Producer’s Advocate

I pirated Windows XP when I built my first computer during high school. I went about it with the attitude of “it’s not a good thing to do, but I need an OS and the chances of being caught are slim.” I propped my choice up with the hollow rationale that I’d begin paying for software when I could afford to do so. That’s turned out to be true, but looking back on it now it’s amazing to consider the gulf in attitudes toward physical goods and “virtual” ones, ie software and web services.

Growing up with Napster and Kazaa, I worked the instant gratification switchboards with all the rest of my peers.This made sense to me for a variety of reasons, mainly that it’s tough to afford a $200+ operating system when you’re a high school sophomore. At the time, nobody I knew was being targeted by the authorities or the publishers with rights to the pirated content. It seemed harmless enough. The difference between me and most of my peers was the attitude we held toward what we were doing. I downloaded with the knowledge that what I was doing was fundamentally wrong. By contrast, my friends went about their downloading with an air of self-righteousness. They didn’t see what they were doing as tentamount to taking physical wares off of a store shelf. Instead, piracy became an ideology, the empty vessel into which they channeled all their hatred of profit-making.

All the timeless money-hating canards filled the halls at my school. “They have so much money already, and with the prices they charge for CDs they owe us a break!” Over time, the same basic sentiment began to emerge from professional journalists. Witness the media’s glee over Microsoft getting slapped with a lawsuit for having the audacity to make sure that you aren’t stealing Windows. Last I checked, Microsoft hired the programmers and made them comfortable in nice offices and paid for their healthcare and funded their retirement and rewarded them with bonuses and implemented schedules for the OS that still powers most of the networked world. The world at large has no fundamental right to steal it, nevermind hide the fact that they stole it. Still, the anti-business press relishes in the possibility of some trial lawyer sticking it to Microsoft. The lawsuit likens the company’s anti-piracy technology to spyware. For an idea of how dumb that is, round up a few people who’ve been infected with CoolWebSearch or Xupiter or Look2Me and ask them how they think it compares to Genuine Advantage.

In the eyes of the courts and public opinion, the consumer is almighty and infallible.The rights of producers are always an afterthought. In any conflict between the two, the assumption is always that the big rich corporation is involved in some obstruction of market justice, ie, price fixing or various other screwjobs that us Average Joes can’t possibly avoid. The elite media never allows for the possibility that “The People” (defined as non-businesspeople) are wrong. To me, this is a monstrous injustice. Microsoft has just as much right to protect its products as you have to protect your home against unwelcome intruders.

Anyway, the content owners aren’t angels either. I don’t think it’s terrribly bright to sue random webs of people or chase senior citizens who don’t even own computers. I agree that there are far worse things in life than downloading “Grillz” by Nelly. I could live with some degree of piracy if people didn’t approach it with the sense of entitlement that they do. In all, I will say this. Software/content piracy will always exist. But those who do it need to take off their rose-colored glasses. There is nothing good or noble about theft no matter how innocuous it seems online.

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