There are no shortage of discussion threads and blog posts around the ethics of file sharing. Its no surprise to find another one on a blog called ‘Torrent Freak’. Unfortunately, I find a lot of the article on this seem to be an attempt to justify ‘illegal’ file sharing rather then an honest discussion about ethics.
Buying The DVD: Unhelpful And Unethical
It easy to discuss Creative Commons licensing when talking about articles, books, pictures, and even music. These mediums, in general, do not require much participation beyond that of the original creator. Sure, there are editors, producers, sound engineers, but in all of these things, you can get very far as a true DIY project. Thus, licensing it freely can be the creator’s decision.
Not so with television and movies. In the article above, King refers to ‘the creator’ often. But is there really a single ‘creator’ in film? Sure, Joss Whedon developed the idea for Firefly, but just think about how many people needed to be involved to produce the finished product. Who is the ‘creator’ here? I would suggest that everyone involved in the filming and production plays that role. As such, are they not all entitled to compensation? And therein lies the problem. The complexities of compensating so many people require some sort of organization. You have to deal with multiple unions, multi national financial considerations, insurance, and a myriad of other issues. The time and effort required for these productions is enormously expensive. I have read about how inflated movie budgets are, but they are not 90% inflated. If you are happy with low-budget movies, then that’s a different story. But the Hollywood blockbuster requires an entire infrastructure to create it. And therein lies the problem. You don’t like all the adds? You don’t want to have adds on the DVD? You don’t want to share the thing with people? So where does the money come from to pay the bill for the film, and the salaries of all the people involved? Suggesting that file sharing is a ‘protest’ against copywrite and DRM is crap. Its about watching a movie and not paying for it. And I personally don’t care what people do, but its dishonest to suggest that it has some ethical motivation.
If you truly want a different system, stop WATCHING Hollywood movies. Find a film that is freely distributed, watch that, and promote it. All you yahoos swapping Hollywood movies and yammering on about how ‘ethical’ it is are full of it. Sharing those movies is supporting the system just as much as buying them. All the money they get from product placement and cross marketing promotions? That’s still coming in.
If you truly care about digital freedom, go BUY an independent film, donate money to the creator, or engage in whatever type of commerce/compensation fits you view of how things should work. And let people know that they should go do the same thing so that the ‘creator’ can go buy groceries and make another film.
One last question: how many of torrent users have actually donated money to the guy who created BitTorrent? I did, and I hardly ever use the thing. If every Bit Torrent user donated $5, the guy would be RICH. And guess what? He’s not. Unfortunately, this scenario is often used to point out that people do not always put their money where their mouth is. So go give that guy a donation, and then come back to talk about the ethics of file sharing and how we need change.