Ninjas, Not Pirates

Apr 23

Alright so I don’t actually know any ninjas. Pirates, though? Perhaps.

Not the pirates that say, “Arggh me matey” or have a peg leg or even have a parrot on their shoulder. That would be cool, but I actually only know pirates in the modern day sense. You know the ones that illegally consume things like music, videos, software, pictures, or any of a whole range of things. Haha I can hear the groans already.

The digital age has made it infinitely more easy to exactly duplicate other content (which is related to why digital things are superior in quality to analog). With this, people have degenerated to outright stealing while not even understanding what they’re doing. Well I hate to break it to you, but wrongs committed unintentionally are still wrong.

While I have written that I think that Music Piracy Makes People Stupid, this issue is far larger than just music. Music is the best known, probably because it’s the area that’s most often violated. It is so much more widespread, though. So let’s get down to the real issue.

Breaking Down Piracy

1. Someone creates something for a purpose

2. Somehow it’s made available to other people (whether stolen, hacked, copied, or what) outside of the realm of the original purpose

3. You (or a “friend” of yours) gets a copy of said good and utilize it

Is that pretty much how it breaks down? Seems to me like the real issue is that the creator/writer/actor/musician/whatever did not intend for those in step 3 to make use of their creation. If I were a computer programmer and wrote a program to sell. And then if someone had illegally hacked my program that I worked to create to sell and gave it away for free, I’d be piping mad. If you were a photographer and had taken a picture for someone, but someone else had taken it and used it for a totally different purpose, you’d be up in arms. If you provided services (law, medicine, therapy, teaching, what have you) and someone took your service without providing payment, you’d see that something was immediately wrong.

So basically, since the creator didn’t want it (and who hopefully created a bulletproof license or end user agreement), you’re undermining what they’re doing. It doesn’t matter that you could create a digital copy of their song without paying for it and they’ll be none the wiser. Because in actuality, it does affect them. You should have paid them for that song. And you are now a pirate. But you don’t have to be!

Dealing With This New Ninja World

Is all lost? Far from it. Once you understand what it’s like to be the one being defrauded, you’ll see that something needs to change. And there is a solution! There are all kinds of answers! Maybe watch things that are actually released by the studios (try out Hulu), actually buy music (if you’re listening to music you can probably afford to pay for it) or try Amie Street for the whole indie scene, and possibly even catch up on some of my Favorite Open Source Apps.

Or you could just become a real ninja and then you’d care about arrows, ninja stars, and ninjato rather than swiping versions of old TV shows, Adobe Photoshop, and/or the remix version of Justin Timberlake’s latest single. :D