The etymology of piracy

This was the second half of my reply to PaulC’s comment on my previous Pirate Bay post, but I thought it was an interesting enough thought to warrant it’s own post instead.

Taking something that doesn't belong to you is called theft. Thieves can be sympathetic individuals with all kinds of potential motivation. They could be nice guys with no job and eight kids. Stealing bread makes me a thief, because I took your stuff.

Declaring the unjustness of the government and saying "we're not English anymore" is called rebellion (not revolution). A rebel can also be sympathetic, depending on his motivation. A rebellion can be started "because taxation without representation isn't fair" or because a bunch of guys who want to be the new aristocracy want to stir up the public to make it happen (hmmmmm...). Saying "I don't live by your rules anymore" makes me a rebel.

The dissemination of intellectual property without compensation to its originator is not called "theft." It's not called "rebellion." It's called "piracy." Pirate = bad. There's no ambiguity. Pirates are drunkards and rapists who take what they want and will probably kill you to get it. They are motivated by greed 100% of the time. Making a backup copy of a movie to which I have bought the right to view makes me a pirate. Removing the copy protection from a computer game so I don't have to swap CDs every ten minutes makes me a pirate.

So because I'm guilty of what ought to be considered a "white-collar" crime (but I'm not taking anyone's money, no one’s life is being ruined because of me, and I don't drive a Porsche), I'm the same as those guys who hi-jacked that boat a couple months ago. I guess that makes sense, since they killed a bunch of people and stole a bunch of stuff, and I... killed a lot of... time. And I stole... umm... nothing. And I hurt... nobody. But because the government is a slave to the MAFIAA (their real name), who wants me to shell out fifty bucks every time I scratch a disc, I'm a pirate. I guess I should feel lucky they're not calling me an "intellectual property rapist."

Pirate Bay. Again.

This is getting ridiculous. Yesterday, thepiratebay.org was down for about three hours. That’s not ridiculous. They’re a target of anti-piracy propaganda and deal with all kinds of crap all the time. When they go down, I don’t think “TPB, get your act together.” I think “aw crap. Swedish anti-piracy vigilantes have won a huge court case that I somehow didn’t here about and TPB got whacked.” Then I google “thepiratebay” and the first three results always provide a reliable read on what really happened.

So what I read last night was this: a Swedish court ordered TPB’s ISP to cut their service. At this time I thought “this is getting out of hand.” They can’t touch TPB because TPB doesn’t do anything illegal, immoral or unethical, by any definition, so they go after their ISP for enabling them to enable criminal activity.

It turns out, that’s not what happened. There was a lawsuit. MAFIAA sued an ISP. But it wasn’t TPB’s ISP. It was TPB’s ISP’s ISP. From TPB’s blog.

Amen. This is the same (not similar, the same) as prosecuting Nike’s rubber-supplier’s rubber-farmer (rubber’s from a tree, right? So there gotta be rubber farms, right?) because the guy who kicked you in the face wore Nikes.

Okay. It’s not the same. It’s almost the same. The difference is that when you get kicked in the face, that wound on your head is what is called “actual damage.” When I download a movie or a video game from thepiratebay.org, there is “no damage.” I don’t download something I would otherwise pay for, and despite the propaganda to the contrary, I am convinced that my attitude is the prevailing one.

Anything I download from TPB falls into one of three categories.

1. I own it and want another copy for my own personal use. This includes “my Crackberry doesn’t have a DVD drive (Iron Man, Galactica episodes),” “this video game is copy-protected (Diablo 2, Warcraft 3),” and “I’m taking this to my parents’ house and they don’t have a blu-ray player (Iron Man, Watchmen, Wall-E).”

2. I’m getting it for free or I’m not getting it. This includes “they didn’t release this movie in region 1 and aren’t likely to (Color of Magic),” “I’m not paying money for something that’s probably going to suck, but if it’s free I’ll give it a fair shot (GI Joe, Crank 2),” “you just can’t find this anymore. Even on EBay (Warcraft: Orcs and Humans, Diablo, Starcraft licensed expansions, old Disney movies),” and (my favorite) “this was never actually made commercially available, and never will be (Warwick Davis’ RotJ film project, Starcraft: Ghost, unaired episodes of… you name it).”

3. I’m going to buy it, but haven’t yet. This includes “This movie isn’t released until next month (Two Towers),” “This movie hasn’t been released in region 1 yet (Hogfather, Wyrd Sisters, Color of Magic),” and “I’m not paying 50 bucks for that. What if it sucks? (Sims 3, Dawn of War 2, Diablo 2, Starcraft, Warcraft 3, Jedi Knight 2, Jedi Academy, C&C Renegade, Fable, Sim City 4, Morrowind, Red Faction 2, Half-Life, half-Life 2, Supreme Commander, all of which I now own legally, and all bit two of which I would not have bought if I had not pirated them first)”

So, getting back to the story: MAFIAA sued TPB’s ISP’s ISP, because they enable someone else to enable thepiratebay.org to provide a service that can be used in a manner that is decidedly illegal.

Let’s be clear. Joe Public breaks the law when he uses TPB’s tracker to find someone from which to download something he’s not supposed to have. TPB is a service with a myriad of legal uses. There is an ISP that sells them bandwidth. That ISP is not Black Internet. Black Internet is the company that sells bandwidth to the ISP that sells it to TPB. Black Internet is also the company that was ordered to shut down access to TPB.

An airplane crashed last week, so GE should stop making LEDs.