Question Many of those who favor online piracy (or who oppose restrictive laws meant to combat piracy, at least), argue that piracy does not actually hurt movie and music producers. They claim that most pirates would be unlikely to buy the products in question even if they were unable to download them for free. In restricting piracy, we aren't actually restoring revenue to the producers or anything of the sort. Those producers would be just as successful or unsuccessful whether piracy were allowed or not. Is this sensible? Let's say that I download a movie. If it is really true that I would not buy the movie in any case, does that make downloading it okay?

Accepted:
May 10, 2012

Comments

One thing is clear: if everyone downloaded for free, content producers wouldnt be able to profit from their labor. One reason why I don't downloaded pirated music, movies, etc. is that I think filmakers, musicians, etc. should be able to make money by doing what they do, and I can't see what's so special about me that I should be entitled to benefit for free from what they do. That's a long-winded way of saying I think it would be wrong for me to download pirated copies. Even though the filmaker would never get Freddy Freeloader's money, if. All did as Freddy does, the filmaker would suffer and in the long run, so would we all.

Having said this, I think there's an awful lot wrong with contemporary copyright and intellectual property law. It could even be (though I'm not in a position to say so) that copyright law as it stands does as much harm as good. It could even be (though I doubt it) that we'd be better off if there were no intellectual property laws and we just depended on people's sense of fair play. So it's consistent to think (as I do) that you should generally pay for what you download but that (as I'm not yet prepared to say) copyright law is on the whole a bad thing.

We would add just a tad to the earlier respondent: Downloading without consent or payment would still involve disrespect of the filmmaker, artist, and so on. Also, the question itself suggests you really do want the object you have downloaded --otherwise downloading wouldn't come up as a question. You also say would "not buy the movie in any case," but if there was no other way of viewing the movie, would you still come to the same conclusion that you have.

CT and his friend and consultant TJ Hagen

Great issue. If you think about it on an individual level, of course "piracy" is wrong: you are stealing that work from its producer. (The word "piracy" pretty much reflects that!). And as long as there are specific copyright laws that forbid it, then doing so is obviously wrong (at least in the sense of violating the law), whether or not you would have purchased the work anyway. But maybe we should think of it on a collective level, and ask questions such as "Are the laws in question themselves good/just laws?" (which I take Allen to be raising) and "Would a better system overall allow free downloading?" (where "better" obviously has many facets, including ethical ones). To be sure, part of answering those questions involve empirical considerations: do "producers of work" collectively do better, make more money, etc., when one allows liberal copying of their work? Think Grateful Dead, just for one select example: the 'bootleg' industry they themselves supported seems to have worked out pretty well for them, although how well it would work for others remains to be seen. Did the introduction of cassettes ultimately harm the music business (I remember taping many dozens of albums back then), or the introduction of VCRs the movie business -- or did they ultimately help those businesses, by spreading free samples of their wares and ultimately leading more people to purchase what was available for purchase? These days similar issues are playing out in the e-book world -- and of course it's often seen as an excellent business idea to provide a certain amount for free (a free chapter, some free songs, etc.) in order to entice people to purchase. So -- empirically -- maybe a certain degree of 'free downloading' might actually be good for the business -- and indeed, as the questioner suggests, empirically it may be that some high percentage of people who "pirate" really wouldn't have purchased the work anyway, and so cannot be actually said to be harming the producers of the work -- and maybe even HELPING them, since when people like a song (movie, book) these days they tend to post on Facebook and Tweet it etc., thereby spreading its audience. And who knows -- as Allen hints -- maybe overall it WOULD be better if all these things were free -- maybe if free downloading were acceptable (and qua social practice, it's practically the norm anyway), then only those people who were fully committed to their art would pursue them, and the overall quality of artistic work would improve ... (On the other hand, then, only those people who could afford to work for free would be able to do so, which might introduce class elements into the equation ...) So, my point: when viewed from "the big picture," it's not at all obvious to me that (a certain, perhaps high degree of) free downloading might actually be a good thing -- but also that answering this question will involve a good amount of empirical research as well ....