Piracy has been increasingly romanticized in the 20th
and 21st centuries. I would argue Hollywood has furthered this idea
more than any other medium with pirates appearing sexy and appealing from films
like Captain Blood, The Princess Bride, and most recently,
the Pirates of the Caribbean mega-franchise.
Pirates are viewed as dashing rogues with hearts of gold despite their love of
pillaging and debauchery, and their chosen targets are rarely shown as anything
but spineless buffoons that “had it coming” in the eyes of the audience. We
laugh at the misfortune of these often wealthy idiots and cheer when the pirate
of our idolatry wins the day, and the following Halloween, little Jack wants to
add Sparrow to the end of his name, and thus, the coolest kid in 4th
grade is born.
However, the past ten or twenty years have illuminated the
general public to another type of piracy with a little less glory and bravado.
This particular type of piracy involves a room, a wi-fi router, a computer, and
a user with the dream of license free content. Online piracy is nothing new,
but throughout the past decade, it has rocketed in popularity due to its
somewhat mysterious allure to the technically inept as well as its catchy new
title – “file sharing” isn’t quite as sexy as skull and crossbones, after all.
Sites like The Pirate Bay, Demonoid, and Kickass Torrents have been thrown
around news outlets with reckless abandon as the general populace has attempted
to understand the reasoning behind these new-age pirates. Why do they do it?
Why would they steal? And to me, the answer is simple…
Licensing.
When I was a kid, the previews on DVDs were often preceded
by a now infamous anti-piracy ad that included the tagline, “You wouldn’t steal
a car!” If you have never witnessed this glorious piece of marketing, I implore
you to find the video at your earliest convenience – you won’t regret it.
Overall, this marketing campaign was meant to shame those early pirates and
dissuade them from their torrenting endeavors by comparing their activities to
grand theft auto. Complete with appropriately grungy background music, this ad
aimed to terrify parents everywhere that their children would undoubtedly turn
to a life of crime if they ever dabbled in piracy,
and thus, a fear campaign was born.
And we all know that fear campaigns are always effective, right?
Nevertheless, the commercial was prevalent for years, and
pirates continued to pirate with reckless abandon under their newly appointed
title. While this campaign did illuminate
the general public to the possibilities of file sharing and digital
distribution, it left out a few key elements. For instance, if I buy a car, I
can drive it wherever I want. If I can put gas in it, and there’s a road, then
I can drive that baby to my heart’s content. In two years, I will not discover
a mandatory update for my car that will cost me additional money if I want to
run it, and if I move to a different address, I will not have to arduously
attempt to re-register my car in accordance with the regulations of my new
household.
Yes, that metaphor may be stretching things a bit, but let
me backtrack a bit. When I was a kid, I wanted to listen to the song, “Black
and White” by Michael Jackson. I heard this song once, and I was hooked…it was
an odd time. Unfortunately, I couldn’t find it anywhere online. After months of
searching, I discovered the single at Walmart.com and immediately bought it.
About six months later, I received a new computer, but when I tried to play my
song, I received an error message regarding licensing. Just like that, the song
was gone, because I couldn’t prove that I was the same person that had bought
it before. I also used to have a Zune…yes, a Zune. While I had the device, I
bought many songs through the Zune’s admittedly smooth interface, but unless I
plugged that Zune into my computer every few days to prove that I was still
using their product, the songs refused to play. After I stopped using the
device…poof, all of the music vanished, and all of the money that I had
previously spent was deemed worthless. Not only could I not listen to the
music, myself, but I couldn’t share the music with any of my friends. There was
no method, digitally, to let my friend borrow this new album I was excited
about, because they didn’t have the licensing privileges…
This is why piracy is so popular. Yes, people want content
for free. That is an unavoidable truth. However, the desire for license free
content far outweighs the resilience to pay money for a quality product.
Nowadays, you can buy anything you want digitally, but if it has a DRM, good
luck sharing it with anyone you know, and good luck trying to use it again in 4
years. Digital comic books are a notable culprit in this area – allowing only
certain apps to open certain books by certain publishers, and God help you if
you don’t have the correct login.
However, the battle against piracy is by no means lost…because
some companies are beginning to embrace it.
HBO and Netflix have gone on record encouraging people to
share passwords with each other, thus promoting the exact sharing that the
music industry still attempts to quell to this day. Sites like The Panel
Syndicate are offering creator owned comics DRM-free at a pay-what-you-can
price, and the creators are reporting the highest profits of their careers. Apple
offers free updates of their software every time a new version comes out, and
within the last two decades, they have rocketed through the tech industry. Companies
that offer free alternatives to Microsoft Office and Adobe simply ask for
donations in return for their work, and they have been supported comfortably
for years. The pirates that were demonized for so many years simply yearn for
the respect of the companies that ask for their business, and the results are
monetarily undeniable.
Pirates are undeniably hot in entertainment culture right now,
and despite the increasing popularity of the undead among their ranks, they
aren’t going anywhere…maybe it’s time that the rest of the world understood
that.
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