You may have heard that the Department of Justice and the FBI recently shut down the free file hosting site MegaUpload, one of the largest of its kind of the internet. Those in charge, including rapper Swizz Beats, stand to face some pretty hefty jailtime for the site, which notoriously hosted everything from pirated games, movies, music, and everything in between.
I'm going to be honest: MegaUpload was, at its heart, a repository for piracy. It allowed users to upload and download files more or less anonymously, had comparatively relaxed restrictions on download limits, and excellent speeds, making it the go-to spot for people to "share" files. Illegal files, mostly.
I can't argue that MegaUpload, and similar sites like RapidShare, are effectively an easy way to pirate copyrighted goods. I can't even really fault the entertainment industry for attempting to stop rampant piracy, though I think they are disingenuous about their reasons. No corporate record company gives a shit about protecting its artists; they care about protecting their investments. If Warner Bros. advances a director millions of dollars for a film project, you can be damn sure they want to recoup that money. It has nothing to do with keeping gaffers, electricians, and lighting guys employed, as their patronizing anti-piracy commercials suggest. You're not hurting the little guys working behind the scenes on movie sets. They're all unionized. They're just worried about lost ticket sales at the box office.
Digression aside, I can't fault corporations for trying to protect what's theirs. As harmless as it seems to the end user, piracy is piracy, and however much those of us who've downloaded something illegally like to try and rationalize and justify it, it is ostensibly stealing.
Who I can blame, however, is the FBI and the Department of Justice. If this isn't another sign that corporations run this country, I don't know what is. There is nothing more pressing than shutting down file sharing sites? There are no matters of national security more important than MegaUpload hosting the new Taylor Swift album on its servers?
Let me break this down for you, as a somewhat experienced computer user: There are two kinds of pirates. There's the average computer user - the kind of person who overheard someone talking about torrents and rushed to Wikipedia to find out what they are. They still use peer-to-peer applications like Limewire and their computers are probably infected with dozens, if not hundreds, of trojans and malware programs.
Then there are those who know what they're doing. They know how to cover their tracks. Believe it or not, the FBI is less concerned about these folks. Why, you might ask? Because those people have been around since the dawn of computers. They know what they're doing, and they're not afraid. It's easy to make an example out of a suburban mom who downloaded the latest Now That's What I Call Music CD, but much harder to track down the people who ripped and uploaded it weeks before it hit store shelves.
The people who excel at piracy ran elite BBSes in the infancy of the internet as we know it. They're the people who invented torrents in the first place. They're the ones who rarely, if ever, get caught, and they're the ones who will simply find a new way around whatever obstacle the DoJ puts up.
The FBI and the Department of Justice are fighting a losing battle. You can shut down file hosting services, but eventually the pirates will just find something else. First it was BBSes. Then it was newsgroups, which are still around to this day. Then P2P programs like Napster and Kazaa brought piracy out of the realm of the computer savvy and into the public conscious, and before you knew it, 12-year-old Jimmy and drunken college kids were downloading the new Eminem CD weeks before its street date, thinking they were some badass hackers sticking it to the man.
In light of the MegaUpload bust, many other hosting services have either voluntarily shut down, or are being shut down. It seems like a big victory for the anti-piracy crusaders, but it's really not. There are still newsgroups. There are still torrents. There are still myriad ways for tech savvy users to get what they want without having to pay for it. You will never stop piracy. Those old enough to remember the days of sending cassette tapes through the mail will remember the empty threats that surrounded such actions. Was anyone ever arrested for trading cassettes? Cassettes became CDs, and CDs became mp3s, and mp3s became flac files (for the audio snobs among us). It's an increasingly digital world, and there's no stopping it.
The record companies, the Motion Picture Association of America, and the so-called good guys will tout this as a big victory. They'll say they're protecting American jobs and innovation, protecting us from the horrible threat posed by piracy and "rogue foreign websites," to use the vernacular of the recently-defeated SOPA and PIPA bills. Personally, I'd rather they spend a little more time worrying about Iran building nuclear weapons and the crazed 20-something son of a deceased crazed dictator in North Korea than some kid downloading a surreptitiously recorded shaky cam video of Mission: Impossible: Ghost Protocol.
Piracy has always been around, and it will always be around. It will go back to being underground for a while in light of recent events, but it will rise again when the newest, simplest method of delivery makes it available to all once more. It's inevitable, and it's a waste of time to try and stop it because the fact is while you may deter the average citizen, you will never scare or stop the other group.
When Wikipedia and several other websites instituted a blackout in protest of the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Acts on January 18th, Christopher Dodd, the CEO of the MPAA, not only threatened to pull financial support from politicians who refused to support their cause, he made the ironic statement that the blackout was "an abuse of power." Forgetting for a moment that his threat could be construed as a similar offense, I would like to recognize his powers of perception.
You're right, Chris. We do have the power. We do. Not you. You may have the money, but if our increasingly technology-reliant world has proven anything, it's that money does not necessarily equal power anymore. Information is practically instantaneous in the age of the internet, and I've seen men and women undone by it. Private e-mails, text messages, and classified documents are all on the web for anyone to see. One need not look much further than Wikileaks to see the impact the internet has had on modern society. I'd like you to keep that in mind, Chris. We have the power, and it is not a good idea to incur the wrath of the internet elite.
Celebrate your small victory now, corporations and intelligence agencies, for in the grand scheme of things it won't matter. One year from now, piracy will be as accessible as it ever was, and when you put a stop to that, the underground scene will change tactics once more. To quote Ian Malcolm from Michael Crichton's Jurassic Park, "Life finds a way." So, too, will the pirates.
Good night and good luck, gentlemen. You're going to need it.
