Monday, March 22, 2010

File Sneaks

So I hear they want to change the term piracy, as it is too " adventurous" a word [1]. Funny, I always thought piracy gave the impression of some cheap, scummy group of people but I guess we have to thank Johnny Depp for giving them some good PR.

How about "file sneaks"? For those who don't know, it's inspired by a much earlier term in the 1930s called "book sneaks". The publishing industry that time was looking for a "pejorative word for the book borrower, the wretch who raised hell with book sales and deprived authors of earned royalties." (The Late Age of Print, pg. 35)

Yes you read right. If you lent your book to someone, you are depriving authors of badly needed royalties, you dastardly thing.

Thankfully, this is not 80 years ago. And 80 years from now piracy and its enemies will be a historical relic. Remember all the complaints about radio killing album sales? Say what?

The copyright advocates (at least, those who advocate copyright in its present form) know they are losing. I'd say they are going down in a burning, sinking ship. It's not going to be survival of the fittest, but more like change or die. The future will be (mostly) free, thanks to piracy. Only those who can afford it and want to will pay for content. In the meanwhile, let the others enjoy their Photoshop CS3.

That's just my opinion, although me working on a book-length treatise in defense of file-sharing (a.k.a. piracy) probably has something to do with it.

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