Piracy

It's been painfully ironic to learn that many software developers have few scruples about pirating software. You'd think that here, in one's own field, what Walter Kaufmann has called the “negative Golden Rule” would find easy application -- do not do unto others what you would not want them to do to you. If only.

A host of rationalizations are adduced to “justify” the practice: software is said to be – in a way which insinuates some kind of intentional fleecing -- “too expensive;” the injured parties are “only corporations” (as if, granted the moral pitfalls of absentee ownership, it isn't the case that corporations are staffed by regular men and women whose continued employment depends on the company's business); or – a favorite tactic – the pirated software is manufactured by the benighted Microsoft, with branding by the latter taken as a kind of mark of Cain that permits the visiting of almost any injury .

Perhaps it's not surprising that many of the same individuals who copy software are untroubled to “share” mp3s. Here it's difficult not to concede some truth to the “conservative” analysis which maintains that when people become inured to one kind of injustice, they are disposed to be insensitive to other, related wrongdoings.

The primary “argument” I pose to those who pirate music or software is to ask the rhetorical question, “You expect to be compensated for your labors, don't you?”

A second, related question is, “How does your self-respect fare, in the knowledge that you're obtaining the fruits of another's productive efforts, with neither consent nor compensation?”

It seems to me that one of the craziest things about this practice is that it's so shortsighted. Even if one is unwilling or unable to extend a basic respect to others engaged in productive endeavors, the narrowest self-interest ought to calculate that without compensation, no one can produce indefinitely. The well from which the bootleggers enjoy to drink, therefore, might well run dry – so it would be wise to help ensure that it's replenished. Here, if anywhere, is a good place to see Kant's point about “universalizability”: if piracy is to be viable, of necessity not everyone can practice it.

Hence we might pose a third question, “How does your self-respect fare, in the knowledge that in copying music or software, you are directly parasitic on the efforts of others – not just the creator(s) of the work, but also those consumers willing to engage in an above-board exchange, paying a price which surely includes a piracy 'surcharge?'”

(So there's no misunderstanding, I note that there's nothing particularly clever in these questions; they could be posed to any thief, and in that case would probably be just as ineffectual as I have found them to be).

One of the most maddening things about contemporary piracy, for me, is not that it's practiced by hardened felons (who almost by definition are “beyond reach”); nor that it's practiced by college students (who, famous “idealism” notwithstanding, are usually louche, and too immature to be moved by an appeal to high standards); but rather that many professional, reasonably well-compensated, and nominally “educated” people duplicate copy-written material, wholesale.

In reply, some would protest that they do indeed buy “a lot” of music and software, in addition to whatever they obtain via copying. It's not clear what this defense is supposed to amount to. If it's a kind of counter-balancing, meaning that one isn't “all bad,” then fair enough (I wouldn't have alleged that piracy, as practiced by the “average” person, is an especially great injustice, anyhow). However it's not an accepted principle in courts of law to excuse (far greater) injustices like bank robbery by noting that one most often does legitimate business with banks; or that a rape is mitigated by the fact that in a majority of cases one has consensual partners; and so on. (Those qualifications would perhaps affect the sentencing, but not exculpate the perpetrator completely).

The point at issue here isn't primarily about the character of those who pirate music or software, but rather the character of the practice itself. Of course the two are related: bad practices corrupt character. Hence a person who only occasionally commits piracy is surely better than another who is similar in all other respects except that he pirates things all the time – but someone who is similar in all other respects but doesn't pirate at all (especially if from a “will to considerateness”) is much better than either.