Piracy is good

Hi all! This be just a quick scratch in the ship's log 'afore I go cycling through the snow.

I do a hell of a lot of downloading of stuff these days. Illegally, of course. It now seems that the MPAA is suing search engines that provide links to bittorrent files (not the actual files themselves). And consequently there's been a lot of internet chatter about it. A comment in the isohunt forums made a rather apt analogy; it's like you're asked directions to the bank by someone, that person then goes and robs the bank, and you are arrested as an accessory. Although I suppose they will argue that a) you are aware they will rob it, and b) you are sending millions of people to do it every day. However, other good points have been made, such as the fact that just because a file says it is a particular movie/tv show, that in no way means that it is what it claims to be. There are innumerable false files out there that could actually contain perfectly legal content, and also files that could appear to contain non-copyrighted content that actually are pirated movies. The contention then, of course, is that in order to know for sure, someone has to download every single file to see whether it is illegal or not. Of course this is ridiculous, considering the millions of files available (a few dozen terabytes of data).

Anyway, instead of fighting the trend towards rapid direct distribution of audiovisual media, the industry should embrace it, as it is the new wave. If you want to hear an Australian professor's opinion, which I think is very sound, read this article. He basically presents a viable economic model for the new distribution system that keeps everyone happy and doesn't require that anybody sues anybody or even go out of business.

You can also download a video recording of the lecture, through bittorrent of course.

Cheers!