Okay, so it’s in connection with technology – they’re trying to stop other companies coasting on the success of the iPod – but how far will this go? Will we one day be unable to use the collective noun for dolphins? Will HAL be unable to open the pod bay doors? Heck, the legal fight could get nasty – it could even affect how we see vegetables. After all, they come in pods, and they couldn’t possibly fight Apple in court. I guess what I’m saying is…
…Give peas a chance.
Sorry.
Ironically, given that yesterday was Talk Like a Pirate Day, the other kind of pirates have been busy. Hacktivists have been targeting recording industry websites in revenge for legal action against the Pirate Bay, with the British Phonographic Industry next in their sights. Regardless of your views on file sharing and downloading music, it’s another example of how popular cyber attacks are beoming as a means of protest.
The history of hacking is more complex than this, with its roots in the counterculture and about a million different hats a hacker can wear; it’s a fascinating story, and I’d recommend Bruce Sterling’s The Hacker Crackdown (which is available for free online). Then again, there’s a growing threat from co-ordinated cyber-attacks – Operation Aurora, for instance, which targeted companies such as Google, and seems to have emanated from China and gave rise to the ironic phrase "Illegal Flower Tribute" (and the Great Firewall of China seems to be a catalyst for a lot of stuff like this, such as the GhostNet and Titan Rain).
I guess there’s an argument to say that, if this is the future of warfare then it’s not so bad – at least people aren’t getting killed. However, as we become more networked, that’s not going to be a given. It’s going to be interesting – and somewhat scary – to see how this develops….
You know how sometimes you’re reading and you stumble across a piece of information that seems relevant to wider issues but in a weird sort of way? That’s what happened to me today. Because in a world where Big Media is trying to clamp down on the internet, where digital piracy and the inability of music companies to adapt to new technologies are crashing into each other, where things like copyright and DRM and freedom of information are hot button issues… Well, did you know that the reason The Lord of the Rings got so big was because it was once pirated?
Effectively, while it had done pretty well in the UK, Rings hadn’t officially been published in the States. Thanks to America’s Byzantine laws ruling it to be in the public domain for some complicated reason, a publishing company called Ace Books decided in 1965 to release a US edition without paying royalties to Tolkien or his publishers. Fantasy in the US was undergoing something of a comeback amongst hippies and students, and Rings caught that zeitgeist; ‘Frodo Lives!‘ became a counterculteral slogan, and because Tolkien was slow to write the necessary amendments that would allow him to publish in the States, the only way of getting hold of the book was the pirated version. Well, at least until Ballantine got their official version out six months later in December 1965.
This is not an endorsement of piracy, of course, because Tokien wrote the thing and he wasn’t happy at getting screwed over – when the authorised US edition was released he wrote a cover blurb asking fans to only purchase the official version. This then lead to a grass-roots protest amongst fans, leading to Ace Books withdrawing their edition and paying Tolkien royalties. The Ballantine edition became the only one officially available, and the rest is pop culture history.
So what does this mean for the current debates over digital piracy, DRM, copyright and everything else? To be honest, I don’t know, smarter people than me can try and answer those questions. It’s just interesting to see the parallels – the Ace Books edition may have been hitting Tolkien in the pocket, but it helped introduce him to a wider audience – an audience who then went on to side with him when it came to buying the official versions. And did the controversy do more to publicise the book than a bog standard marketing campaign? Some authors, like Cory Doctorow, give away free ebooks of their work, and it seems to work for them… But is this the case for every author? I’d like to be able to offer some concrete answers, but the issue just seems to get bigger and more complex the more you look at it; the road goes ever on and on…
Yarrr! It be Talk Like a Pirate Day, ya scurvy landlubbers! This year all true wolves of the sea shall be sending their dubloons and associated booty to Marie Curie Cancer Care, which be a good cause, tho’ they don’t have a boat. And if you be sailing the good ship Facebook, you should be switching yer language settings to ‘English Pirate’, because it be talking how pirates should be talking.
‘Tis a hard life, being a pirate. ’tis a time of recession, and me pieces of eight are getting shorter. I sailed to the American colonies to get me piercings done, and when I ask what it be costing, they said “A buck an ear!” Pirates be good at figures though – 3.141% of us are Pi Rates. It not be easy to cope with tasks like that, having no schooling. I tried to learn me alphabet, but spent years at C. Still, ’tis better than Bluebeard the Pirate, who fell into the Red Sea and got marooned. It got him interested in religion, and now he’s looking forward to Arrrrrrrrrmageddon.
But I need to be sailing off to the horizon now. I have a coconut flavoured chocolate bar beneath me hat – aye, I have a Bounty on me head.
Yarrr!
(Please note, none of the above should be considered an endorsement of digital piracy, which as we all know funds terrorists, is the leading cause of climate change, and was directly responsible for the Napstaaaarrrrrrrrr Wars.)
………
(Serious link to Cory Doctorow’s alternative take on the digital piracy and copyright debate.)
