Love in the Time of Piracy; or, Wash Your Mouth Out with SOPA

            I stay away from divisive subjects such as politics, sports fanaticism, and “Teen Mom” like a 1^st century aristocrat stayed away from commoners; I’ll deal with them as I have to but shoo them away and steer clear whenever possible. I am way too argumentative and self-righteous to get into a discussion on such subjects and not offend someone or simply paint myself as a conceited prick, so I have found that, in the best interest of everyone, I should not weigh in on such issues. I’ve become less informed in many areas as a result. I don’t honestly know how I feel about OWS or tax brackets or whether or not Kim Kardashian’s butt is real. What I do know about, however, is music. More specifically, the piracy of music. I am a card-carrying member of what.cd and Demonoid and have exchanged more GBs of mp3s than I care to admit. So, naturally, I have some interest in the SOPA and PIPA developments that have dominated headlines recently.

I am choosing to ignore the two most obvious reasons to oppose SOPA and PIPA- 1) the revocation of due process with totalitarian censors superseding the proper channels and 2) the stifling of information and creativity- because I feel like those points are so self-evident that they don’t need to be argued; plus, people who are far smarter and more well-informed than me have made better arguments anyway (for instance, in a :::TED talk:::). If you want to hear about how SOPA seems better suited for China or North Korea, I am sorry friend, but I cannot oblige.

Rather, I want to focus on the benefits of piracy for everyone, and what has prompted me to weigh in on these divisive subjects is a metaphor I recently read that combines my two passions: basketball and music. Matthew Yglesias from Slate said “Online piracy is like fouling in basketball. You want to penalize it to prevent it from getting out of control, but any effort to actually eliminate it would be a cure much worse than the disease.” Let me break down the basketball part of that metaphor for you all. There are three main parties in a basketball game- the referees, the players, and the fans. Referees want to be more lax on some calls and stricter at other times to control the tone of the game and keep things fair, safe, and competitive. When tensions get too high on the court, refs will call the game closer to prevent fights and injuries from occurring. Fans want the games called in the same fashion because if the entire game was called with strict enforcement, everyone would pussyfoot up and down the court and there would be no competition or spectacle, while if the game were called too leniently, the game would become sloppy and fans would become enraged at the constant physical punishment their team was taking. Players want the game called this way for similar reasons, because it offers them some freedom to play harder on defense and draw fouls on offense, and with a 5-6 “strike” system, they are only harshly punished if they fail to operate within this realm of flexibility.

(On a personal note, in all of my 10+ years of playing league basketball, I always prided myself on ending a game with only 1-2 fouls called against me. I thought that this meant I had played quality defense. It wasn’t until recently that I realized that the best defenders have at least 3 fouls called against them each game, typically 4-5 in the NBA. Having any less means you aren’t taking the necessary risks to play aggressively; anymore and you are playing recklessly.)

So what does this say about online piracy? The refs are the lawmakers and law enforcement agents. To pass SOPA will strain their departments, increase the demand for tax money, and cause massive public outrage including from some of the biggest names in the world like Google and Wikipedia. I can almost guarantee that this outrage will lead to some congressmen failing to be reelected; it is in their best interest to keep the people that vote for them happy, even if they seem not to realize it at times. When you are a ref it is your job to call fouls, certainly, but you have to do it in such a way that it keeps the game balanced and keeps the players and fans happy.

The fans are obviously the millions of Americans that watch YouTube or read the Oatmeal or download music. They are the ones that want entertainment, fair entertainment, the kind that keeps the players playing at their best and the excitement at the optimum level. There’s a misconception that the typical Internet user maniacally sits at their computer finding every way possible to undermine copy written material. Really, we just want to get a taste of everything so that we can make an informed decision on how to spend our money and time. Just as no fan would respect a game with a bunch of brawlers in it (see: The Brawl at the Palace of Auburn Hills), no fan will go to see a game with every derivation in the rules called. You wouldn’t be able to have a single possession where traveling, carrying, or illegal contact wasn’t called; there would be no point. Nobody wants an Internet where the most heinous violators go unpunished, but we certainly don’t want an Internet where we can’t watch a video of a panda sneezing because there happens to be a Coke can in the frame. And when we see something that we like, we want to support it, such as media from a particular artist, director, or writer. We realize that, if we want to continue enjoying such content then we must pay what the creator deserves to receive.

