The two sides and their instincts

So, I am back from whatever I was doing instead of blogging. Todays subject will be regarding the war between file shares and the music industry. Well, everything I write about it's about it, but I will focus on spreading some lights over the puzzle.

As I wrote about before, the actors on the copyright part, is acting like an animal. Which shouldn't see as something wrong. Stupidity and uncivilized maybe, but not wrong nor surprising. For it's acting is on the very basic level of humanity: survival and security. Survival is one of the most fundamental instinct. In the end, it's survival to spread your own genes forth. We all know this so there is no need for a deeper biological lesson. However, it's important to not forget that our society is crawling with these instincts. No matter how much we try to form our world around us to the better, we cannot, in this time, change our own animal behaviour.

Now, what really does this has to do with the ones trying to make laws like IPRED(antipiracy law) a reality in Sweden? Everything. These folks are currently making a living on distributing physical(and some non-physical) art to the people. They see filesharing as a threat to their way of putting food on the table(if it's true matters little). They don't care to try to see it on other perspective, they want what the know works(more about the security later). When you encounter something that you find as a threat it's hard, and for some people, impossible to change that view. No matter the logic, the scientifical facts or the arguments that exist: they will continue see at the filesharing as something bad.

Personally, I think history has shown several time the two only cure to this problem. Either wait until they are no longer with us(old way was really to kill them) or force them into the new thing. Now, in our world, where the change comes everyday and, hopefully, we are advanced enough to stay away from murdering each other, this option isn't plausable. Secondly, forcing people into something rarely works. It mostly just make them even more against whatever they are forced into. That is, if they are aware of it of course. There are many examples in the world where people are forced into a certain way without knowing it, for several reason; (1) the childhood forces them into beliving a certain way, (2) society has made them believe this or that is the certain way or (3) it's what works best with their instincts. For this case, with filesharing and the music industry, it's the third one that crashes. For both sides.

It might be hard to understand why people who are against filesharing act as they do when you have grown up in the opposite. I know, it's the same for me. However, understanding this might not be powerful enough to change the situation. And to get everyone to understand it won't be possible. We are far from as civilized as we would like to wish. The instincts you know, for now, they are here to stay. As for the filesharing people, do they behave in this way due to survival? Yes, but not in the exact same way. Most of them have grown up with filesharing. Having the possibility to reach most form of art within minutes, or at least in a couple of hours forms your life. Now, there is another need that is a part of survial. Security and stability of your life. Much of our life, especially when you reach an older age, is all about rutins. For us, the fileshares, it's a deeply entangled part of our life to be able to get access to copyright protected material, as for example: music.

There are always degrees of how much these two instinct works. There are artist that fully support filesharing and fileshares who do their best to pay as much as they can. What I painted up are the two major sides. But what do we end up with? One side, that struggles for their(imaginary) survival and another side that fight to keeps it's way of life. The Americans for example, use the phrase "defending our way of life" to justify several of their action. It's a strong argument.

Now to the interesting part. I have a theory, that the masses of people are the one holding stronges to the more extreme and stubborn way and the one that are more deeply involved have a finer way of looking at things. And this falls true for the leading figures when it comes to filesharing. They are fully aware of that a society that takes everything and gives nothing back would never work. But they see the problem, they are aware of it, and in this case, the copyright laws. They aren't adapted and optimized for the technology; and for many people, their way of life. They want to change it, make it better for the two only parts that really counts, the artist and the customer.

However, the opposite part doesn't. They are going all out in an attempt to save their income. Here does my theory fall short, but it wasn't much of a theory anyway. This is what creates the deadlock. But thanks to the possibility with internet this deadlock isn't complete. For as I said, this is just for the majority, there are other actors who are willing to adapt and learn the new things.

But this is where I think the problem currently is. The antipiracy folks inability to go against their instincts. With time, these people will be removed from the power, and the newer generation will enter with it's more modern and updated way to look at things. But do we really want to wait that long?

There is a third actor which I didn't take into this blogg entry. That is the state, who gets between fileshares and antipiracy cooperations. They are not important in this matter since they are only being on the strongest side. Currently, as we can see here in Sweden, it's the antipiracy. The laws they are trying to impose on us, the people, are nothing but a result of the antipiracy lobbying(also called power). In many aspect we are here in Sweden a democracy, but do never forget, that it's still people who make the decisions, and they work in the same way as everyone else does.