Absurdity of Piracy

This weeks reading involved the issue of piracy in the digital age.  In Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture he delves into the issue of culture is formed by commercial and noncommercial means. Lessig points out that noncommercial culture has an impact on how the culture is formed and progresses.  He states that, “the ordinary ways in which ordinary individuals shared and transformed their culture—telling stories, reenacting scenes from plays or TV, participating in fan clubs, sharing music, making tapes—were left alone by the law.” Lessig sees that our very culture may be threatened due to, “This rough divide between the free and the controlled has now been erased.”

            Lessig fears that the newly established permission culture threatens to undermine “the right to build freely upon their past.”  This as a result threatens to take away the creativity of our culture, and the past times that the people enjoy. The inability to separate the commercial from the noncommercial acts of piracy has lead to problems within our culture.  According to Lessig, “The consequence is that we are less and less of a free culture, more and more of a permission culture.”  This effect threatens novice creators as they spread ideas that affect our culture.

            For instance the Colbert Report covered a story on the “Underground Piracy of Warren Michigan” headed by the pirating “kingpin” Fred-Merle.  Stephen’s hilarious satire of the events shows the problems that Lessig has worried about.  Here is a man who is in charge of running the “Polka Party” which is a public access program in Warren.  He decided to make some DVDs for the people who enjoyed the music and charged them 15 dollars per DVD.  This resulted in him being arrested and forced to pay $450 dollars to the court.  This is a driving point behind Lessig’s argument, as the lines between the commercial and noncommercial thin, the ability to charge someone for spreading a pastime such has polka has increased.  Before the age of the Internet people spread content fairly easily by recording a movie on vhs and giving it to a friend to enjoy.   Now due to the developing permission culture law enforcement is stepping in on the free culture and its ability to spread enjoyment, such as polka music.  This enforcement of the spread of culture with nearly zero financial implications are absurd and shows how irrationally the laws are now written.  If people are charged for spreading ideas then creativity will take a backseat to big corporation financial gains. According to Lessig, this “will also rid our culture of values that have been integral to our tradition from the start,” and no one in America wants to see that. 

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'Piracy' is an advertisement

           In his writing Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig examines the influence of piracy on the music industry and concludes that “not all piracy is wrong”. He defines piracy as an act that “robs the author of his profit” and argues that we tend to focus too much on the loss that piracy causes and ignore the benefits that it can bring to the industry.

           Lessig raises peer-to-peer (p2p) sharing as a predominant example for piracy. While he condemns the uses of p2p sharing as substitutes for purchasing content, he also suggests three other categories in p2p users. These include: one, to sample music before purchasing; two, to get a copyrighted content that is no longer available in the stores; three, to acquire contents that are not copyrighted at all. Lessig clearly reminds us that we are ignoring these three categories of users have brought many benefits to the music industry.

           Although Lessig focused mainly on p2p sharing, Youtube is not an exception. We, as viewers, can download the movie file from Youtube. Some tools even automatically convert the file into a MP3. In this way, Youtube is certainly a p2p sharing network because anything uploaded there can be downloaded to any viewer’s laptop.

          To make Lessig’s argument more clear, I would like to introduce an anecdote that I experienced this past month. As the past blogging shows, I am a big fan of the Japanese Rock band B’z. I have their CDs, posters, advertisements, postcards, photo albums and even their band scores. However, it is difficult to track all of their works since their debut in 1988. More importantly, I cannot get their works easily anymore since I am out of Japan since 2006. Naturally, what I did was to start relying on Youtube or other video sharing sites to see B’z’s performances. Thanks to their fame in Japan, many of their music videos are uploaded. One day, I found a music video, “静かな雨” (Shizuka na Ame or ‘Quiet Rain’) which was shot when the vocalist Koshi Inaba was on his solo project. It was a total new discovery for me at the time since I did not know much about the band members’ solo works. The song was impressive so now I have the CD in my room and, ironically enough, the music video was deleted by the label for ‘violating the copyrights issue’.

