Bittorrent Tracker ThePirateBay, has recently declared that it will be looking for a new country to operate out of. However, the news here is that ThePirateBay has elected to buy their own country instead of finding one with relaxed copyright laws.
They found SeaLand, a micro-nation who's sovereignty is in dispute, and launched the website BuySealand.com in order to try to raise funds to purchase it to the tune of 8 digits or more (10 million or more). However, the implication of such an action are clear: "We are the Pirate Bay, and we know what we are doing is illegal, so we are buying our own country to define our own laws". This is a far cry from their traditional defense of "We are not doing anything illegal".
The legality debate aside, the fundraising should be an interesting one to watch, with powerful social and ethical consequences if it succeeds.
Consider the implications of ThePirateBay being organically supported by a huge number of Internet users who would rather their money go to the for-profit PirateBay rather than into the hands of the original copyright owners of the video, music, books and software they are ultimately downloading through the PirateBay's service. The irony is that the same wired folks who are donating money, are the first to blow whistles when it comes to any copyright infringement against apple, web developers, and designers. Ethically, it seems Internet users have severe double standards.
My argument here is simple: We are seeing a trend to where intellectual property rights are decreasing in value, and becoming harder to enforce. This is party due to the widespread prevalence of piracy, but also because of the potential ability of services like the PirateBay to thwart governments and define their own laws.
Comments
i somewhat agree
i do agree that intellectual property rights are becoming increasingly difficult to enforce, but i think that the reason we're seeing so many IP battles is because of their importance.
for example, when the media industry discovered that their films and music could be easily copied, distributed and (in their minds) therefore stolen, they realized that their physical assets (video cassettes, tapes, cds) were meaningless. the discs and tapes were just a vessel for the media, the IP, the content that their musicians and screenwriters had created.
i think the big mistake that the media companies are making is thinking that they will be able to one day protect their IP. they want to enforce DRM so that people can't steal the content, when really they should be looking at it from the standpoint of ubiquity: if i was bmg, i wouldn't be thinking "how can we ensure that people are paying individually if they want our music", i would be thinking "how can we get our music out to every single person in the world, so that when people think 'damn, i love this track' they know it came from bmg." i really couldn't tell you which label JT is on, or for that matter who radiohead, the flaming lips, murs, little brother, or any of my other current favourites are with. i could guess, but i really don't know.
if i was aware that, say, universal had a bunch of acts that i liked, hell, i'd pay $100/year for a universal subscription. and if they made the service useful, with recommendations, file sharing, all that kind of stuff...their IP would be valuable by being inherently worthwhile, rather than being valuable because it's difficult to physically obtain.
whoa, i got off track. but my point is: IP is more important than ever, but as j said: difficult to enforce.
Thanks for your thoughts
Thanks for your comments.
I agree with most things you've stated. In actual fact, I think the biggest problem with protecting the intellectual property rights of musicians and artists is media accessibility.
Like you said, DRM is a bitch, makes switching devices almost impossible, and you have to go to several stores to get all the music you want to aquire.
That is why, in my opinion, services like Napster, eDonkey, and Bittorrent do so well. It is easy, you can find everything, and you can get things right away. That is partially the reason why iTunes does so well - they got the accessibility factor half right (The still have thick DRM in the end).
Sometimes I wish we could slap big media around and show them the light. But they have proven to be stubborn time and time again.
Thanks again,
J
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