Brown: Piracy isn’t going away

‘ ‘ ‘ Internet piracy has been around for a while now. Napster, the original peer-to-peer file… ‘ ‘ ‘ Internet piracy has been around for a while now. Napster, the original peer-to-peer file transfer network that popularized file sharing, started up in June of 1999. Since then, a plethora of different services have sprung up to offer free transfers of music, movies and software to anyone, anywhere. And just as often these services have been shut down by the entertainment industry and its coterie of rabid copyright lawyers. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ The latest big name to fall under the jackboot of copyright law is The Pirate Bay, a Web site that offers users links to BitTorrent tracker files. BitTorrent is a type of p2p file transfer protocol that allows users to download and upload massive amounts of data across a distributed Web, avoiding the need for central servers owned by one group. But The Pirate Bay is still on trial for ‘assisting in making available’ copyrighted works in Sweden, and if the creators of the site lose, it’s likely that it’ll be shut down. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ For its own part, The Pirate Bay has mounted a creative defense under a few provisions of EU law and has managed to get about half the charges against it dropped by the court. But in the end, this trial is tantamount to attacking a hornet nest with nothing but a flyswatter. Sure, you might take out a couple, but at the end of the day, there’s still going to be a lot more hornets, and all you’re going to be is stung. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Piracy, like it or not, has become an ingrained part of the Internet, and it’s all because of the way the Internet has conditioned users over the last 15-odd years. Our generation has been raised on a free-idea marketplace, an arena of content-on-demand. The fact that most of the content on the Internet is free has led us to believe that everything on the Internet is free, like it or not. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ This probably isn’t the most productive way for people to view the world, but I believe that it’s the truth. The Internet is a giant, seething mass of information, but even more than that, it’s an anonymous source. That anonymity leads people to believe that things don’t really count on computers ‘mdash; that if you’re committing a crime online, it’s not really a crime. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ In a way, it’s like the riots that happened after the Super Bowl. The crowd of thousands of other people granted an anonymity in the streets that allowed some people to drastically misbehave. Nobody would ever set a car on fire in the middle of the street or break shop windows under normal circumstances, but the crowd made law enforcement more or less impossible, so people took advantage of that to break the law. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ That’s exactly what happens with file sharing and piracy. The number of people who engage in these activities is staggering ‘mdash; a review of Recording Industry Association of America data estimated a 20-percent reduction in global music sales because of piracy back in 2002. God only knows what that number could be now. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ But that huge number of people involved also offers security ‘mdash; there’s no possible way the authorities can catch everyone. And shutting down the networks that facilitate the activities is as useless as trying to dam a river with only one rock ‘mdash; new networks will just spring up offering the same services as soon as an old one is shut down. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ The fact of the matter is that, as long as entertainment industries are producing content meant for the public, people are going to try to share it. The same thing happened before the days of the Internet ‘mdash; people would pass around mix tapes, bootlegged movies or simply let their friends borrow stuff. This is the same thing that goes on now, but on a colossal scale. We’re sharing our music with our friends, but it’s impossible to discriminate among ‘friends’ online. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ Pretty much every industry that produces content is facing the same problem right now. How can you make people pay for something that they can get for free elsewhere? ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ The answer, of course, is pretty much that you can’t. Some people will always be willing to buy content, but as piracy becomes more and more widespread, and as more artists, newspapers and television networks advocate free digital distribution of their content, it’s only going to get worse. For every person willing to pay for a product, whether it’s $10 for an album on iTunes or $300 for the new Photoshop, there’s going to be someone else willing to toe the line of the law so they can get it for free. ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ ‘ So the copyright enforcers can go ahead and shut down The Pirate Bay if they want to. But they probably know already that, as soon as they do, another site will take its place. As long as the Internet remains an open and anonymous worldwide network, there will be people willing to hoist their own skulls-and-crossbones. People are conditioned to find safety in numbers, and a few copyright lawsuits aren’t going to stop that anytime soon. ‘ ‘ ‘ E-mail Richard at rab53@pitt.edu.