Nothing funny about rampant online piracy

As with most comics, New York-based Louis C.K. gained fame by pointing out the ridiculousness of everyday human behaviour. In one popular YouTube clip titled ‘Everything's amazing but nobody's happy', he describes how people fail to appreciate the conveniences of modern technology. The comic notes how people get frustrated when their cellphone call doesn't go through quickly enough.

"It's going to space," he says. "Can you give it a second to get back from space?"

The clip went viral and now touts nearly five million hits — evidence, perhaps, that his observations have resonated with audiences. Now, he's tackling another detriment of modern technology — its effect on the ethics of theft.

In an earlier age, stealing music or a video involved going into a store and physically taking a vinyl record, videotape, or compact disc. You could make illegal copies of media, but they were never as good as the original. Theft, therefore, was never a huge concern for artists in the past.

But with modern technology, anyone can easily download clean duplicates of music and movies via a wide array of online sites. The effect on the music business has been harrowing — sales have plummeted over the past decade. Many people simply don't see stealing music online as wrong as stealing music from a store.

In this environment, Louis C.K. recently posted his latest standup performance, ‘Live at the Beacon Theatre', on his website and offered it for sale for $5 (Dh18.35). The video can be watched on any device and copied in any way the user sees fit. The profits go directly to him with no distribution company or television network involved.

On his website, he notes that he isn't putting any type of anti-piracy protection or regional restrictions on the video and wonders whether "everyone will just go and steal it?"

By removing the faceless corporation from the equation, he forces would-be pirates to defend the ethics of their theft. In a way, he's once again pointing out the ridiculousness of human nature. Why is stealing from a store wrong but stealing from the internet OK?

Ethical lapses

"I think it is really interesting that I brought the price so close to stealing and made the movie so easy to get and made it so clear that it's a human offering that it sparked a debate about pirating," he recently wrote. "To steal from someone and not feel bad, you either have to be a sociopath or view the act differently."

Most illegal downloaders probably do just "view the act differently." Ethical lapses often occur when people fail to slow down and discern right from wrong. They just move quickly without stopping to think for a moment about their action. If the people around them behave in a similar fashion, they have little reason to think about it further.

Indeed, when I discuss online piracy with my media law students (in both the US and in the UAE), many have simply never considered the ethics of downloading material from the internet. While their religious upbringing may make it clear that stealing is wrong, downloading music or movies for free never made it into the equation. Some believe that if it's on the web, then it must be free.

When material is easily available on the internet, it's hard to see the harm in downloading it. But downloading music and videos illegally harms the artists who create the work, robbing them of the fruits of their labour. The reason governments grant copyrights is to ensure an economic incentive that rewards their creativity.

Louis C.K.'s experiment with direct sales helps link the act of piracy back toward the individual being harmed. His strategy appears to have worked.

While the live performance has shown up on illegal file-sharing websites, more than 200,000 people have purchased the video. He even posted a screen-shot of his PayPal account showing a balance of more than $1 million along with a pledge to give $250,000 away to charity.

The UAE recently announced plans to revamp its copyright laws. Ensuring that material is available for purchase legally would also help ease the lure of piracy. For instance, viewers in the UAE cannot purchase and legally download video content (including older Louis C.K. material) from sites such as Amazon.com. Any revision of copyright laws should also focus on creating a supply of digitally available material for purchase.

But in the end, the solution to piracy cannot begin and end with government action. It starts with an admission that illegally downloading copyrighted material is ethically unjustifiable. It harms the artists whose creative works enrich all our lives. We must teach our youth that easy access to illegal material doesn't make the act any less illegal.

Hopefully, Louis C.K.'s example will help make that lesson a little easier to understand.

 Dr Matt J. Duffy teaches media ethics at Zayed University in Abu Dhabi. You can follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/mattjduffy