Playing Dumb

The video above neatly wraps up a critical point in Freeloading discourse, when Freeloaders argue that digital copy of a piece of music, a film or a piece of writing isn't theft; it's an action comparable in harmlessness to breathing in the digital realm. I'm endlessly frustrated by the sentiment and for this I first blame the RIAA.

As the RIAA began leveling their lawsuits against consumers, infamous spokesperson Hilary Rosen made the absurd claim that each Freeloaded music track equaled a lost sale. This may have been forgivable if confined to a theoretical discussion of ethics in the digital age, but instead Rosen used the argument as justification for the astronomical lawsuits filed against Freeloaders. So, a fundamentalist argument by the RIAA begat a fundamentalist argument by the Copyleft crowd.

Wading through the binary wilderness today, the Copyleft argument that no copies equal theft because "the original still exists" is bandied about as a justified placeholder for the lurking reality of blatant personal irresponsibility. It's one of a few arguments Freeloaders use to keep their better ethical angels' mouths clamped shut. To hide behind the technical reality that an original still exists in the face of the realities of consumers' personal experience and crumbling music industry revenues (which just happen to align with the advent of Freeloading) is to play dumb on the functional reality of freeloading and does a disservice to other perfectly valid criticisms of copyright law, ones which deserve attention.

The only thing more ridiculous than saying every copy equals a lost sale is to say that NO copy equals a lost sale.