Tonight I watched the second part of Steal this Film, a documentary produced by the Piratbyrån. I liked it, because it brought a few interesting ideas to the debates regarding file sharing, the evolution of culture, and the reproduction of information. However, the film left me thinking that not all sides of the issues were explored; I felt like the documentary was over before the most important questions were addressed.
True, almighty Postmodernism brought us the infamous "death of the author," and, true, the new Information Generation, as well as Web 2.0 and the technology that powers it, have completely turned the process of creation and distribution of cultural information on its head. The so-called "gatekeepers," who have heretofore controlled what would be heard, read and seen, and where, when and in what format it would be received, are indeed losing the battle to a generation of individuals who believe that cultural information (and thus, by extension, cultural identity) should be uncontrolled and unrestricted. I agree with this, but I also think that a few other, more unpleasant components of cultural identity, were all too conspicuously glossed over in this film (and in many other, similar debates). These components are, of course, want, need and choice.
Far be it from me to deny the currently-popular maxim "sharing is caring." Sharing (be it food, shelter or music) is certainly a cornerstone of human society. However, all too often we forget what differentiates (or, rather, does not differentiate) the material and immaterial things that we share. True, we can claim that "we wouldn't steal" a bag, a TV, or a car, but, just because we cannot perceive (in a complete, empirical sense) the objects which we can name, that give us pleasure, joy, or pain, does not mean that we can claim that these objects do not exist, or that they are not real (let alone appropriate them). Yet, nonetheless, we constantly make the claim that an identical copy of a material object that can be reproduced without destroying the original ceases to be a real object. I contend that, since films and music (whether presented as original or secondary copies) are able to affect physical matter (our bodies, our brains, hell, even our cocks'n'pussies), they are indubitably real, capable of being governed by the same moral laws that govern the rest of the real, material objects. It is pointless to address the question of medium in this regard, for as a film is contained on thousands of computers, distributed through a torrent tracking system, so is a song contained in the bio-electric operations of your brain, so is my butter contained on top of my bread.
Now, ladies and gentlemen, believe you me: I would not allow anyone in the world (save for a select few - and that would be a conscious choice on my part) to take or control my brain, my music or my butter. However, the idea of utopia (which is, embarrasingly enough, touched upon in the film) that is theoretically able to grant everyone complete, unequivocal freedom of expression, goes against the two factors of human nature I mentioned earlier: want and need. I would never throw away my hard-earned buttered bread, as I would refuse to love my neighbour - even if law or society compelled me to do so - because it would be a conscious choice. Just as I do not give away unearned material objects, so I refuse to give away that which was created in me, by me. One could ask how I can refuse to share that which I have created if, even if I have not sampled, copied or stolen the work of others, I have based it, at the very least, through social interaction and networking, on the products of previous thinkers, previous generations, previous, "unreal" matter?
My answer is simple: The problem with the neo-socialist view of the Web 2.0 generation is that somehow, through the virtue of sharing, all cultures would flourish, proliferate and intertwine to their greatest extent. The remix, then, would be valued as much as the original, and the sample would be valued as much as the copy (since any original would be declared a copy of an earlier original, or, perhaps, the sample would be declared an improvement on the original - either way, making both products virtual, unreal, equal entities). However, as the film itself admits, "you have to create something to be a part of society" - but what are we creating? A generation of second-rate synth masters, a horde of inept YouTubers? But, one could argue, did you not use others' music without permission in your films? Did you not "sample" (or quote) the work of other poets in your own? Did you not imitate the greatest writers in the attempt of becoming a better writer? I would answer affirmatively, adding that an idea conceived and created from a drive of an individual mind (whether it is based on the work of others or not), is infinitely more valuable than an idea cobbled together from others' ideas. There is nothing inherently new in the world. Throughout the last few thousand years we have been mulling over the same questions: life, death, taxes, love, sex, jealousy, inspiration, lack of inspiration, creation, theft, property, revolution...and yet, only those who show the most spark in remaking these ideas are those whom we value most. The rest live small lives, lost and forgotten armchair poets and philosophers.
