Human nature will keep copying alive

SOCIAL STUDIES - May 19th 2008

I was born before. . . well, before an incredible amount of things.

This morning in the shower I was mentally making a list and it is pretty interesting, or perhaps frightening. In particular, I was thinking simply about the entertainment industry.

I was born before FM radio made it big, before both eight tracks and cassette tapes, (we used to have these big vinyl disk like things). I remember when the first beta and VHS tapes became available for recording television; heck, I remember the first cable television instead of the fuzzy rabbit ear pictures. Since I have been born they have invented Walkmans, CDs, DVDs, and MPEG players. No one I knew owned a PET computer until I was like, eight, and then we owned the VIC 20 (think of it as a calculator with a big screen), Commodore 64, WANG computer, ColecoVision, and on it goes. . .

Now I am not 100; I am not, yet, even 40, although it is on the immediate horizon. All of this has changed in our world in the last three decades. It is hard to imagine.

During each and every year of those three decades I have done something with questionable legality. I remember back when vinyl records were in vogue buying a bootleg record of a Hong Kong concert of The Police -- I bought a Pink Floyd bootleg too I think.

I regularly used the cassette tapes to make scratchy recordings of AM Radio to listen to during the summer. I have certainly recorded television -- I once had every episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation on VHS tapes . . . no small feat, I eventually had to give them away as I had no place to store them all.

I have occasionally downloaded music for my iPod and once, once mind you, I downloaded a torrent of a show I missed and did not want to throw the whole series off by not watching the rest. I have played other people's video games on my computer and even snuck into a second show at the theatre after paying for an early matinee.

Ah, the insanity of youth; of thinking the rules don't apply to you. . . But really, what are these rules?

I see the Scotland Yard warning on the beginning of my DVDs; and I understand that piracy does cause a loss of revenue -- but I don't believe it is a very high loss of revenues; and I am not sure that the industry really understands the human spirit.

You see, I believe we are going to pay for things we find of value regardless of whether we listen to them or see them ahead of time. I would listen to songs on the radio, and then go out and buy an album, or a cassette of the songs I really liked. It never really mattered if I had already copied them on my own cassette, I loved owning the album of the artists I admired. I "collected" them.

I bought the Lord of the Rings DVDs as well as the Harry Potter series. I had already seen each one two or three times, but I just wanted to own them. For that matter I own multiple copies of the same novels -- ones purchased in the states, versus Canada, hard cover and trade. . . I like things to have permanence.

I also think that the Eagles are making a whole lot more money on concert revenue then they are for CD sales. Think about it, most concerts are somewhere near 100 dollars and somewhere near 50,000 people. . . so you make five million dollars in box office take for each concert. . . I guarantee set up, travel, and crew does not run you five million a night. My feeling is they could afford to give out free CDs.

I don't want to make it sound like I blatantly disagree with copyrights. Hey, I sell words for a living; I have to believe there is such a thing as intellectual property. What I do think is that, to quote the famous Matt Groening, copyright infringement is the sincerest form of flattery. What the industry might want to do to combat piracy is to admit that for the most part individual piracy is in fact, just advertising material.

If someone tells me to download and watch something, or hands me a DVD to look at -- it usually just makes me want more from the same producer. . . and I will subscribe to or buy what I now know I need. I would even argue this to be true about movies in theatres.

Unless you are fabulously wealthy, with your own 70 inch wall mounted flat screen high definition television; HDDVD player along with stadium seating and THX surround sound and your own concession stand, you are going to go out to see some movies -- most movies -- or at least the blockbusters. There is no substitution for sitting in a darkened theatre with hundreds of strangers, munching totally death-inducing popcorn while being awed into silence by the soundtrack, effects and just blatant hugeness of the presentation before you. Almost everyone will go to see Indiana Jones on the big screen, or Star Wars, or even a horror flick, because they are better in crowds. Trust me, watching anything alone on the screen of my laptop will never compare.

So yes, if there is someone in a basement in Kelowna B.C. knocking off a million copies of Shakira's new CD, catch them, prosecute them, confine them to the outer reaches of darkness. . . but when individuals copy entertainment media for personal use it is not really going to impact the industry; and I don't think anyone should be complaining. But don't quote me out of context.