Bye Bye, Genie

I despair of the high media profile bestowed upon self-proclaimed “pirates”. Lately they’ve been brought into the arena to argue the case against the recent ruling by Justice Arnold that BT should block its users’ ability to use the site Newzbin 2, to protect the intellectual copyright of those whose media Newzbin permits unpaid access. It’s not the pirates' advocacy of internet freedom in itself which leads the debate in impossible circles; it’s their argument that the dangerous precedent set by such a ruling is a force to strike fear into the hearts of the freedom-loving public. This basic error of judgement seems to encumber them from being able to topple their opponents, since it inadvertently reinforces the logical fallacy on which the ruling’s standpoint is based.

Every now and again someone declares (or in this case, rules) that we are, one way or another, to implement new technology to limit the functionality of old technology. In developmental terms, this is inherently ridiculous. The arms race of data propagation can only have one winner - since data, in whatever form is contemporaneous, is a basic human need, and one for which we rely upon no-one but the increasingly technically proficient public at large.

To understand the paradigm, it's important to establish what the internet is; the world is full of devices that hold data, and each shares a certain amount of that data with other devices. The process of fetching and sending data is the internet. Roadblocks are an annoyance, but never an impassable obstacle; I have a friend in China who has no difficulty popping up on Facebook from time to time regardless of its being banned by the Chinese government, simply because on an encrypted network (which is child’s play to set up), data is impenetrable in transit. China’s effective strategy is not the roadblock itself, but the adoption of both of only two possible ways to prevent the propagation of data: either try to make the data itself unpopular, or make people believe it’s immoral or impossible to access it. For those with an interest in intellectual copyright, the second option is the only available, and it is one which comes with a built-in sell-by date.

So while it is easy to reach a consensus that the genie has left the bottle, it remains for the time being a more controversial stance to point out that he has also left the room, and taken the bottle with him. Perhaps the greatest obstacle to the acceptance of the facts surrounding data propagation is that those with most to lose are inarguably those currently in control of all traditional media. This is by no means a new paradigm - the printing press itself, or rather those who wished to make unfettered use of it, had hugely powerful opponents - opponents which, like today, had much to lose, simply because it challenged their position as the most influential people in the world.

So where does that leave intellectual copyright? The same as where it leaves diplomacy in a world with fewer and fewer secrets. It may not be the end of intellectual copyright, but it is certainly the end of intellectual copyright as we know it. However, it is probably the responsibility of those concerned more with internet freedoms (who, let’s face it, have abandoned traditional ideas about ownership simply to ensure they find themselves on the winning side, rather than because they’ve concocted a moral defense they firmly believe in) to take a different stance - one that is less confrontational, and more conciliatory. Mind you, if the "Pirate Party" were to change their name and stop saying things that make everyone want to punch them in the face, they might not find themselves invited on the telly at all.