With the recent arrest of the owners of The Pirate Bay, I thought I would offer my own personal answer to the problem of media piracy. I hope the IFPI are listening, cause this solution is totally up for sale.

In my previous articles on PETA, I briefly mentioned Michel Foucault and his writings on the nature of sex and human perception of reality. Though his treaty is much more about society, common definitions of the human nature and the relations between the political bodies governing the people and their personal freedom, with a possible subtle message of rebellion, the one thing which we certainly learn from Foucault is that the language defines reality. As a quick recap of my point in that very article, the second a “homosexual” was named, he was defined and segregated, becoming something outside the norm, and thus being abnormal and opened to persecution. Even people who openly defend the gays, hold Gay Pride parades and all, they still operate among this 19th century understanding of it all, that being gay is somewhat different and above the standard. I think it makes my point quite clear: the names which we attach to reality, in a weird way define it. Our language, the very product of our environment, can often be the cause of it.

George Orwell explored a similar concept in “1984”, where the Big Brother government was working hard to limit the average lingo of the people of the novel, making it virtually impossible to form a sentence which would read “Big Brother is bad”. Because when you cannot say something, you cannot think it. It is another in the many interesting examples of the relations between the language and reality. If you want to talk something more recent, take a look at any middle management position at any given firm. Look for that one person who seems to have the smallest amount of despair in his eyes among all of his peers at the exact same positions. I wager good money that he is the one who holds the typical Bullshit Title, like Deputy Director of Internal Operations or Chief of Home Operating Staff. These are the titles which a) mean nothing, b) offer no pay raise, c) often carry much more work than you did before, but here is the thing: they sound important, and when you have that much done, the universe will find a way in its own lopsided logic to actually make the position important. You treat a person differently when you hear he is the Senior Staff Administrator of Conservation Duties for the entire company, as opposed to simply saying Janitor. It also makes the person feel different, which often will translate to better job performances and, once again, in the most backwards way possible, the effect becomes the cause in a paradox so widespread I am in awe that scientists are not hard at work to harness its power.

How is any of this relevant to the problem of Infernet Piracy? It’s all in the name.

When the media owners, most likely the music industry, first started to pollute mass communications with their outcries against the “pirates” which are costing them gazillions of dollars each second, they more or less created the bigger problem which was lurking around the corner. They called media thieves “pirates”, a title which might have seemed quite apt to them at a time, but a one which sounds just too cool to ears of the average Joe. And that’s it. The name “pirate” just sounds plain cool. And that is the problem.

I am a pirate! Ar!

Yes, we all know that pirates were in fact sailoring thieves but no one really calls them that. Our culture has this romantic image of a man among men on top of his mighty ship, ordering around a bunch of equally manly and tattooed psychos, while wielding a great big old sword and sporting an eye patch, ready to set out on another glorious adventure where easy gold awaits and which finishes in buxom maidens all over your Jolly Roger. This image, which I guess we all know to differ greatly from reality, where pirates were unwashed simpletons who starved for the good part of the year on moldy bread infested with bugs, has been more or less sealed permanently in our consciousness by movies, such as Polanski’s “Pirates” or more recently “Pirates of the Caribbean”. Yes, the romantic adventurous pirate Jack Sparrow played by Johnny Depp has officially created the 21st century’s understand of a pirate… right down to fighting sea monsters and sailor zombies. And not only that, oh no, even the anime scene has been more or less dominated by the long-ass series known as “One Piece” which is, you guessed it, a story about  pirates… just some of them are made of rubber and the other are reindeers.
And finally, there is the recent activity of the Somali Pirates. Bona fide modern sea thieves, a bunch of guys on a boat, armed to the teeth, sailing around the waters and attacking merchant ships. I cannot even begin to describe just how awesome it is to have “Pirate” become an available career choice once again… I mean, I could, as in I have the necessary vocabulary to do that, but I would just end up giggling half of the time to myself from sheer excitement, so I will not do that.

Yo ho ho and a bottle of Ruski led straight in your ass.

All in all, when you think “Pirate” you think of a daring, brave, adventurous rebel who spits in the face of death, kicks it in the balls and bags 20 women in between shots of whiskey and rum, all in one afternoon, on a Monday.

How do you think the bedroom programming nerds felt when you started calling them pirates? Their lives finally got some meaning, that is what happened. Here they were sitting in their skid-marked underwear in front of their computers which were ripping DVDs and music CDs for our thieving needs and suddenly they are all over the news being called pirates? Hell, some of them probably got erections at that point. They were no longer socially awkward nerds. They were the rebel front fighting the fat cats from the record studios. Stealing from the rich, and giving it to everyone who had an in internet connection.

So you will understand my point when I say that the key to stopping internet piracy is a simple change of a name. We must stop calling them pirates, thus taking away their pride and self esteem and shame them into going deep into the underground where the pirate activity will be halted. I have thought long and hard about a name that would steal imply illegal thieving activity, yet feel somehow shameful. And here it is. From here on, let us refer to all pirates as “Molesters”.

Now, there is no “pirating” problem in the media community. There is a “molesting” problem. There are no “pirates”, there are “molesters”. You might even turn on the TV and witness this piece of outstanding journalism: “4 co-founding members of the Molester Bay, a popular torrent tracking website, often used for distributing molested media content, have been sentenced by a Swedish court”. After news like that, no programmer or even computer owner will ever own up to being part of this “Molesting Ring”. No more bragging about pirating games when the term will now be “molesting games”. A simple change of name, and yet such a huge impact on the community at large.

If you feel you want to help with the problem of Media Molestation, please spread the word around and get more people into the initiative. That is all.

Tagged with: Molesting • Piracy • Somali

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This entry was posted on Monday, April 20th, 2009 at 11:39 am and is filed under General Twaddlepiss. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.