Privateers on the Electronic Bay

Take a trip to the high seas about two centuries ago and you'd find yourself in a precarious position: trying to navigate the tumultuous waves while also hoping to steer clear of pirates looking to claim your ship and its contents for their booty. Now come back to the modern day and imagine the same scenario. Outside of perhaps the region near the horn of Africa, it is difficult to think such a travesty could befall most people. It is a common misconception that pirates are armed mercenaries who ransack marine vessels with no regard for the victims. The truth is that pirates can, and do, take many shapes and forms.

These days it is far more common for pirates to sit behind a computer, running software, trying to find back-doors and exploitations of programs and hardware designed by what many people see as faceless corporations. The truth is a far cry from that though. The faceless corporations are the ones who distribute, market, and finance the intellectual property which is being exploited, but it is developed primarily by teams of innovators. These collective minds work together in order to come up with new ideas and inventions in the hopes of designing products that will have mass appeal and/or be profitable. Unfortunately, when people decide to obtain or exploit their product, illegally, they are doing a great disservice to the people who poured so much into making their dream a reality.

Copyright infringement has turned into a widespread pandemic, affecting industries such as film, music, and interactive media. With the proliferation of digital media, it's no surprise that profits for the music and film industry have declined steadily over the past few years. It's easy to imagine an exodus of talent from these respective industries into a more profitable venture.

A large portion of people will disagree with my assessment, but the writing is clearly on the wall. Eventually the companies which have seen losses will find a way to rebound, and the consumers are the ones who will lose in the long run. Prices will increase, hurting the average customer, and the people who were once pinnacles of their respective fields in these stagnating industries will be finding a different outlet for their concepts, ones which will be harder to exploit and will be more profitable for them. This in turn will lead to mediocre products, and a diminished quality.