The new revolution you say? Pirates ... the kind who steal music and movies and TV shows? How can they be a revolution?
Well you might be a bit surprised my my response to this. I see internet piracy not as stealing, but as an answer to the world we now live in.
We in Western countries are under the illusion that we live in a democratic world. America especially. But we long ago lost our governments to those who can pay the most.
You might think "Yeah right" but this about this. Ipods, Ipads, Iphones ... all massively inferior products compared with other similar products on the market, but yet they have enjoyed massive popularity. Why? They have been cleverly marketed to the masses. So any company with enough money and a bit of luck can get the masses to do what ever they want. Buy a product, believe in a political candidate, give up their rights to security so that marketing companies can convince them to buy more ...
Think about the anti piracy policies before governments around the world. Not only does these laws give far reaching, probably illegal rights to certain governments to attack citizens of other countries, not only do they force the average Joe to give up too much privacy for so little gain, they also support the massive corporations supporting these bills with their massive bank balances. These bills are not designed for the protection of the people but the protection of those who's bank accounts are obscenely large.
Therefore internet piracy of copyrighted material I believe is no longer about getting something for free. I see it more as a rebellion against big business that is crippling and destroying this world, whether those who download content see it this way or not.
This world is dying from greed. The need to keep investors happy and sell more product at the expense of the world, the extravagant luxury that we enjoy in the west comes at a price. The demand for a new phone, TV, computer etc every year means that resources that are rare to begin with are heavily strained when billions of people are in demand for these products. In reality we don't need a new mobile phone every year. We could go years with the same phone until it broke. But we are sold the need for a new item every year with little thought to what happens to said discarded product.
But we are not discussing the wastefulness of society. Perhaps another post. We are discussing the revolution of piracy. See to produce a CD or a Bluray disk is ridiculously cheap. To upload a digital copy of a piece of media and store it on a server is even less. And yet we have to pay prices that are massively disproportionate to the true cost. Why? Because a long the way so many other people have their hand in the pot taking their part of the price.
So pirates have said enough is enough. Why should we pay for every tom dick and harry that wishes to line his own pockets before said item reaches us. Pirates are often happy to shell out for content once they have sampled it, they are often happy to pay for concert tickets or other merchandise.
But this is all over looked because pirates are perceived as thieves. I guess this could be true as the word pirate is a word for a thief. No one seems to care that pirates support artists in much greater ways than the sale of a few songs. So these corporations alienate the ones who they should be supporting. Especially when they fail to see that these people are the ones that could so easily take them down should they choose to give their money to another corporation.
Piracy is about saying that we the people will not be controlled by those with more money than sense. What about the artists you say. Well consider that most artists only make about 10% from the sale of an album or song. However they make much more from performing at a concert. I guess you wonder where the other 90 % of the sale of an album goes. Well it doesn't go to the artist but to suppliers. So the record label, the so called suppliers like itunes ... these are the people that really benefit from the content and artist produces. Not the artist.
So instead of lining the pockets of people who are already rich enough pirates decide that they don't want to have a part of that.
What about movies? Well I like to think pirates are encouraging the movie industry to better itself. Well we all hope for a better world because I have yet to see it. Now days people want a spectacle when they go to the movies. I certainly do. My TV at home does much better than any movie theatre. So if I go to the movies I want to see something amazing. Not another romantic comedy (by the way has been a very long time since a good one of those has been released) or something that can be spit out in five mins by the movie industry. If the movie industry wants my money they have to give me something to worth my money to go see. Especially at the prices they charge.
When the human race is faced with a dictator that they know at heart is wrong, the human spirit causes the people to rise. The people are rising, the people are already voting with their feet. Or their keyboards. They are saying that the current business models aren't working and demanding more. So are the corporations going to listen to us or are they going to label us thieves.
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