But why regret this sad state of affairs? Why elevate every hack to the status of an Artist? True, if you create, you are responding to a need, a valid need, a need without the fullfillment of which you perhaps cannot survive. However, whether now, or hundreds of years ago, humans always made things "for themselves." This, precisely, is the stumbling block of the film's philosophy (and of Postmodern doctrine, at that): The author is dead...long live the producer! Wait a minute. Aah, you almost got me there with your clever labels: The author did not die; he just got a new face. Maybe he just became too homogenised, ironically, at the expense of an individual voice. Hundreds of years ago, only the privileged and the extremely well-educated, men who commanded Greek and Latin, could eluciate knowledge on a level to which we can rarely afford to rise today, as individuals. So what we have done, naturally (and quite justifiably), was to take the fire from the gods and give it to every Citizen of this brave, new world, to create with. Oh, don't get me wrong; this is still art, but as art was always judged on its inherent merits, not on its external points of reference, so will your art be judged, as a standalone work, artistic inheritance notwithstanding. Your audience has never, will never, hear of your inspiration, your inner struggles, your fear, your pain; they will only want to know whether your art can, has affected them, whether it is capable of a basic, animal level of communication, which we now call - "satisfaction," "understanding," "happiness."
Whom, then, do we reward for Great Music, Literature, and Art? The celebrity actor? The Flash Video star? The Canadian Idol? The starving artist? The perish-or-publish university professor? The student? The everyman? True, we could begin by looking at those who attract our attention - but whom do we pay for his or her efforts? The good artists, the original artists (and I use the word "original" now in the Whitmanian "original energy" sense). A mere socio-cultural media thief will not get a penny; we pay our money to the Thieves - with capital letters - those who takes and make, and do not look back or mince words. We pay those who are greater than us and, thus, are extraordinary and exciting. Although, perhaps, "making money is not the point of culture and media," if we did not pay each other to create (whether through the government or on the basis of merit), no one would create, no one would produce anything (whether the product or payment were cash or love). One could tell me of Radiohead's little publicity stunt, when they gave away their album for free (for a limited time) and then made millions from legitimate sales. What of it? They did not become Radiohead by giving away all their creations; they became Radiohead by both having a worth, and knowing their worth.
In Steal this Film, an indignant rabbit salesman (in a cute cartoon metaphor) refuses to lower the price on his rabbits, even though they are multiplying and, so, arguably, becoming a cheaper commodity, due to a high amount of supply. Eventually, the salesman fails to make a sale and a little girl steals one of the rabbits "because there are so many." Mhumm. If a man sells rabbits at a price no one can agree to, either there is a problem with the rabbits, or there is a problem with the price. As hateful as all things Apple are to me, their post-Napster single-song-purchase model has revolutionised the reproduction of cultural information and people have come in droves to vote for it with their wallets. Suddenly, the price for the rabbits was right, despite a potentially-infinite amount of rabbits available for sale. So what is the problem here? Is the consumer now jealous of the producer for finding an infinite income source? Perhaps. (This would explain why we now often prefer to pay for seeminly-unreal objects with non-existing payment.) Why does not the consumer find his own rabbit to sell? Is the rabbit a commodity the consumer does not need? Why can not the producer then adjust his supply and his price - and go on, uninterrupted? Whether we like it or not, the world is driven by simple and fundamental laws of market economics and human psychology. So what if the market is now no longer local? So what if we can buy and sell bits of data (which also happen to be music) at incredible speeds? Oh, right, we are applying economic theory to that which we have declared to be not real, and herein, as our good friend Hamlet tells us, lies the rub.
No, it is not the "terrorism of the mind that sustains concepts like intellectual property." It is the pride in our accomplishments which demands our conscience to lay claim to that which we have made. If we follow the line of reasoning from copying music to stealing "more material" objects, could we steal each other's children in a "all you can copy" utopia? After all, all that we make, real or unreal, should fit neatly and equally into the framework of a moral theory. An yet, this pride exists; it is our want and need, and it gives us a choice: take or buy. If you take that which is not yours, no excuse will work: stealing is stealing. However, why do we not have any personal qualms with regard to stealing digital data? Is this the fault of the society that created us? (No pun indended.) Perhaps. Is this our own fault, for having cultivated a morality within ourselves that allows us to take that which is not ours? Perhaps, but why do we pay for so many things, grudgingly: milk, bread, pr0n, taxes?
