I know I’ve always been an outspoken critic of copyright and generally regard it as an issue that is very close to my heart. As a person that believes in knowledge production as the epitome of human achievement, copyright understandably is an important subject of study for me and through my understanding I have come to the realisation that as copyright stands in many industries, primarily printing, music, and video, copyright has become over ripe in its understanding of the flow of information and has failed in its original goal of fostering the increase of knowledge. Copyright is now a system of protectionism for the powerful, mature industries backed by the MPAA, the RIAA, and the publishing houses. I am not saying this as a rant or call to arms, but there are obvious truths to the argument and it all comes down to the money trail. Artists sell the rights to their own music to the labels, writers sell their words and thoughts to publishers who turn around and sell the ideas for millions to movie studios, and Hollywood churns out movies based on idiotic romantic expectations and mindless special effects. Just look at the Academy Award for Best Picture this year - produced by independent international studios - even the establishment know their own creations are shit. Today the creators are okay with not owning their own creations.

Just look around at the anti-intellectualism of our societies. Less than half of Americans believe in evolution and a large proportion answer “don’t know” to almost every question. More people go to higher education than ever before and it is the academia that is pandering to the masses now and not the masses courting the intellects of our country. We claim as our right freedom and equality, but we commodify human life, information, education, and our values. Our society seeks to enforce a system of zero sum to all aspects of life when nothing is zero sum, everything has value and can’t be explained simply as gains and losses, winning and losing.

I argue against many like minded individuals that free trade is the answer. It is too easy to believe that capitalism is the problem, but we do not live in a capitalist society. We live in a society of consumerism and consumerism is not capitalism. The protectionism of agriculture, information, ideas, goods, and services is not free trade. The coercive lobbying by big business, military aid and arms, and government regulation is not free trade. The internet is free trade. The free flow of ideas through groups like ThePirateBay, Wikipedia, and blogs is free trade at its core. The unhampered exchange of information is the very ideal of free trade and the forces of entrenched academia that disparage Wikipedia and the MPAA and RIAA’s suit against ThePirateBay are an anti free trade action towards regulation and comomdification. People see capitalism as the root of the problem but I blame the subscribers to the system more than the system itself and the most influential subscribers are the entrenched industries and governments.

Similarly in the trial that just ended today (the verdict will be announced April 17 2009), TPB is being blamed by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry for copyright infringement; however, as Wired also fails to take notice, ThePirateBay is only a structure and a structure has no action on its own. That is like arguing that pencils are bad because they can be used to right hatespeech or knives are bad because they can stab people when they aren’t buttering toast. I argue that structures are not inherently bad or good, it is the subscribers of that structure that use it do its worst. As a country we blamed “the nazis” for 20 years and “the commies” for 60 years for all the ills of the world. We made no distinction between the people and the leadership as can be seen in the propaganda material of the governments involved. Even today we blame the Middle East for the oil crisis and do we not see that we attack structures when it is the people behind the structures that are really at fault. The people in the Middle East are not bloodthirsty savages and neither were the guys in the other trenches in World War I. They were manipulated by the wealthy leadership of their nations, by the power behind the structures. To attack thePirateBay is to attack the essence of the internet. It is an attack on forums and communities, an attack on YouTube and Wikipedia, on anyone that fights for the freedom to do what they want with their own material. Yes copyrighted material gets stolen everyday but look at the example of Marley and Me author John Grogan and tell me that the publishers are not worse.

For those of you that are unfamiliar with thePirateBay and PiratByran trial please read about it here.