It is amazing, all the supposed punditry floating around espousing the marvels of stealing intellectual property as technological advancement. It appears we have come to believe that theft is at times a necessary ingredient of popularizing a technology.
It does appear that most of us have, at least for a time, checked our ethics at the door. But despite the tongue-in-cheek name of this blog, I am an optimist. I do believe it is possible that the justifications for the theft we are engaged in is nothing more than temporary cognitive dissonance, and that we will indeed come to our senses.
I believe this because the consequences of deciding as a society that teaching our young children that stealing is OK is ultimately too dire. We will ultimately come to understand it is impossible to create a viable or credible ethical framework that separates stealing a song from stealing a loaf of bread. In fact, stealing the bread may be more justifiable if you are hungry and yet intuitively most of us know, no matter how hungry you are, that stealing the bread is still wrong.
On the other hand, we steal entertainment content with guiltless reckless abandon, and you certainly can’t eat a Foo Fighters song. There are statistics that suggest that plagiarism in college is up substantially, and I would not be at all shocked to find that there is a correlation between the mindset of stealing a song vs. stealing a paper.
The permissive and even supportive attitude of thought leaders in our industry on this subject is poisoning the minds of our children and we need to stop it. Ethics matter, and there is no way to explain to a child that theft is OK when you are “mad at the man”, and “big corporations are evil.” Our brains don’t work that way.
The psychology of our youth has already been irreparably damaged, but I do think we can turn things around, at least for the next generation. And we must. There are those that will suggest that because we can steal, that we will. They believe that we are no more ethical or honest than our circumstances will allow. I do not subscribe to this theory of human nature. I think we are all villagers, and we will for the most part adhere to the mores of the village. If it was considered wrong to steal music or movies or software, and there was actual shame associated with it, people wouldn’t do it.
And so my prescription: Think about how your parents might react if you told them you’d just stolen 1000 songs from Wal-Mart every time you play your ill gotten MP3 collection. If you are a parent, and you see your kid has a 1000 song MP3 collection *you* should be reacting like they stole it from Wal-Mart.
All it will take is just a little bit of shame.
Monday, April 28, 2008
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12 comments:
For about 10 years, I've greatly enjoyed the cognitive dissonance this causes in people. I can't wait to see the s***storm this article stirs up. From the mainstream view, this article is absolute heresy since it means they have to admit they did something wrong.
Golly. More 'The sky is falling'?
Someone just downloaded Kanye's new track - everyone to the underground bunkers!
Disingenuous. Holier-than-thou. Over-the-top.
Absolutely reaching for causal connections where there are none to be found.
'Mad at the man' and 'Corporations are evil' are Reagan-like epithets used to minimize and explain away the destructive nature of corporations and state capitalism.
Farm subsidies for massive ag-conglomerates? A-OK!
Steal an apple? Don't break the ethics!
'The psychology of our youth has been irreparably damaged'?
Man, you just irreparably damaged your reputation. :-D
I thought I found a good new blog, and I like some intelligent disagreement, but this is just too ridiculous. Maybe if this post appeared in The Onion, I'd remain subscribed.
I agree with you 100% Hank.
But I don't think there is a snowball's chance in hell of reversing the trend. Peter's naive rationalization is exactly what you are up against, a generation of younger people (of which I am part) whose lives revolve around their sense of entitlement.
@Peter, let's make this simple. You feel entitled to download some Kanye tracks because some farming corp has a government subsidy. If you don't have the balls to walk into Wal-Mart and walk out with the equivalent physical CD, you are just a coward. Calling it "copyright infringement" instead of theft is a naive, pathetic semantic hustle. But you go on "fighting the man", it's quite a timid little revolution you're fighting.
Peter:
"destructive nature of corporations and state capitalism"
Do you have a better proven system than that of the barter system to use to provide as an example? Hey, i'm not entirely opposed to at least arguing/discussing the notion of economic communism if provided with significant civil rights, but no one so far has had the control/will over/of the people to make it work.
"Farm subsidies for massive ag-conglomerates? A-OK!
Steal an apple? Don't break the ethics!"
Two wrongs don't make a right. Leading by example. Simple as that.
Dave
Wht triggered this? Were you reacting to this post?
http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2008/04/when-authors-ask-us-about-the-consequences-of-piracy.html
That post has had me thinking about piracy all day. I think we're all too comfortable with the idea. I'm not about to start a crusade against it, I'd be guilty of the same sort of cognitive dissonance you've identified in earlier post.
You're right that there is way too much condoning of dishonesty in our culture.
