So, about protesting SOPA/PIPA... January 18, 2012
No, this blog isn’t going dark. It’s not that I don’t support the fight against SOPA/PIPA… We’re all pretty clear on the fact that it would take a vibrant and amazing thing, and make it brittle and severely diminished – and out of one of the worst reasons to do anything: fear. And I’m not under any illusions here – I know that the readership of this blog consists of people who already know that SOPA/PIPA is made out of the tears of traumatized small children, puppy entrails, and the stuffing from your favorite childhood toy, all ground up into a sausage that not even he would sell. There are so many well-reasoned arguments as to why this is all bad and wrong legislation, that their numbers are legion. You can find them everywhere and anywhere, especially today. I’m not going to make your eyes glaze over by rehashing everything just to try and put my own unique spin on it.
It’s also fair to say that the people who tipped the monetary poison into the congresscritters responsible for this are bloody-minded profiteers who are out to protect an outmoded monetary ecosystem that leaves them with the reigns of power above all else, as part of a ploy to ensure that the majority of revenue is directed into their coffers in lieu of just about anyone else’s. But to define the length and breadth of the problem as simply just this is overly-simplistic, and bypasses some real-world bullet points that we ignore at our peril.
The question here is why they’re doing this. Yes, there is the above and previously mentioned protectionism of their lopsided power structure by certain content orifices (in that they spew content out, but they don’t actually create it). But there are other companies lining up behind it as well who actually are content creators – and they do have a concern here: Piracy. And in our fear to protect our very dear and quite lovely (warts and all) internet, we’re not talking about that. And we fucking well should be.
Let’s start with me: I am, by the definition of most content creators and publishers, a pirate. I have, in my grubby little digital paws, music and games and television shows that I downloaded outside of any approved framework provided by those content guardians, and I’d like to speak to each one of those as to why I’ve done what I’ve done:
· Music: Between my wife and I, we have a pretty large slab of CD’s:
It’s fair to say that we dig music, and we don’t mind having to store the physical media. And having been through several hard drive crashes (and having everything mostly backed up, phew), I am keenly aware of the ephemeral nature of digital-only media. And plus, I like having a collection of music out, because it’s a fun conversation piece and I can hold that disc in my hands and relive the moment when I bought it and the amazing times I’ve had while listening to it. But you know what? I still pirate music. Mostly, I’ll buy electronically because I dig the ala-carte concept and/or I’m an entitled little snot nose and I want immediate gratification. But, I’ve had drm’d music vanish into the ether, and have never been able to download it again no matter what flaming hoops I’ve been through. Some I still have, because I went to the trouble of burning it out onto a disc so I could rip it again, but I think we can all agree over the absurdity of that statement, right? The point is, that I’ve had more reliable access to the music that I’ve pirated than the drm’d music files that I’ve digitally downloaded. From a music standpoint, things are getting better, being able to purchase mp3 files through several DRM-free options. The rare occasions where I still pursue the pirate-only option these days is because I can’t find it anywhere, for any reasonable price, no matter what, regardless of format.
· Television: It used to be, when I was growing up, my Dad had to risk life and limb on a semi-regular basis. The peril in question was having to head outside when the wind and rain were running sideways (and, occasionally, against logic, upwards), climb onto the roof, and balance the TV antenna back to the point where reception was optimal. But despite the risk to pop’s life and limb, the only real price we had to pay for getting those free airwaves beamed into our house was to watch commercials. Now, I think commercials and the culture that they’ve spawned have a lot to answer for, but on basic level, this seems like a pretty fair arrangement: I’ll have the Oscar Meyer Weiner song indelibly etched into my neurons in exchange for all the television programming I can hoove down. Then the arrangement got… muddied. We paid for cable, which got us mostly the same channels (with a few extra, to the delight of Ted Turner), but we had to rent out the cable boxes, and what changed exactly? Other than we were paying more money?
