piracy

In an effort to keep beating a dead horse…

“Modern-day pirates are not like Errol Flynn or Johnny Depp swinging through the rigging, but well-armed militiamen equipped with rocket propelled grenades, assault rifles, global positioning systems and high-speed motorboats…” (The New York Times, April 20, 2008)

The Times is not talking about college students loading their iPods or high school students posting clips on YouTube. It’s talking about guys with guns storming boats, stealing things and killing people.

They are not the same thing.

Some copyright violations can be dangerous, and some can fund even more dangerous activity (like pirates). These violations tend to involve the reverse engineering of drugs and copying machined products like brake pads and selling the sometimes flawed counterfeits. Such efforts tend to be international and well organized. Conflating the theft of ideas and creating sometimes faulty products or the distribution of stolen ideas to fund illegal enterprises with bands of machine gun wielding thieves with RPGs diminishes the impacts of both.

Other copyright violations are well organized efforts to illegally reproduce and sell movies, music and television shows. These are most often also international, and rely on computers to pump out copies of stolen goods. Lots of money is lost, but no one dies.

These two areas of copyright violation need to be addressed. The PRO-IP Act working its way through Congress is a step in the right direction, as are the efforts of groups ranging from the Motion Picture Association of America to the Copyright Alliance and the US Chamber of Commerce.

A final common form of copyright violation seems more benign, feeling a little like sticking gum under a table – you probably shouldn’t do it, but whatever it’s only gum. This is the endless posting of TV and music clips on web sites like YouTube and Google Video, downloading and sharing songs, or creating video clips using music or scenes to which the user does not have rights. This is also bad, certainly worse than gum under a table, but it’s also not taking hostages and shooting people.

Those of us who are concerned about copyright protection (I am on the board of the Copyright Alliance and represent Vin Di Bona Productions) need to stop conflating these areas. We need new metaphors, new ways of talking about what we want to stop. Failing to do so diminishes the real threats posed by old-fashioned pirates and makes it more difficult achieve the policy goals we’re after: making sure that those who create something get rewarded for their work or ideas.

Several friends of mine are in a pirate book club. They aren’t committed to only reading materially illegally posted on a secret bit-torrent site based in international waters. The book club (as one put it) is “a change to sit around and say aaargh a lot.”

Today’s Los Angeles Times includes the headline “Bill targets piracy at colleges”. Fortunately the story isn’t about cracking down on undergraduates wearing eye-patches and flying Jolly Rogers from their dorm rooms. Instead the piece talks about provisions in the House version of College Opportunity and Affordability Act (HR 4137), specifically section 494 (page 411 of the GPO pdf) that reads (I’ve cleaned up the formatting for ease of reading):

SEC. 494. CAMPUS-BASED DIGITAL THEFT PREVENTION.
(a) IN GENERAL.—Each eligible institution participating in any program under this title shall to the extent practicable—
(1) make publicly available to their students and employees, the policies and procedures related to the illegal downloading and distribution of copyrighted materials required to be disclosed under section 485(a)(1)(P); and
(2) develop a plan for offering alternatives to illegal downloading or peer-to-peer distribution of intellectual property as well as a plan to explore technology-based deterrents to prevent such illegal activity.
(b) GRANTS.—
(1) PROGRAM AUTHORITY.—The Secretary may make grants to institutions of higher education, or consortia of such institutions, and enter into contracts with such institutions, consortia, and other organizations, to develop, implement, operate, improve, and disseminate programs of prevention, education, and cost-effective technological solutions, to reduce and eliminate the illegal downloading and distribution of intellectual property. Such grants or contracts may also be used for the support of a higher education centers that will provide training, technical assistance, evaluation, dissemination, and associated services and assistance to the higher education community as determined by the Secretary and institutions of higher education.

Pretty benign stuff – the asserted potential penalties for not recycling at some institutions are harsher. This section pretty much says universities that get government money have to encourage their students and staff not to steal stuff, and to try to find ways to keep folks from stealing stuff, and if they find such ways the government will give them even more money. Seems like a reasonable – even generous – request. Basically some students are stealing a lot of intellectual property on college campuses and the government (that partially funds those campuses) is saying “you should probably tell your students to stop taking stuff that doesn’t belong to them.”

Unfortunately that’s not the debate we’re having. Instead we’re talking about pirates.

Those interested in copyright protection (as I am as a member of the board of the Copyright Alliance and an advisor on the issue to Vin Di Bona Productions) need to leave the arrghing to book clubs and costume parties, and find a new metaphor to describe our efforts to stop people from stealing our stuff.