We talk big when we philosophise, but, in real life, we obey the law. Why? We do it because we have no choice. The law is, certainly, not just, because it is impossible to satisfy everyone; the price of the rabbit is never right. However, so that society does not descend into chaos, it is important to have a social contract, in which, at the very least, the social majority will agree on certain rules, merely in order to survive. So why don't we conform to these rules, one could ask? What if everyone would say "Can't someone else do it?" It's simple: the people of the world have already spoken in favour of the free proliferation and sharing of cultural information. Thus, it could be all too possible if, in the future, little by little, our social contract would be rewritten. "Wrong" would quietly change into "right," and something else would be considered wrong - but that would be mere convention; all data will never be created equal, and writing a bad poem, plucked from your average brain, would always be more inherently valuable than reading a thousand poems and cobbling together a perfect imitation, a perfect improvement on the so-called original.
The question of technology indeed throws a wrench in the philosophical works of this issue: indeed, if it is possible to steal a song with a click of a button, why not do it? But would we all steal from each other if we possessed the powers of, say, speed, flying and invisibility? We certainly would. Our morality would not suddently alter if we gained these powers. However, after the majority of society would accept this new, hypothetical exchange of material goods (through means of mutual theft) as a fact of life, morality would certainly be transformed forever. Within the theoretical boundaries of digital life, morality often seems to have different effects than in real life; however, that which is most important to us will always continue to hold its main worth in its physical form - unless, of course, we all digitised ourselves, destroyed our physical representations, virtualised projections of our consciousnesses on non-physical media, recreated the world in an artificial mode of cognition, set a moral system for possession and theft and...restarted the process all over again, having approximated the current status quo! In the very core of human nature, there is a drive to define and divide reality into bite-size concepts, time and again, in order to avoid self-destruction due to entanglement in philosophical complexity. The measure of property, thus (or, as I have put it earlier, the measure of want, need and choice) is not an arbitrary re-definition of reality, but a reflection of the most basic traits of human nature, that are inherently incapable of change, since to be able to want, need and choose is to be human, and to not be able to want, need or choose is to not exist.
What is my bottom line? I am a poet, an artist, and a philosopher. What I create is mine, and mine alone, whether I stole, gleaned or copied it; I may give it and take it back, but only I can do it and only by choice. If I discuss something that does not belong to me, I give proper attribution and sources (if available). I only watermark the images that I have created, to indicate where they have come from, since I have no illusions: everything available on the Internet can be stolen. I post my poetry in good faith, hoping it would not be stolen or misused, because my choice is to keep it intact, but, if it is, I would be consoled by the thought that someone has cared enough about my work to steal it. mig81.com has a copyright statement, a copyright policy, a privacy policy and a Terms of Use page. mig81.com does not collect any data except general demographic measurements; all comments, trademarks and other intellectual property posted on mig81.com remain the property of their owners. If you steal from me, you are, of course, no friend of mine; however, if you ask to have some of what I've made, I will, very likely, give it to you. My proverbial bases are covered and my conscience is clean. The rest is up to you.
You make me feel bad for having 50gb of songs and hundreds of gigs of movies and tv. but i don't feel bad enough to stop doing what i do. I do give you that the artist's argument of creativity, not so much money, is not heard as much. and when it is, it is spewed acridly (is that the right word?) from the mouths of fork-tongued executives and PR firms for lobbying groups. and i'm fucked up right now, so i'll read this again in the morning and realize that everything i just said made as much sense as a football bat.
Well, don't feel bad. I, myself, have over three terabytes of all kinds of things. Do, however, feel free to feel like a hypocrite. I, certainly, am at peace with the thought (and it helps). Yeah, I feel bad for the artists, but I guess I won't change my mind until I finally publish my first book of poetry and someone would convert it into a .PDF file and put it up on bittorrent (which would, actually, never happen, because I don't think I will ever become this significant or popular - but my point still stands).
At any rate, my goal in writing this insane (2000+ word) rant was not at all guilt; on the contrary, just as Steal this Movie was meant to provoke thoughts (philosophical and otherwise), so I meant to respond to those thoughts with my own (raising new questions in the process). Really, I hope this to be the proverbial "win-win-win" situation. ;)
In conclusion, your comments are much appreciated and I would be glad to hear anything else you might have to say on the subject. Oh, and "acrid" (though it typically refers to a terrible smell), can also refer to biting comments, indeed (I checked - unsurprisingly, the root of the word is "sharp, sour [...] perh. through influence of acid").