Everyone has a “Comcast SUCKS” story. Not long after I found out I could cut the cord, my wife and I were watching the finale for Season 2 of Six Feet Under, and 2 minutes before the end, “—KZZYRPT!” out of the speakers, and then snow on the screen, and on all channels. Our downstairs neighbor had lost her cable as well, but since our upstairs neighbor wasn’t home to verify if they had cable or not, Comcast wouldn’t consider it an outage and would not schedule any sort of service check at all, period. And it just so happened that our upstairs neighbors were out of town for the next several days. A few weeks later, we handed the cable box in and that was that – no more paying for cable TV. We went full pirate in early 2004, and found that there were some pretty awesome side-effects. No commercials, and the ability to watch TV when and how we wanted to watch it. It’s the side effect of going pirate, but it should be the centerpiece of modern television viewing – and it’s a baffling ordeal to get there. DVR’s only allow you to build a library on your end, capturing what is coming through traditional channels as opposed to rethinking the entire system as an on-demand pipeline. NetFlix is probably the best success story out of everyone, and yet they’re hampered by licensing fees that either cripple libraries of programs (Mythbusters being one example) or outright prevent them. These licensing fees are often in turn generated by sheer paranoia of being driven entirely out of the comfort zone they’ve created.
· Games: I have purchased Resident Evil 4 exactly 4 times. Once, on the platform where it was initially released (Gamecube), then for the privilege of motion controls (Wii), then for the privilege of portability (iPad), and finally for the privilege of upscaled HD graphics (Xbox 360). And that is just ridiculous. I’m not making the argument that I should have purchased it once, and then had, in perpetuity, a license for all of them – but there should be, at least, a discount here. It’s a similar situation with classic games… for quite awhile, the only route available to people who enjoyed classic games was piracy, because it was out of the realm of possibility to track down and maintain antique hardware and cartridges. And ultimately, having a ROM file for Metroid meant you could play it on your laptop, your desktop, and any emulator out there – I played that game in my adult life more than I did as a child, because I had an NES emulator for my iPaq and time to kill on the Chicago El. It’s definitely awesome that I can purchase it on the Wii, and indeed I have, along with import games that I never would have had the chance to play if not for this service. But it’s still land-locked to a single platform, with no portability at all.
And then there’s the DRM around games… there is a certain arrogance of mind that will install DRM so invasive that it cannot be removed from your system short of re-formatting your OS drive. It’s like super-gluing an angry troll to your television when you rent a DVD to make sure you adhere to the terms of the rental agreement… even when you give the DVD back, that troll is still there just in case you want to put that DVD back in. And even if they don’t install a DRM scheme that you can never scrape off without some sort of nuclear-spatula, you’re still often going to have to labor under DRM that makes no account for real-world changes to your system. I’ve purchased PC versions of games and then turned around and downloaded pirated/cracked versions because I refuse to cede that particular facet of control over my computing experience.
So what do all 3 of these gripes have in common with each other? They show that I, and other consumers, really want two things: convenience and respect.
We want the convenience to consume our media in the way the digital age has made possible, save for your obstinate attitude. We understand why you want things the way you do, we just don’t agree with your reasons. And as we’re your customers, the ones to whom you wish to sell us your product, this attitude is baffling. And we want your respect – because DRM is often designed in a way that assumes the purchaser is a criminal… you’re assuming guilty, with no chance to prove yourself innocent and no venue to do as such.
The companies behind SOPA/PIPA are willing to go to war against us, the consumers, to tell us what it is that we really want instead of engaging in market research to understand us and meet our needs. Right now, they’re scared – and they should be. There’s a world out there that exists without their various bridge tolls and convenience fees. It’s not a world that’s fair to them, but on the balance, it meets the customer’s needs better than they are right now.
Ultimately, there is rightly a huge groundswell against this very bad-no-no-no legislation. But we need to understand that the industries behind it will keep trying, unless there’s a sea change here in dialogue between consumers and content-holders. Keep protesting, and keep fighting the good fight. But also take time to write to those companies that are blocking this legislation. Let them know how they can meet your needs for content consumption in ways that’s agreeable to you. Make a space where they can engage the public. You can make the argument that we shouldn’t have to – and you’re right. We shouldn’t have to be the adults to our own legislators. But to use that argument in place of dialogue means that these content-holders will go with their first instinct, which is to use their money to fight, and cause collateral damage.
Take some time the rest of this week. Think about how you could consume media in ways that are reasonable, and sustainable. And pass them on. Because if you do, and they still stay the course, then you shouldn’t feel bad about piracy.
I know I won’t.