Out from under the pirate flag

As I write this, the notorious file sharing website, thepiratebay.org is down. Is it down for the count? No one seems to know. There was a lot of talk at the country level, mainly the UK and Denmark, last week about shutting the site down, or at least blocking access to it. I've have only a vague idea of how long it's been down. The first — and so far — only report of it being down came in at around 2am on Thursday morning.

The reaction so far on the internet has been — predictably — outrage and panic with a side of "what did you expect?" It is after all, a site dedicated to sharing everything from current movies to the latest in audio books in violation of international copyright laws.

Assuming that Pirate Bay is actually down — you never know, maybe someone just pulled the wrong plug — the question is, will it make a difference? The same question was asked when Napster was taken down. Then again after Mobius and Kazaa came under attack. See the pattern? After 12 or so years of asking the question, I think we can safely say that file-sharing, illegal or otherwise, is here to stay.

And there just isn't much anyone can do about it either. Legal threats, both civil and criminal, site-blocking, commercials trying to lay on the guilt about an industry being put out of work — none of these have worked. It's time to pull out the only workable solution to the whole digital mess: open source. It's an idea that just might work, so of course, no one will even think about taking it seriously.

It works like this. Content is free. The users just pay for services, such as delivery (you pay an extra ISP ta... eh, I mean, service fee) or exclusive events, like concerts or premiers. Advertising will continue to have a role too. The entertainment industry won't vanish. It will just operate along a business model similar to that of professional sports.

Think of all the good an open-source model will cause. First, cops can go back to chasing real criminals instead of pimply teenagers trying to get their Wolverine fix. We will have to do something about the herds of suddenly-unemployment entertainment lawyers roaming the landscape. Maybe we can have a cull?

There will be a downside, such as fewer events, movies because there will be a drop in revenue. But that's already happening. Publishing houses affected by the drop in book sales have cut back on the number of new manuscripts they accept.

Focus on quality

Some people think this is a bad thing, but those people don't remember how much low-quality rubbish is being published today. I'm glad publishers today are being forced to focus on quality.

Think if we could get the movie and music businesses to adopt the same practices? Maybe they would actually try to develop real artists, like the Beatles or Led Zeppelin, instead of subjecting us to most of the crap out their today like Lady Ga Ga.

Sigh. Sorry, just having an "old man" moment there.

The entertainment industry is appalled by open sourcing. It has the most to lose, but if there was ever a case of an industry run amok, its the entertainment biz.

Two hundred years ago, it didn't exist. Copyright law changed all this, and while they have given writers and artists the protection they need to make a living, I doubt the original intent of copyright was to build up an industry that allows musicians to hire a legal team aimed as suing fans for illegally downloaded music.

The internet has made those laws almost impossible to implement. It's just a thought. We don't have to try opening sourcing. Instead, we can all wait and see what new website replaces PirateBay.