That said, I still don't agree that electronic copying constitutes theft, or that condoning it is equivalent to condoning the theft of printed CDs from the shelves of WalMart. I know the law here in the U.S. says it is, but I disagree, and I think I have good reason to disagree.
Do you remember the SNL skit where Dana Carvey, playing Ross Perot, proposes that as POTUS, he should be entitled to a cut of whatever deficit reduction he produced? Pretty funny, huh? So why is it not equally funny to think that an artist should be entitled to a cut of a license fee for every copy ever made of "their intellectual property"?
sedicious,
I do not understand your comment. Are you saying its bad that artists get royalties, or it is bad that they don't?
If you are saying that artists dont get royalties you are mistaken. The truth is artists do get royalties. More importantly they get advances against royalties that most never come anywhere near earning. Artists sign to record labels because they want the resources behind their career to give them a chance to be major artists. No one forces an artist into a record deal and most artists that sell lots of records end up with pretty amazing lives. Those that dont get significant advances that far outstrip what they likely could have made selling their records on their own. If it was so horrible being signed to a record label artist wouldnt do it. But as it is most artists are *dying* to get signed.
In any case, whatever your issue with what kind of royalties an artist gets, it doesnt give you the right to take the product. By doing that you are preventing the next artist who *desparately* wants a shot at being signed by making the process so unprofitable that they cant afford it. This is already happening. All it means is that your buddy that dreams of being a star has a smaller and smaller chance of that happening.
@sedicious, that is the most asinine argument in favor of piracy I have ever heard. "Well, you remember that Dana Carvey skit about deficit reduction?" It borders on a non-sequitir.
The fact is that, like it or not, when you copy something that is for-sale and distribute the copy to someone you are violating the law. Everyone uses music as an example, what about books. Let's say I pour a year of my life into a book, and I start to sell this book both online and at Barnes and Noble. My publisher gives me an advance against future royalties, and I invest a great deal of that money to do my own marketing.
The publisher pays people to copyedit, illustrate, bind, and deliver the book to a book store. Now, are you going to tell me that you are going to copy that book and start distributing that book because I have no more claim to the content than Dana Carvey as George Bush has claim to deficit reduction.
If people want to pirate, I can't stop them, no one can. But, we need to get out of the business of rationalizing it as a good thing for any industry. If you haven't been a content creator yourself, you will never understand what I'm trying to say.
Hank, I find your difficulty believing that I could have actually meant just what I said quite revealing. : )
Yes, I think it's bad that artists get royalties. Or, a bit more to the point, that they have been conditioned to expect royalties, to demand royalties. Because royalties are really a form of tithe demanded by "intellectual property" lords, and as such are (despite a common perception to the contrary) infringements upon free trade, not examples of it. They're more akin to usury than they are to truly earned income.
Tim, when the Sons of Liberty dumped a ship-full of tea into Boston Harbor, they were breaking the law, too. When Rosa Parks refused to sit at the back of the bus, she was breaking the law, too. I know you think "piracy" is completely different, because you think the modern copyright laws are just, but I'm telling you I disagree. And FYI, I am a content creator, and what I create I make available electronically for free. And I am not starving as a result, any more than Richard Stallman or Sir Tim Berners-Lee are. Nor are the professors at MIT (all of whose course materials are available online for free), and nor are Radiohead or Nine Inch Nails. Another world is possible.
sedicious, what a collection of holier than thou rationalizations. You pilfer journey's greatest hits and subsequently associate yourself with rosa parks? Unbelievable jump.
Have you heard of open source? Maybe you know about creative commons? Well great if you have because I publish printed books under CC non-commercial attribution, then I turn around and publish the work in print to help offset cost. Your stance is that copyright laws amount to a form of oppression... To be resisted with revolutionary zeal.
If you really believed this you reject all licenses, even cc and open source licenses because they are all founded of the idea of copyright and intellectual property.
Tim, I'm not trying to be holier-than-thou about it, I'm just trying to relate my viewpoint to more familiar examples, so you can understand what I'm saying. Of course sharing music is not even in the same ballpark as Rosa Parks in terms of courage or importance. But it is the same principle involved, that in the face of unjust laws, the most honorable response is to disobey them.
And if you knew the origin of "open source", you would know that GPL and CC are really hacks designed to use the modern copyright apparatus against itself, to "bootstrap" a new regime along a very different model. As such I do not "oppose" GPL and CC, per se, what I oppose is the apparatus underneath them which allows others to impose terms other than those of GPL or CC.
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