A Disconnect of the Law and Ethics in Estonia

Copyright and piracy debates rage this week in the small Baltic country of Estonia.  In the article, Estonia calls BSA's IP enforcement report a 'modern protection racket', writer Cyrus Farivar reports on the tense relations between the Estonia, its users, and BSA and the International Intellectual Property Alliance.  According to Farivar, the BSA and International Intellectual Property Alliance listed Estonia as a “special mention” in its annual report released in February.  In a country where illegal software downloading is a widespread occurrence amongst its 1.3 million citizens, the BSA decries what it describes as lax Copyright enforcement in the country.  In their report, the BSA complains that criminal enforcement of IP laws was too weak: “(1) it is a low priority of the government; (2) [there] is a lack of resources; and (3) [there is] a lack of proper training of and competency by law enforcement authorities.” On the other hand, Elver Loho—the deputy head of nonprofit Estonian Internet Community—claims that the strict IP enforcement desired by BSA, “is a modern protection racket.”  He claims that many Estonians turn to piracy since many licensed and copyrighted material cannot be acquired through any legal means.  Citing the countries small size and excessive copyright protection, Loho says that service providers are hindered from successfully negotiating for licenses that include Estonia.
         
 The debate surrounding internet piracy and copyright protection is a widespread and complicated issue, but the unfortunate situation in Estonia described in Farivar’s article brings to mind some specific cases from the chapter “Piracy,” from Lawrence Lessig’s book Free Culture.  In this chapter, Lessig delves into the idea of internet piracy, what its roots are and what exactly we mean when we say it.  In an attempt to be more precise, Lessig divides the umbrella term of “piracy” into several different categories.  In category A, “are [people] who use sharing networks as substitutes for purchasing content.” In category B, “are some who use sharing networks to sample music before purchasing it.” In category C, “are many who use sharing networks to get access to copyrighted content that is no longer sold.” Finally in category D, “are many who use sharing networks to get access to content that is not copyrighted or that the copyright owner wants to give away.”  The interesting part is the situation of the Estonian users does not comfortably fit into any of these categories.  The closest approximation that one could fit the alleged pirates of Estonian into would be category C.  While the material that they are trying to access is still being sold, content is not legally accessible.  According to Lessig and the law, only type D is actually legal.  On the other hand, Lessig states that only type A pirates are clearly unethical.  It is easy to see that we find ourselves in a similar situating in Estonia.  By the letter of the law, the citizens are committing an illegal act.  Unfortunately considering their situation, these same users have nowhere legal to go to get the content they desire, and thus prosecuting them and enacting stricter IP enforcement is clearly unethical.  Although Lessig offers no definite solutions to the disconnect between law and ethic such as these, it seems pretty clear that more restriction and enforcement of copyright laws is not the human direction to take for the small country of Estonia.