The players are the content providers and industry professionals: writers, producers, directors, musicians, marketing directors, actors- anyone who stands to lose a buck through piracy. But are they really losing a buck when their content is “stolen”? In a narrow view, yes. Record sales have been way down since 2000 and the movement to digital media began. Services like iTunes, Pandora, and Rhapsody helped to reduce the hemorrhaging, but record companies’ profits have continued to fall and jobs have been lost. And as a lover of music and of people devoting their lives to working in a great industry that they love, that does make me sad. But the truth is that, while it has hurt the music industry by the numbers, file sharing is the greatest thing to happen to the music medium since the phonograph (which also underwent a similar battle since some thought it would detract from the sale of live performances; I don’t think anybody today would argue it was actually bad for the music industry). Musical creativity is at its zenith, and artists that had no chance to thrive before music hit the Internet are reaching unimaginable audiences. Record sales are way down, this is true, but live music has been revitalized. The record industry has failed to adapt to this paradigm shift, so now they are attempting a Hail Mary through congress. And when I say “record industry,” I mean the big labels, not the independent ones that are doing fairly well by contrast.

The film and video game industries are good examples of creative mediums finding love in the time of piracy. Both have put up record-setting numbers recently (film through Avatar, video games through MW3), and continue to post big numbers by putting out quality content, converting films to 3D to increase profit margins, clever marketing, keeping tighter control over their digital in the fledgling stages when most sales occur, and, yes, bringing the worst piracy offenders to prosecution.

I download music. A lot of music. I feel guilty at times, but I know that I am pouring a ton of money into the music industry because of my approach to piracy. If I have downloaded music that I like, I always make the effort to see the artist when they come around on tour and to buy their next album. For example, as I type this I am listening to a song by The National that I downloaded, illegally, while looking at three ticket stubs from the concerts I’ve seen them at, legally, and wearing a shirt that I bought from them, legally. O, and there’s a record of theirs somewhere around here; it’s legal too. I had no idea who they were prior to a friend telling me to download their album; now, I’ve poured somewhere around $150 into them, $150 that I never would have spent before, $150 now oiling the cogs of the music industry.

There is a reason why the largest record labels and artists are the ones hurt in all of this mess: they put out a terrible product. Independent labels are putting out special collector’s editions and merchandise bundles with artfully crafted CD and LP cases with music by artists who have thoroughly vetted their material and take pride in producing good music; the big labels are putting together CDs and songs that have been produced not by artists but by focus groups and selling them with a business model created in the 1990s.

I’m not trying to argue that pirating media is ethically OK; it’s not. What I am trying to say is that to drop a nuclear bomb on the Internet is not the answer to the problem. It wouldn’t solve the problem anyway- there is no way to get rid of media piracy completely, short of dissolving the Internet in its entirety. More than that, though, what I am trying to say is that the problem is gravely misunderstood. The problem isn’t the existence of media piracy; the problem is that we haven’t settled into a mutually beneficial middle-ground. I truly believe that there is a point where piracy produces increased revenue and artistic growth, not one or the other, and that piracy can be enforced without infringing on our basic rights. We’ve all seen glimpses of it; we’re getting closer every day. We just need to keep playing the game. Because when the fans lose their bloodlust, when the refs figure out how to control the ebb and flow of the action, when the players learn to play in the system and thrive off of the fans, then we are going to have one hell of a game- for everyone involved.

UPDATE: SOPA was pulled less than 24 hours after I posted this, which either means that I am a day late and a dollar short OR I have single-handedly saved this country from falling into tyranny. Your call.