![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
You are a pirate
Dec. 17th, 2006 04:17 pmOne of the ways in which the content industry battles the criminal menace that is "unauthorised sharing" is by muddying the waters with a bit of old fashioned linguistic trickery. The two main ways in which they do this are (1) refusing to acknowledge the distinction between individuals violating IP law on a personal basis and those making money off the back of the toil of others by selling IP they do not have rights to and (2) sensationalising the battle agains both these groups by the use of emotive language. I'm talking about the word "pirate" here.
With the advent of Jack Sparrow and International Talk Like a Pirate Day, this latter strategy has backfired somewhat, since being a pirate is now cooler than ever. Also, they've cried "pirate" so often, that I very much doubt anyone will even believe them should an actual pirate ship draw to aside the RIAA's headquarters and lauch a ripping broadside into their corporate offices not entirely unakin to that scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. We'd all just think they were exaggerating as usual.
Clearly what's needed is to raise the stakes. Since piracy no longer works, they need to come up with a new term for what these low-lives actually do. Might I be the first to humbly suggest the term "software/music pedophile". It has all of the emotive force that the content industry are looking for, and absolutely no-one at all thinks pedophiles are cool. And it's every bit as accurate as the current terminolgy.
Doubtless the IP violators could then respond by declaring a new holiday, International Talk Like an Unauthorised Sharer day, where everyone would have to talk in l33t sp34k.
With the advent of Jack Sparrow and International Talk Like a Pirate Day, this latter strategy has backfired somewhat, since being a pirate is now cooler than ever. Also, they've cried "pirate" so often, that I very much doubt anyone will even believe them should an actual pirate ship draw to aside the RIAA's headquarters and lauch a ripping broadside into their corporate offices not entirely unakin to that scene in Monty Python's Meaning of Life. We'd all just think they were exaggerating as usual.
Clearly what's needed is to raise the stakes. Since piracy no longer works, they need to come up with a new term for what these low-lives actually do. Might I be the first to humbly suggest the term "software/music pedophile". It has all of the emotive force that the content industry are looking for, and absolutely no-one at all thinks pedophiles are cool. And it's every bit as accurate as the current terminolgy.
Doubtless the IP violators could then respond by declaring a new holiday, International Talk Like an Unauthorised Sharer day, where everyone would have to talk in l33t sp34k.
