The piracy thing

This post is basically a glorified rant about what I'm going to immediately mention now after the period at the end of this sentence finally makes its appearance, don't expect deep thoughts.

Rogan's podcast is moving to Spotify exclusively at the end of the year.

This pisses me off because now I basically have to get Spotify.

And because this is a blog, I have to type more than just that, so lemme talk about the internet and how I steal everything for free and bankrupt everybody.

So just to give you a guess at my political leanings, I probably would agree with most of https://archive.org/stream/GuerillaOpenAccessManifesto/Goamjuly2008_djvu.txt and also https://www.eff.org/cyberspace-independence

Now that that's out of the way...

Look, can we all agree that information, digital bits, being instantly transmissible, needs to... I don't know, have more of it on the internet? I won't tell you anything you don't already know but blah blah blah, record companies cause more harm to artists than the pirates ever could, the greater problem is obscurity, not piracy, not everyone can afford to buy everything all the time, culture should be more open blah blah blah.

Cory Doctorow has written blurbs on his site explaining that the reason he gives books away for free alongside the “for sale pls buy ty” versions is because it makes him a f!@#load of cash. (Edit: ignore the “load” hashtag) And I think it's true.

A free download will not, instantly corrupt the soul.

That's sort of it (I take this truth to be self evident), and as to this Rogan/Spotify thing, well, a) I wish they wouldn't take down all existing copies of the podcast once it moves there and b) Fine, whatever, this particular case is this particular case. But to talk about this GENERAL phenomenon...

Some reasons why copyright and intellectual property are such minefields (and just ugly, pathetic excuses for things being as they are) is basically... due to lobbying. (There's a good talk on that here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhBpI13dxkI) That's one reason. Another is that the United States, uniquely, puts intense pressure on the rest of the world to follow its restrictive copyright practices, via various means, but also via trade agreements – and this is coming from the country that Disney successfully lobbied to extend copyright from something initially reasonable to approximately... 57 trillion years.

Think about that next time you feel bad for downloading a song.

It's actually worse than that because I think you'll find that sharing is or should be, a cultural birthright. Sharing is caring (and therefore while I use the word “piracy” loosely here, let's distinguish actual commercial piracy – the selling of other people's work – and file sharing). Everyone kiiiinda knows that the internet should be a lot more rich than it is, because a lot of it, let's face it, is attractive because you can find culture there: books, movies, music, whatever.

And you can monetize. Pretty easily. But it depends on discoverability and not hoping someone buys your record having never heard it before.

Publishers feel like the alternative version of “Man discovers one neat trick! Doctors HATE him”, with the publisher taking the role of the doctor. The publishers would like you very much – and major industry – to buy everything on-sight and would love to pass anti-circumvention laws and probably make it, in an ideal world, that if you did try to illegally download something, your computer would instantly explode and kill you.

Joking about that last one. Maybe. I hope. I'm not entirely sure.

The artists probably don't care. And for everyone else, fuck Metallica.

Though I think Metallica's objections were that someone leaked their songs, not the piracy (oops, I did it again, I used the wrong word, got lost in the game). But, man, if everyone acted like gatekeepers of sharing, they'd have less concert goers. I'm sure of that.

And if you want future writers/musicians/actors/film makers then you'll allow things to stay online, for free viewing, for the good of humanity. And if you're not going to do that (what is your excuse???), the least you can do is not break the internet and the rule of law itself by passing laws with incredible reach designed to stamp out and punish the “evildoers”.

I should mention I do buy a fair bit of culture. Steam (the video game software/platform) users probably feel the same way. Artists will not starve and waste away.

I'm still disgruntled about the Spotify thing, though.