Posted by Richard at September 22nd, 2007

So, twice this week, perhaps because of the occurence of International Talk Like a Pirate Day, I’ve seen more stories pop up in blogs on real-life piracy: as in, armed robbery by gangs in international waters. Despite our cultural romance with piracy, it’s worth remembering that most pirates, in addition to the robbery thing, engaged in in things like murder, destruction of property, torture, rape, and slave-taking. My point isn’t the cultural conditions that lead and still lead to piracy a life choice. It’s that, like “stealing,” piracy is a poor metaphor for the unlicensed digital reproduction of purely intellectual property, over-dramatizing the consequences in such a way that it makes serious conversation difficult. So the question is, can we come up with a good name for unlicensed reproduction of digital IP (URDIP?) that treats the issue seriously? It’s not stealing and it’s sure as hell not piracy. But it does threaten to seriously reduce the return on digital IP for those who create and distribute it. While a new economy, such as the credibility-based ecnomony that Cory Doctorow imagined in Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom may revamp this system, such a radical overhaul currently won’t pay the bills.

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