Today I asked myself: "why do I keep thinking and bothering about the 'war' that currently is between file-sharer and the antipiracy cooperation’s?” It has been in the back of my mind all day long. Large part of my time is consumed with file sharing and its current situation. As it looks right now there are but one winner, the lawyers who will get the job to sue people.
If we take the consumers, they will earn nothing on this (especially referring to IPRED). They are the one that will take the hardest hit. Not only will they be randomly attacked by the lawyers and their logs of sharing(in some case, as we know, faked or tricked; tricked in that way that others use fake IP's or their wireless network). This will also attack their loyalty to certain artist or any company who deals with creating art in all its various kind. One may automatically think this only affects the companies, but that isn't right. The reason is that a person with a loyalty will create a special bond with that creationist. This bond is of partly emotional, a desire which not only may satisfy the customers need but also to help that creationist. To refer to myself, one creationist I deeply admire and want to support to full length is Blizzard. No other creationist has been even close to the satisfaction and entertainment Blizzards game has given me.
Another thing about the consumers is of democratic quality. We are here in Sweden has to learn that democracy is something of the highest value. And this is completely true, like Churchill said “democracy is the worst form of government, except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time”. It is bittersweet but it the best we humans can create for now. But a democracy (with Robert Dahl’s work in mind) requires that its people believe in it. The current situation is that even through an uprising of bloggers, over 60 000 thousand protesting against it on Facebook and six out of eight of the youth parties are against it. Through serious research done by a project called Music Lesson with several respected professors and scientists have shown us that there is a “magic limit” when it comes to file shares. This age is thirty five, but this report is a few years old and this limit may have been moved. But we can generalize that most people today under this age know how to and does it, that is, file sharing. Internet is in this people’s nature (generally I try to avoid the word nature, but in this case I cannot find any other fitting word). Resulting in thinking: that the trust and believe in democracy may take a serious hit amongst the younger people. Even if I cannot prove it, I do believe it’s most certainly true. And that is something which might be much more damaging then the harmful file sharing currently occurring.
Lastly, there is the law. There have been many arguments going around this, and the one closest to the truth, in my opinion, is Lawrence Lessig. In this current moment I cannot completely recall his words, but he helped me in my thinking. First, file sharing isn’t, by technical definition, stealing. To steal something is to take away something from another person. One takes control over a certain thing, which has at least one quality: it has a physical shape. No matter how you put it, you cannot ever steal anything which is immaterial. Because stealing must involve one factor, that one person looses something. Now, if my memory is correctly, Lessig agrees on this, but he adds the value. I will get back to this soon but first I need to describe what file sharing is if it isn’t stealing. It’s as exactly what the file-shares says: it’s copying. When a person download a music file over the internet, his computer scan that files structure and then rebuild it exactly the same on his computer. Thus, downloading isn’t stealing; it is nothing but a copy with perfect quality.
Back to Lessig and value, for when a person download a file, he or she copy something that might have a value for someone else. Now, this is the problem, not the copying. For this value (this goes for material things also, but aren’t of relevance here) differs between artist and the consumers. As for the artist: the creation has a personal value, from no value to invaluable. This also applies to the consumer, we all rate music, movies, games and all kind of arts. But due to economical forces today, neither the artist nor the consumer has the possibility to change the value into currency. We are forced to play by the rules, which aren’t created by any of these two actors. With the enormous flow of creations, especially when it comes to movies and music, the file shares quickly learn that most of it has little or zero value to them.
This places them in a hard situation with few options: (1) download whatever they might think are of interest. The consumer will then decide if it has enough value to them and then tries to repay by buying the physical exemplar of the product. This may build up the loyalty and the next time, the consumer may buy the product before ‘trying it out’. However, if the product value isn’t high enough to match the price, the file sharer will either delete it save it, but the feeling of loyalty or the feel to help the creationist isn’t there. (2) Is simple: just download everything that the person wants and doesn’t care at all of supporting the creationist, no matter how high the consumer feels of the product. (3) Take the chances, buy the product and hope that is gives enough value for the person. If it does, it was a success, if it wasn’t, the consumer will become more reluctant to redo the expensive process. This is a bit of a paradox: according to our theories, with increased competition there will be a reduction in the prices. But we know that, for example, music prices have increased and that is above the inflation (the reason for this is another chapter). However, with the increased competition it has become more difficult to reach the level of value amongst the consumers that makes them want to own the product legally.
Now, what does this has to do with the law? Well, through research we know that the number one is the mostly common one of the younger generation (remember, magic limit at thirty five). We also know that the first one is stimulating the economy, for they spend on average more money on art then the two others. But it is illegal. These people are knowingly breaking the law (and so does the option two people). Again, this is people under the age of thirty five. They have grown up with no reluctant breaking this law. Also, to make thing even worse, with the IPRED-law we are giving private cooperation’s the ability to act as enforcer. Not only are young people growing up with less confidence and trust in the law but also with private cooperation with the right to enforce the laws. This is something I would never want the upcoming generation to experience. For may lead to consequences with few similarities in history.
I won’t discuss the two other options, for they aren’t of much relevance right now. But they are of course important as they play a role in this.
This are a few ways the consumers (and society) in whole will be affected by this war between file-shares and antipiracy cooperation’s. I shall soon describe how the artist and companies looses on this war. For no one is actually unaffected by this, we all live in a society depending on the information flow through internet.
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