
P.S.: Please keep in mind, that I am not defending the current IP law in any country. Personally, I hate what IP has become, but for the most part stand behind the idea for certain industries and arts. I just don't like people not playing by the rules.