shihabyooo said:
The case is simple. To which borders does piracy remain illegal ?
This is not simple. Not by any stretch of the imagination. The question is easy to ask, but there is no easy answer. This is, and has always been, a polarizing political issue.
The problem is that Copyright and Patent Laws make illegal an act that is, really, the simple nature of Human interaction: The dissemination and application of knowledge, language, emotion, and idea. It is, in simple terms, a lock and limits placed upon mimetic behavior.
The nature of our minds is to
form, share, and apply Ideas. Successful Ideas spread and become a part of Culture. Unsuccessful Ideas are lost to memory. All Human knowledge formed as these Ideas. All Human Culture formed from these Ideas. And the only way for an Idea to
be successful is to spread.
This isn't a new idea. We all know this to be true. A song becomes popular, and it becomes embedded in our Culture. A movie becomes popular, and we all make references to it, quoting and sometimes miming it. An invention succeeds in the market by the popularization of its use - sometimes to the extent where it becomes a part of our daily lives: Cars, computers, firearms, even our homes. That is the nature of the successful Ideas: To become a part of our lives. But not all Ideas are Good.
In the 1500's, a new Idea spread: The Idea to restrict the application of knowledge to a Chosen Few. The purpose of this new meme was to ensure that only the first person to capitalize on it should be permitted to do so. And this Idea isn't
wrong. Certainly, the one to form an Idea should have the opportunity to profit from it. And most people realize that this is Just, since the expression of Ideas must be rewarded.
Yet the meme spread to the Law. Kings, Leaders, and powerful businessmen saw an opportunity to control the spread of knowledge. There is some benefit for a despotic Leader to control what Ideas become memes and what Ideas should be suppressed; for when you control the thoughts of your People, you control your Empire. And so it was with the Stationer's Company and the Kings and Lords of the lands: when you control who can say what, you can control the spread of Ideas; and controlling the spread of Ideas allows you to control which Ideas can take root. This was easy to do in the 16th and 17th centuries, since few were privileged enough to control printing presses.
But in other lands, Copyright had no presence. The freedom to express and share Ideas was absolute:
unrestricted access to literature permits an unrestricted explosion of new Ideas and the development of new technologies and works. And, unsurprisingly, when there is fierce competition to sell a highly demanded product, prices fall, and when prices fall, the spread grows. And so grows the expression of Ideas. Without Copyright,
Culture is unbounded.
In the presence of Copyright, our natural desire to share Ideas is impugned. And worse, the foundation of our Culture - the early Ideas that formed it - is held captive by the very Laws that seek to ensure its dissemination. Locked away in the archives of the Big Studios are thousands of films and recordings - expressions of Ideas that formed our Culture - are rotting, slowly wasting away to dust as a few Archivists
struggle to
preserve them. Copyright has made it impossible to preserve our own Culture, while once-successful Ideas turn to dust.
Meanwhile, those who want to
celebrate our Culture are
punished and treated like criminals. Those who want to express themselves get sued into poverty.
It's sad, to me, that musicians pin their hopes and dreams on a recording business
that cheats them out of their own earnings. It's sad, to me, that movie directors who
want to encourage remixes of their movies are undercut by their own studios and production companies, who work to silence the very people who are celebrating them. It's sad, to me, that the companies that are charged with enforcing music Copyright
are little more than an extortion ring, crushing small businesses and forcing many of them to go out of business simply for wanting to play music for their customers. It's sad, to me, that a small company can call into question the real ownership of an entire
category of works by claiming ownership of a
Copyright they didn't even have.
The real crime here is not piracy.
The real crime is Copyright.
