AP Looks at Piracy, Misses the Point

TechDirt is reporting that the Associated Press has covered several stories recently about what a "huge threat" piracy is in other countries. This article, however, argues that they have perhaps missed out on the whole story by ignoring the other side of the coin. From the article: "the AP doesn't bother to mention how all that piracy helped created new and different business models for musicians in China that let them thrive despite the piracy (actually, in some cases, because of it). Nor does the AP bother to mention how software piracy helped boost certain aspects of the industry in China by decreasing the cost of inputs."

Comments

Re:What other side of the coin?

[CRCulver]

Stealing is ok because it was easy for a few years in the 90s?

Actually, it is copyright that is an entirely recent development, for it appeared only a few hundred years ago in the West. The ancient world had no concept of "intellectual property", and creators of content in Greece and Rome understood that their work would be freely copied without compensation. As far as I know, they never protested the situation, and the only objection to some copying (in Martial's epigrams) was that often the poet was not being credited, but rather others claimed to have written it. Even today in place like India, the former Soviet Union, and southeast Asia, copyright makes no sense to the local population.

Now, just because there was no ownership of ideas for most of the history of mankind doesn't necessarily make copying just. After all, slavery and wife-beatery was also widespread until the modern era. However, the recent and geographically-limited genesis of copyright should nonetheless make one question if it is indeed a desirable institution, or merely a means of protecting the rich while limiting the rights of the many.

Re:Is this a surprise?

[ehrichweiss]

Actually, according to the US Supreme Court, piracy is NOT theft.

They clearly distinguished between copyright infringement and theft in a 1985 case, where they said, "(copyright infringement) does not easily equate with theft, conversion, or fraud... The infringer invades a statutorily defined province guaranteed to the copyright holder alone. But he does not assume physical control over copyright; nor does he wholly deprive its owner of its use."