Pros of Piracy

You may think that piracy is a terrible thing. This is true if you have only heard one side of the story, as most people have. Even several people that do admit to downloading music illegally feel some sort of remorse for doing so. In reality, they are actually helping out the artists by spreading their music. Couple that with the fact that piracy isn’t exactly stealing and piracy doesn’t seem as dark as it was portrayed while only hearing one side of the argument. 

For the most part, people who download music illegally tend to share their musical discoveries with friends and colleagues. This is certainly true for me, as I am constantly trying to get my friends and roommates to listen to something that I found. This music sharing can turn into profits for the artists. Sharing leads to bigger exposure and the more people that are exposed to something, the greater the chance that the product will sell. Whether this product is a CD, record, a tshirt or even just some stickers, the artist will see an increase in sales if they are open to people pirating their work. A case to back this up is when Radiohead’s Kid A leaked a few months earlier onto the file sharing network Napster. When Kid A was finally released it reached number one on the Billboard Top 200 chart. This was odd considering Kid A was a change in sound for Radiohead, transitioning to a more experimental electronic sound whereas their latest album OK Computer followed their typical rocky Britpop sound. While Radiohead had already attracted a huge following of listeners by the release of Kid A it is doubtful that the album would have charted as well as it did without any sort of leak. There are a tons of bands that support piracy for this reason. Check out this interview below with Touché Amoré for their few on piracy. The bit is around the 7:45 mark.

A lot of people look down upon piracy because they see that it is the same as theft. Piracy is not theft. Piracy is piracy. In fact, when pirating something that is digital, nothing is stolen. Piracy makes a copy of the original. If something is copied, it is technically not stolen. This is the mindset of people that frequently pirate music. They feel that if something is intangible that it cannot be stolen. The picture below explains this set of ideals better. 

Another reason why piracy is a good thing is because it is really the last form of rebellion in today's society. Most forms of past rebellion would surely land you in jail today, and if you avoid jail, you still have to deal with the kind of police force that the protestors of OWS are dealing with. It is especially important now to protest with the possible passing of the Stop Online Piracy Act. If this bill ends up being passed, the Internet as we know it will be radically different. This act alone would infringe on our rights to free speech, and there would be nothing we could do to stop it once it has passed. Take a look at this poster that several universities are passing around their campuses. 

There is another side to every story. There are some positives about piracy, but there are also many negatives to it as well. I will let James discuss the negatives of piracy in his next post.

Thanks for reading,

-Zack