Arrr, let’s talk about piracy, matey.

Online piracy.

Before I begin this article, I would like to state immediately that I do not speak for anyone else on Geekcentricity. This is an opinion piece – specifically my opinion.

In the interest of full disclosure, I want to say that I do use torrent sites. My primary use is for downloading TV shows that are either not carried here in Denmark, or are 3 or 4 – or sometimes more – seasons behind.  I watch a show, then delete it right after. I do this out of a “necessity” to keep up with certain shows.

I don’t think this hurts anyone. It doesn’t hurt ratings. As a matter of fact, unless you are a Nielson family (or a similar equivalent), it doesn’t matter how or when you watch a show. If it doesn’t hurt the ratings – it doesn’t hurt the sponsors, which in turn doesn’t have any effect on production costs. When a season of a show comes out on DVD, I buy it.

My secondary use is for downloading OOP (Out Of Print) RPG books (rules, adventures, whatever). By OOP, I’m not talking about 3.5 edition Wizards of the Coast products or 3rd edition codices from Games Workshop. I’m talking about products made 20 or more years ago by companies that closed down 15 or more years ago. I also get e-copies of the hard copies that I already own, unless they were accompanied by a .pdf file in the first place. Let’s be honest – it isn’t like paying several hundred dollars to Noble Knight for an OOP game from 1982 puts a single cent into the creator’s pocket.

Buying a book or a whatever should be regarded as a license to enjoy it on any platform. Sadly, the anachronistic conventions of book selling and copyright law lag the technology.

I don’t download movies. I don’t download music. I don’t download video games. I don’t download comics. I don’t download in-print RPGs or those created by companies that still exist. As a creator, when I run across my own work pirated online (even though in some cases work that I don’t receive any percentage from sales any longer) I get pissed off. When I see RPGs created by guys like Richard Iorio II or Monty Cook – it pisses me off.

That being said, I feel unconvinced by some of the arguments in support of file sharing. I’m not talking about the legality of torrent sites themselves. I’m talking about the morality of file sharing, especially when it comes to piracy. I’m hoping you fine folks will be able to clear something up for me.

To my mind there are two concepts of file sharing. One is about the idea of a culture of sharing music, and the other is about a culture of downloading files nobody ever intended to be shared. I’m all for the first one, but the second I can’t help but think is wrong.

I’m happy when I hear people talk about a culture of file sharing. It’s a beautiful concept. As someone who has published free material, I’m happy to share said media with people all over the world. The operative word here, of course, is share. The people who are pissed off at isohunt or whatever site aren’t the people who chose to give away their media, they are the people who plan to sell their media for profit.

I’ve read a lot of arguments about how the entertainment industry loses less money than they claim to, or they pull strings to get governments to enforce copyright laws, or that musicians make most of their money on tours, or that the music industry will survive file sharing just as it survived the gramophone.

Take a look at the GAO’s report on losses due to piracy. It concludes that all of the studies you have heard cited a zillion times are completely made up.

Three commonly cited estimates of U.S. industry losses due to counterfeiting have been sourced to U.S. agencies, but cannot be substantiated or traced back to an underlying data source or methodology.

First, a number of industry, media, and government publications have cited an FBI estimate that U.S. businesses lose $200-$250 billion to counterfeiting on an annual basis. This estimate was contained in a 2002 FBI press release, but FBI officials told us that it has no record of source data or methodology for generating the estimate and that it cannot be corroborated.

Second, a 2002 CBP press release contained an estimate that U.S. businesses and industries lose $200 billion a year in revenue and 750,000 jobs due to counterfeits of merchandise. However, a CBP official stated that these figures are of uncertain origin, have been discredited, and are no longer used by CBP. A March 2009 CBP internal memo was circulated to inform staff not to use the figures. However, another entity within DHS continues to use them.

Third, the Motor and Equipment Manufacturers Association reported an estimate that the U.S. automotive parts industry has lost $3 billion in sales due to counterfeit goods and attributed the figure to the Federal Trade Commission (FTC). The OECD has also referenced this estimate in its report on counterfeiting and piracy, citing the association report that is sourced to the FTC. However, when we contacted FTC officials to substantiate the estimate, they were unable to locate any record or source of this estimate within its reports or archives, and officials could not recall the agency ever developing or using this estimate. These estimates attributed to FBI, CBP, and FTC continue to be referenced by various industry and government sources as evidence of the significance of the counterfeiting and piracy problem to the U.S. economy.

These arguments could be completely true and wouldn’t make stealing media justified in my mind. To me these sort of arguments just go to how unpopular the big corporations are… to make the argument that the people who own the entertainment industry are bad, therefore stealing their products must be good. That’s a moral fallacy. Even exploitive rich people have rights, and it diminishes us as a people to ignore that.

The real heart of the matter is this: the people who create media do so in order to sell it and make money. We may resent how much they charge for their product, or the DRM that they slap onto it, but ultimately we have two moral reactions to their choice: to pay for the product and use it, or not to pay and not to use it. Spin it any way you like, but the third option, to not pay for media and to download it anyway, just amounts to theft.

I know that some of you folks disagree, and I’m sure you feel OK within your moral code about this decision. So I’m interested – why it is not theft to torrent something that one hasn’t paid for? Why is media OK to steal when jewelery or TVs or clothes are wrong to steal?

Perhaps its something to do with the thought that ideas are free and not material objects, made popular in the film “Steal This Film”. And I think that’s a bunch of shit. Music is an idea and as such is immaterial. In my life I will never be able to touch the music that touches me, but I don’t assume that the rules surrounding it and all other products are different. A lot of pirates may talk about a new era of thinking, but I can’t help but find it backwards to argue that the the untouchable element of ideas remove them from equations of just conduct.

Maybe at the end of the day I just get irritated that people rail against big evil Wizards of the Coast or Sony while in the same breath torrenting the biggest blockbuster games or films. For a whole bunch of pirates, the concept of torrenting isn’t about ideology, its about getting something for free. There’s really nothing too impressive about that.

I hope I’ve made a fair point. I’d be interested in hearing your perspectives.