           When the labels worry about copyrights and piracy, they also lose their chances to advertise the artists’works to the three other categories of people that Lessig proposes. The CD I obtained was released on 2003 and is now barely found in any music stores in Japan. However, the CD was still sold only because the music video was uploaded on Youtube by the‘pirates’. The label may have not expected this to happen, but a college student who is thousands of kilometers away from Japan got the CD with the help of what they call ‘piracy’. If, as the music industry claims, p2p sharing is solely causing an economic damage my case would be an exact opposite of what they claim. Just as Lessig points out, ‘piracy’ can be beneficial and we are still underestimating the power of file sharing as an advertisement tool.

"Common sense revolts at the idea..."

Though at first we may be blind to it's impact, the vast medium of the internet has completely opened our eyes to new ideas and information in a way that is transforming our culture.  With websites such as youtube, reddit, and countless others, we are exposed to unlimited creativity.  Organizations, including one even as powerful as the current U.S. government, are frightened by the amount and content of information being freely posted on the internet.  Feeling threatened, these massively influential parties then attempt to intervene with the elusivity of cyberspace.  In Lawrence Lessig's book "Free Culture," he attempts to point out a "war" that is raging on between "piracy" and "property" (Lessig 13).  The two sides consist of those trying to maintain control over their work or property, be it physical or intellectual, and those who threaten that control.  He argues that this battle, to which most of society remains blissfully ignorant, will ultimately corrupt and horribly change the fundamental laws American culture rests on (13).

Lessig admits that although the technical changes made possible by the invention of the internet are outstanding, the impact it has made on our current culture should be given much more attention.  He disscusses two forms of culture: "commercial," being the part of culture that exists to be produced and sold, and "noncommercial," that being all remaining aspects of culture (7-8).  For example, a woman publishing poetry would be contibuting to commercial culture while an old man telling stories to kids would create noncommercial culture.  Lessig goes on to describe the change this noncommercial culture has overgone, "At the beginning... the law was never directly concerned with the creation or spread of this form of culture, and it left this culture 'free'... left alone by the law... the focus was on commercial creativity" (8).  The laws to protect artists left all the other forms of noncommercial culture (telling stories, making tapes, etc.) unregulated.  Yet now with the introduction of the internet, the "divide between the free and the controlled has now been erased" (8).

This erasure has shaped us into what Lessig coins a "permission culture" (8).  He means that in order to contribute to and/or critique the culture around us, we must first ask permission to do so.  This so-called  "permission" is usually granted to most of society, yet "it is not granted to the critical or the independent" (10). Organizations have now placed laws in order to stifle the critical, independent thinkers that threaten them, in turn, creating a form of nobility that is completely foreign to our fundamental culture.  Justified as a way to protect commercial creativity, it is not a protectionism employed to defend artists but rather certain forms of business (8-9).  Lessig's greatest worry is that if the battle between organizations, particularily the governemnt, and "free" thinkers  goes unchecked, there will be major damage to our society's rich tradition and culture (11).

Lessig is strongly against the actions of internet "pirates", yet feels that laws against them rid society of an integral component: the protection of creators from state control as listed by the 1st Amendment.  When the government feels threatened, it attempts to silence the independent parties who challenge them.  Currently, this struggle for control is perfectly displayed by the existence of the controversial site "Wikileaks".  The anonymous contributors behind it hacked into top-secret government documents/ reports and exposed them to the public.  A recent New York Times article (aptly named Wikileaks) describes the site's purpose and controversiality.  Fareed Khan begins,

"The once-fringe Web site, which aims to bring to light secret information about governments and corporations, was founded in 2006 by Julian Assange, an Australian activist and journalist... Wikileaks made its initial reputation by publishing material as diverse as documents about toxic dumping in Africa, protocols from Guantánamo Bay, e-mail messages from Sarah Palin's personal account and 9/11 pager messages" (Khan 1).

By publishing it's own material on dozens of servers around the globe, Wikileaks has grown more and more elusive and controversial.  It has remained untouchable from any government control due to the legal loop-holes the creators have discovered and thrived on.  The increase in information being posted on the site has threatened the order of the U.S. government by eluding it's dominion and defacing it's public image through the posting of disturbing, clandestine information.  Currently, the British government is involved in a legal battle with Wikileaks founder Julian Assange due to criminal allegations unaffiliated with the site (2).   Khan writes, "With Mr. Assange's arrest, the authorities he has reveled in provoking will have a new degree of control over his movements, though not necessarily over WikiLeaks" (2).  Although the government may now have influence over one of the site's key players, Wikileaks still remains.

