The Power of the Pirate

Today, intellectual property is going down the drain. It use to be that after you get a copyright on your intellectual property, people can't duplicate your work easily and share it. Now-a-days, with the advent of the World Wide Web, this piracy is just too common. Numerous associations had been created to stop this illegal"trafficking" of property, the most famous being the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Various governments of the world are trying to curb piracy. In recent news, UK wants to punish ISPs (your friendly internet provider) if they allowed their customer to download illegal movies or music. This concept of censorship brings a whole new dimension to this debate. If you censor movies and music, people will start pushing the government to censor child pornography, terrorist plots and national secrets. Before we know it, a full blown 1984 scenario will be upon UK (somewhat ironic as Airstrip One is in UK).

Now I realize that the government of UK is trying to help but this is the wrong way. Not only will this not stop determined pirates, it will impede the righteous transaction of entertainment formats. The fact is that pirates can outmaneuver any government-imposed barriers. The most recent form of this "side-step" is the release of DoubleTwist. This nifty software is quite ingenious in the way it bypasses the Digital Rights Management (DRM) of iTunes. It basically plays back your library of music and movies back and records it again.

The problem with piracy may not be the technologies problem, I think it lies deep within society. In the early days, one cannot pirate music cheaply or efficiently, thus there are no morals pounded into them on intellectual property. That generation grew up, had children, and didn't teach their children (my generation) not to pirate. Now without any morals on piracy, the later generation pirates at will.

Well, what can we do to solve this problem? Frankly I don't know. Music sellers such as iTunes and Amazon are trying the method of selling without DRM on their songs. To be truthful, I don't think it'll work. Now a days, the teenagers don't care about the artist on the street. Celebrities had been too many times portrayed as rich, fabulous and wonderful. If only the TV networks showed the opposite side of the entertainment industry. If you know me on FB, you might have heard me creating hype over Qtrax. This service, which fell apart, uses ad-supported music rather than purchase-based. If this service materializes, it might solve the problem of artists not getting enough money, though it won't solve the moral dilemma.

The test of time will tell whether piracy will prevail. Will the morals increase as the generations age? Will the massive amount of money lost affect the economy? Maybe there are no answers to this question of piracy, maybe it's here to stay. Only time will tell.

-runiteking1

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