I have never bought a movie or album online, ever but I listen to music online everyday and I’m a massive film buff. This is a blog that is publicly available and no doubt an employer will peruse one day so I’m going to self censor myself now.
Is it wrong to share what you own with whoever you want to? Billion $ conglomerates will tell you with a straight face that sharing what you own is wrong . Before the internet we shared our VHS and cassette tapes with our friends/family and it fine and had a negligible impact on the profits of content providers. The Pirate Bay allowed us to share our property with the whole world, suddenly profits fell and sharing was illegal. Once I purchase a product I have every right to give it to whoever I like, this is a fundamental concept of private property ownership.
I have just started my dissertation and I have struggled to find open access journals to do my research. Paywalls are denying knowledge to an overwhelming majority and holding human progress in check. At the time of writing Charlie Mason has covered this, so check it out.
Open access content allows creators to reach a bigger audience faster, for the younger generation cost of content is the major deterrent to access, driving these people to P2P websites. CreativeCommons, YouTube and Twitch.tv are prime examples of free content creating exposure and knowledge within the legal framework. Smosh and PewDiePie are millionaires because open access has allowed them to reach a vast audience according to the WallStreetJournal.
If content is blocked or behind paywalls then knowledge and experiences aren’t shared, ignorance reigns. The internet is egalitarian, its liberty and freedom and these core tenets are strengthened through open access.
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVzYXF_8P50&list=UUs97UEat_B3g9g_yVIMfAkw
- http://www.wsj.com/articles/SB10001424052702304887104579306440621142958
- http://www.gamespot.com/articles/youtube-video-game-star-pewdiepie-earns-4-million-per-year/1100-6420544/
- http://www.wsj.com/articles/youtube-star-plays-videogames-earns-4-million-a-year-1402939896
- http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/jun/27/half-of-all-british-children-believe-online-content-should-be-free-study
You're Inside My Head 
Hello!
Nice blog, I liked your blog although I felt that you portrayed only one side of the argument of whether online material should be free. Perhaps if you could have included a bit about why content should maybe not be free, it could have helped a reader reading your blog get a wider perspective on the matter. Which brings me to ask you about your thoughts on academic literature and whether you think this should be free to read or not. Do you not think that scientists should be rewarded for their research by charging those who want to use their information? But wouldn’t this maybe discourage students from wanting to read these studies!
I really liked your comment of how, before internet, we shared video tapes and cds. This got me thinking why there is such a change now in terms of charging people for sharing property. I guess its because before, you were simply lending your property to someone, knowing it would be returned. Now, if you share your property online, people don’t need to give it back.
Thanks,
Freya
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I’m really sorry Freya, I had replied to your feedback yesterday but it doesn’t seem to have gone through.
I only presented one side of the argument because it is the perspective I have and I want to people to think from my point of view. On the corporate media we never/rarely get to hear this side of the argument and if we do it’s marginalized.
Scientists get a vast majority of their income from research grants and stipends provided by a university or private research organisation or the government. A lot of the times scientists and universities have to pay to publish in journals because it is considered a professional achievement if you manage to publish a paper in a peer reviewed journal. Science is for the benefit of all mankind and must not be restricted. Besides, breakthroughs don’t occur in the sciences on their own, researchers always build upon the work done before by their peers and progress is incremental. If we block access to journals behind pay-walls it is not an exaggeration to say that we slow down human progress.
Hope this answers your question!
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I agree that once you purchase a product you may “give it to whoever” you like. However, I think there is a crucial point here, in “giving” and “copying”. If you bought something physical, such as a cake, you could give that away and it would be your right to do so, but if you could keep your cake and yet give also give the cake to a friend, you would surely rather do this. This then devalues the cake, as your friend either gets a cake for free, or both of you only pay half, whereas the cake-maker receives one payment. Excuse the metaphor, but I think a similar thing happens with music when it is shared openly. Do you agree that thinking of electronic files as tangible objects makes file sharing seem less ethical?
Live music performances seem to be the best bet for making real profits!
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Thanks for the feedback Jess,
I prefer to think of it as sharing not copying. One of the observations I made was that sharing was okay so long as the corporations felt that the market for sharing was restricted to friends and family. The internet smashed these boundaries making a dent in their profits. The producers aren’t losing money, the recent hack of Sony revealed that for every $1billion spent the company makes a profit of $500million which is absolute killing! The artists aren’t making as much money as before but they make more than enough to live luxuriously and as you said the real profits are in live performances. In a way PirateBay and it’s ilk have made the artists work harder for their money and be more productive. The cake analogy is good but largely irrelevant because in the digital sphere physical limitations don’t apply and lack of tangibility make the sharing process much more morally acceptable. The creator suffers but to a modest degree. Thinking of digital music as tangible will most likely make people think twice but the fact is that the genie is out of the bag and the younger generation (as mentioned in the guardian article I linked to) already think that online content should be free and shared.
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I thought the statement you raised about “Once I purchase a product I have every right to give it to whoever I like” was very intriguing. However after some deliberation it came to my attention that there are laws in place against people doing this online. Peer to peer sharing (essentially what torrents are – which are hosted on The Pirate Bay) of copyrighted content is illegal. “Under copyright law, it is illegal to download or share copyrighted materials such as music or movies without the permission of the copyright owner” (http://www.washington.edu/students/gencat/policy/p2pshare.html). I assume this would superseed the law about private property that you mentioned. So it would appear that you shouldn’t have the right to share your digital downloads with others on the internet, unless given explicit permission. However please let me know if I have interpreted this law incorrectly!
Thanks, Dom
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Cheers for the comment Dom,
You are correct, what I’m doing is illegal and banned. But consider who made the law, it was done through lobbying by organisation set up by megalithic corporations whose only interest is to generate profit. Private property rights are fine only so far as they don’t threaten unfettered capitalism. Putting a law on the statute books doesn’t make it right, this law encroaches upon our rights. In the guardian article i linked to in the post it shows that young people consider that online content should be free as a point of principle.
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