This case of Wikileaks is an example of Lessig's ongoing battle of  property v.s. piracy.  Lessig describes the mentality of the government that Wikileaks is attacking when he declares that, "From the beginning, government and government agencies have been subject to capture.  They are more likely captured when a powerful interest is threatened by either a legal or technical change.  That powerful interest too often exerts its influence within the government to get the government to protect it" (Lessig 6). The "powerful interest" here is the government's control of secret information which the legal/technical change of Wikileaks has made public.  In a way, Wikileaks supports the idea that we have not yet fallen into Lessig's nightmare; that there is still some divide between freedom of speech and government interference in cyberspace.  The site has provided a change in how society can view startling information.   To maintain our culture's freedom, we must not allow those most threatened by these changes to use their power to change the law or the fundamental values of society.  If we let the government use their power to silence sites such as Wikileaks, we are damaging our culture and effectively adding fuel to the fire of ignorance.

Should we as society sit passively while laws inhibit our freedom and sweep information under the government's rug? In the words of Justice Douglas, "common sense revolts at the idea" (3).

R.I.P. Gavin's Job at Wendy's?

In American culture, our way of life is self-defined for its uniqueness, individuality, independence and freedom. Freedom is really a loose term today when we consider many of the restrictions that do not hold when bearing in mind the first amendment in the Bill of Rights of our U.S. Constitution. For those reading this blog, I hope and pray that the reader knows what the first amendment is or at least knows what it means.

“Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.”

When Americans self-define our culture, their explanation of freedom usually starts with the first amendment to the Constitution.

Today, Americans have the ability to express their “freedom of speech” through several different avenues especially with the popularity of the World Wide Web. Many users of the Internet write about what they want, show pictures publicly, deliver propaganda and also make videos. Lawrence Lessig’s book, Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity, questions the fact that copyright and permission issues in America that exist today are far more extreme and unwarranted comparatively to the days before the World Wide Web.While Lessig gives his reader examples pertaining to instances in culture that were believed and practiced to be free, his main argument is based on the idea that technology over the course of the twentieth century has affected American culture’s freedom and has turned into a more “permission culture.”

Everyday it seems as though we hear about another instance of copyright violation pertaining to illegal usage of songs or illegal usage of copyrighted video. Many make the argument that one’s usage of script such as books or magazines, songs, photos, and video is for small and personal use and should not violate copyright or anti-trust laws. It always seems though that we only ever hear about these violations when big money is involved. Who cares about a violation if it does not hurt a brand or its apparent company regarding future sales? Take for instance a friend of mind, Gavin Riley. Gavin is just like any college student user of the World Wide Web. He has a Facebook, he tweets, but more importantly he uses YouTube.Interestingly, Gavin was the first person that introduced me to YouTube as he was showing me a home video that he was now easily able to post online. However, a video that Gavin made recently pertains to Lessig’s idea of “permission culture.”

Basically, Gavin decided to make a humorous rap music video about the death of Sean Paul.The music video is creative and funny, but that is beside the point. In the video, Gavin is seen in a Wendy’s restaurant uniform behind a Wendy’s restaurant counter in Cockeysville, MD. Obviously, one can make the assumption that he was an employee at that establishment. A few weeks later Gavin received a letter from Wendy’s banning him from their restaurants and firing him in the process.

The video to date has about 7,000 hits, but compared to others videos online that is a relatively low number.Does Wendy’s really think 7,000 people is enough to slander their brand name as a popular fast foot restaurant? Last time I checked, they still seem to be in business. Is it right that Gavin was fired because a small segment of the video contains him in a Wendy’s restaurant as an employee? Only in society today would something like this happen. Think of all the Saturday Night Live skits that mock American brand names and products. There are too many to list! This TV show is seen by millions of people yet they did not face the repercussions that Gavin did. Wendy’s is a private enterprise and they can do as they please, however the company should have asked him to remove the video instead of firing him for a small issue. Lessig is right, “There has never been a time in our history when more of our “culture” was as “owned” as it is now.”