Conversations with copyright infringing ‘file sharers’ – Part 1

by Costa Botes

Below is a selection of comments directed at me by people unhappy with my stand on copyright infringement generally, and online file sharing particularly. It’s an interesting compendium that offers a pretty clear attitudinal snapshot, and incidentally a neat summary of the most common beliefs and misconceptions underlying illegal ‘file sharing’.

Before going on, I’d like to just say that I have absolutely no problem with anyone who willingly shares their own creative work online. There is no legal impediment, whatsoever, anywhere, to anyone doing that wherever, and whenever they choose to do it.

My attitude is based on the belief that original creators have the right to choose how and where their work is copied, and anyone who usurps that right commits an act that is at the least disrespectful, and at worst downright harmful. Not just economically, but potentially in other ways. To offer one obvious, albeit banal example, think of how a vegetarian songwriter might feel if her song was played over a TV promotion for fried chicken nibbles? This is one inevitable outcome of removing copyright protection.

When one sifts and sorts the vast range of arguments put forth by the ‘copy-left’ to justify ‘free’ expression (of other peoples ideas), one is left with the inescapable conclusion that what they’re talking about is not increasing the public good, or enabling ‘innovation’ in any meaningful sense; rather, we see the endless slippery justifications of freeloaders – the unimaginative, the lazy, and the cowardly; people who want to play around, or benefit from the hard work of others. Or worse, in a way, because it’s ever so pathetic, we get the self-appointed ‘fans’ who just want to possess and appropriate and somehow ‘join in’ the creative work of others.

I’m not confident that the logic of my responses below will penetrate the many layers of habitual reasoning which have built up over a generation to create the faith-based sense of entitlement in illegal downloaders today. It’s impossible to shift such zealots. But in the hope that I may move some people sitting on the fence, here goes …

“Get yourself a real job if you just want to make money. Real artists don’t care about money”.

I’ve been hearing that all my life. One innovation I’d love to see is an end to the romantic claptrap that says art isn’t work.

Should creative people confine their creativity to being an after-hours hobby pursuit? How is that right or fair? And how does it make for better art if the artist is starving or has no time to make art?

The evidence is that untold millions of people value films and TV and books enough to consume them in great quantities. They pay gadget companies a lot of money for the gadgets that play this ‘content’. They pay lots of money to their data carriers.

But the people who toil and sweat to create the ‘content’ – they apparently are unworthy of a professional existence? They’re not real artists if they ask for money?

Picasso was a real artist. And he’d have had a ready response to anyone that dared make such an idiot remark in his company. Read Beethoven’s journals and you’ll see a man who was very concerned about getting paid. The greatest artists in history could only do what they did because they got paid. Perhaps this sort of pernicious reasoning will start to change when people with ‘real jobs’ eventually find themselves, like artists, being asked to contribute their labour, experience, and skill for free?

Sharing is Caring. There is NOTHING immoral about reproducing digital data.

Many creators willingly share their work. They welcome sharing by their fans. The Grateful Dead did it long before the internet. There’s nothing wrong with it if the artist is willing. And there’s nothing stopping any artist giving their work away if they want to.

But most professional creators need to make a living and sustain the quite considerable costs that may be involved in the creation and marketing of their work. When a fan just takes a work, rips it, and then indiscriminately shares it online without permission or compensation, then that is certainly immoral, disrespectful of the artist, and damaging to that artist’s viability. Stealing is not ‘free promotion’, but more on that below.

If your product is quality, I shall buy your product. If your “product” is crap, I shall send it to the Recycle Bin where it belongs. But you want to be paid in either case.

An interesting variation of the “customer is always right’ argument. Only that argument was actually based on the customer paying for their wares. Show business is a little different to buying a functional toaster. The toaster either works or it doesn’t.

‘Entertainment is more subjective. In today’s world, there are ample opportunities for customers to peruse reviews and previews. Anyone who then just goes ahead and steals a film or piece of music is a moocher, deadbeat, or plain old thief.

I am not a busker. I offer a product at a fair price, with options on how to buy. You can read reviews and watch previews. If you don’t want what I’m selling, that’s your call. We used to say, “Take it or leave it”; but that’s the problem, isn’t it? People are ‘taking it’, then having the bad manners not to pay. The old ‘dine and dash’. And then they have the gall to criticise me for complaining?

Don’t like the way the internet works, don’t put your content on it. Simple as that.

It’s not the way that the internet works that I object to. It’s how some people choose to use it. When someone elects to ignore my copyrights, steals my work, and exploits it online for their own gain, I don’t have a choice about where my content goes, or how it is used. That’s the problem, get it?

To follow the logic of this argument, drunks in cars kill people, I don’t like drunks in cars, so I should stop driving a car?

It’s not theft if a person helps himself to his own personal belongings and then gives away copies of those belongings. You are trying to tell me a DVD I bought isn’t my property. It is.

No, actually, it isn’t.

You’ll see that it isn’t when you read the fine print on every DVD you have ever legally purchased. Maybe that’s so long ago you can’t remember. Check out the FBI warning burned into most commercial files. Your purchase of a DVD in no way entitles you to do anything other than play that disc for your own amusement. Your purchase essentially gives you a license for said plays. You are not the legal owner of ‘the work’, and you certainly do not have the right to make copies, whether for sale or sharing. That is the sole prerogative of the copyright holder, or their licensed representatives.

Did you pay for the production of the film? Did you pay for its marketing and distribution costs? No. You sat at the end of a long supply chain and forked over a few bucks for a product that was only cheap because so many people were prepared to pay for it.

“file sharing is free promotion”

Promotion for what? The fact that someone can download a file for free rather than paying for it?

Any student of human nature will tell you that man is a selfish animal, and only a tiny proportion of people will choose to pay when the alternative is free. Without scarcity, the value of a work collapses. So the ‘promotion’ argument doesn’t wash, I’m afraid. It’s just another moral smokescreen.

With music, one might argue (and oh, they do, they do) that sharing music files is a form of promotion for the artist. Perhaps those enjoying their music for free might be moved to attend a concert. Maybe they might even buy some merchandise.

Maybe …
This year, I have attended two concerts. I have bought 20 albums (online). You do the math.