Virtual piracy

It was the era of tapes and Sony Walkmans but vinyl was still king and CDs only found a home in hifi cabinet of serious audiophiles. I used to tape songs off the radio, usually Radio 1's top 40 countdown on a Sunday evening (long before the dreadful Fearn and Reggie). This was of course illegal. I knew lots of people who did the same but somehow the world kept on turning and people kept buying records.

Record company execs weren't happy that it was easy to record from vinyl onto audio cassette and then lend, or even give this copy to someone else, but the first time I remember the copyright protectors declaring the end of music for all time was the advent of the twin tape deck. At the press of a button you could copy a tape, sometimes even at high speed. But somehow the world kept on turning and people kept buying music.

Fast forward a few years to the next big technology jump - the domestic PC CD burner. Not only could you now copy music, but it was an exact copy (more or less) with no loss of quality. This really would bring about the end of music. But somehow the world...etc etc.

Today's 'end of the world' technology has been around for a surprisingly long time with MP3s circulating from the early 90s. Initially those distributing large numbers of MP3 files tended to do it on website. Easy to deal with those, just shut them down. What's really spoiling the business lunches of record company execs is bittorrent - filesharing.

Bittorrent allows me to make files on my computer available to other people. As others download the files, they make them available too. The result is a world wide network of computers all offering the files meaning the download is spread across lots of machines. It's very clever, very efficient and quite difficult to deal with.

If you've been paying any attention to the news circulating around nerdy tech circles then you'll know about this. The Pirate Bay people were offering a bittorrent tracker, and so were an easy target. Targetting those who are actually doing the sharing is much harder, not least because there are so many.

Here lies the crux of the problem; a generation of people now exist who think media (music, TV programmes, movies, even newspapers) cost nothing.

There are lots of places 'blame' can lie for this and I think it's too simplistic to argue that filesharing is entirely responsible. It has a big part to play, but so does advertising supported services that are so common.

People who create should get paid for their efforts unless they choose otherwise. Therefore taking music, movies, software, etc for free when you should pay for it isn't fair. However what's equally unfair, particuarly in the music industy, are the HUGE profits made by record companies when the artists may get very little if anything.

What's particularly concerning is that across the world increasingly complex and punitive legislation is being used to combat copyright violation. It's bad in the US and could get particularly bad in the UK.

Because of all this it's incumbent on responsible adults to lobby politicians to combat unfair and unreasonable legislation. Be under no illusion that highly resourced companies with lots of lawyers are doing exactly this. We should question and combat the FUD circulated that copyright violation is theft (it isn't), that copyright violation is funding terrorism (there's no evidence it is) and that any change to the status quo will ruin the world (it won't, but it might ruin the bank balances of a few individuals). We should demand fair use; a system that allows the use of music clips, movie clips and credited photos for no commercial gain, and allows trialing of software without restrictions.

Just as importantly we should also do our bit to educate others, particularly the young, that just because you can get something for nothing, doesn't mean you should.

I could go on. A great deal needs to be overhauled, not least the highly questionable Performing Rights Society in the UK. The bottom line is fairness. Treat me unfairly, force draconian DRM measures and awkward software copy controls and I won't treat you fairly in return.