Digital piracy and the extension of the human mind

Today’s blog started out as a write-up about the 50 most important web events from a British point of view that I found online at CNET UK but I struck something interesting in that very article that made me think of a documentary I recently watched. The documentary is called ‘You Chuse’ and features some interesting comment on the idea of freely sharing information and how terrifyingly commoditized information has become.

On the forum there has been many an outcry from the file sharing community every time the forum releases a news article on file sharing in the local South African torrent underground. It is a storm that takes weeks to blow over as comments come flooding in with protagonists and antagonists hitting each other with virtual pangas left right and centre.

I found the story about how Digg was hexed when the MPAA came knocking at their door demanding the code unraveling DVD encryption that was being publicized on Digg be removed. The effort to remove the code resulted in an uprising of Diggers that forced Digg to make peace with their possible demise at the hands of the MPAA as the users demanded they keep the code public and not give in to corporate pressure to suppress the copy protection busting code.

It made me think, and please do excuse me if I become a little incoherent from time to time but I am working on a philosophy of sharing that might upset some and please others, but in the end it is about finding the optimal truth for the individual. I am starting to consider my computer as an extension of my weakest self. It is a strengthening of my weakest self. I do not have the ability to store memories efficiently, but my computer does. I can recall pictures, texts, emails and many other memories perfectly with my computer. Home videos and more! Would it be too much to consider my computer as a cybernetic extension of my mind? When I pay to see a movie at a cinema or rent it at the rental store, shouldn’t I have a right to have a copy on my personal computer or a device equal in power for personal recollection of such material? Or, should the fact that my memory isn’t perfect be a commercially exploitable commodity forcing me to buy said video material at a premium for storage or having to rent the movie again. Do you have an idea of where my thoughts are going with this?
I know I have not produced the said material, but should I have to pay more than once to access the material? Why isn’t paying once for the material right of access enough to allow me to make a “memory” so to speak. A memory I can reference when I want to. The argument becomes tough when one shares such a memory digitally with people who have not paid for “right of access” so to speak. I can understand the frustration big business has with online piracy, but the argument becomes weak from a consumer point of view when you have already seen the movie twice in the cinema and on a rental DVD at a friends house for instance. The barrier to feeling entitled to keeping a free copy gets knocked down somehow whether it is right or wrong. You have contributed to the artists, justifying a personal copy you happen to find easily on somebody’s computer, online or wherever becomes infinitely easier the more you have contributed to traditional distribution.

There are nuances to the whole copy scenario. For some reason it is seen as acceptable to make a video copy of your favorite television program for later enjoyment as long as you copy it from television. Isn’t this an extension of your memory in time and space? How many people are there not that keep their favorite movies broadcast on television or via satellite on shelves near the television? Why is it only now with the Internet that the world has become so sensitive to copying video and audio material? There were days before the mp3 that we copied songs off the radio. The medium has changed, but the main issue is the free nature of the content. When you copy something off the television or radio those stations paid for that airtime. At least it isn’t a nil income scenario for the artists and their distribution networks. Not to mention the fact that in terms of radio it pushes sales. Television is a little after the fact as movies tend to go out to cinema before it reaches television. I guess it still drives DVD sales.

Record labels love to go on about the financial losses they make, but I don’t think their figures can ever reflect a true loss of income as many of the people who do copy music won’t have the money to ever buy all the music they have in their digital collections. To own that volume of music legally would require astronomical amounts of money, which is why I believe not all piracy can be counted as lost income to copyright owners. I am of the personal opinion that music and video piracy can actually turn out to be beneficial to the industries so very much against the pirate business. There are even mainstream artists who don’t mind their music being pirated as it has exposed their music to new audiences who actually do go out and support them at concerts and even at the legal music outlets.
The conversation becomes pretty deep and way too complex to discuss from every angle in a blog like this. I do however think there is room for a rethink of the way we handle creative content and its distribution on the internet without getting too emotional about it.

I will end off with a couple of things to ponder:

Can one consider digital content as an extension of the human mind and memory?
If the majority of people want internet downloads and sharing to be legal in a country, is there any reason to deny them?

Is it okay to copy and distribute copyrighted scientific information for the good of mankind?
Is any and all piracy wrong, no matter what the reason?