The Internet Pirate Manifesto

The public will put up with a lot of terrible things, but if you suggest that an elected official is hiding secrets from us the response is uproar. Democrats point to Nixon's Watergate cover-up as a great crime against the people. Republicans similarly point to the fact that Bill Clinton had the audacity to lie to America about his sex-life, America of all people! Every year we learn of some insertion of the public eye into the private lives of citizens, always justified by some event that calls attention to National Security and the fact that this event could have been prevented if we'd just had access to the right information. (Someone up on the hill sure seems to have watched Minority Report a few too many times, nyet?)

The voices of recent history, unanimously so far as I can hear, speak that information belongs to all. Not only is it free, but it is freedom, and that's what we stand for as Americans. Isn't that the great evil of China, that their postal and internet policy keeps so much of their people's information from being shared?

The problem we are facing is that in the last thirty years we have seen all that we hold dear, our television programs, books, music and movies, translated into information, into 1s and 0s. Today we deal with a dilemma of contrary feelings. I'm going to use music as a specific example of this process in order to avoid confusion, but with the understanding that any of these other media can be understood in its place. When music was bound to matter, to records and cassettes and discs, it was property, it was a singular object that belonged to a particular person, and its theft, we believed, deserves punishment. Music is now ethereal. It is repeatable. Like some kind of riddle, you can give it to someone else and keep it at the same time. It is information, and information holds to a different rule than property. Our contrary feelings stem from the fact that we recognize an MP3 as information, but the old ways from a different time and their good friend the recording industry recognize it as property, neither different from a CD nor free from policies of control.

What we are experiencing is the birth pangs of a new way. When a woman gives birth to a child she experiences great pain. But the result is a new life, a child, but also a woman transformed, a mother. The recording industry is getting less of our money, and sadly, some musicians aren't going to be able to make it in this new age. But it's not all sad stories on the end of the music industry: they are finding both new ways to market music and new markets for music. Bands like Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails are releasing significant works for free. According to the old way, this should result in their demise, and yet Radiohead made money hand over fist on In Rainbows, an album offered to the entire world for free. Radiohead tells us that these pains will end, and when they are over the consumer and the producer alike will benefit so long as we allow this difficulty to activate our creativity rather than simply calling those lawyers you have on retainer.

In another age, creativity was expected of artists. I hold it as a self evident truth that those musicians who stand so strongly against free music sharing services, the Lars Ulriches of the music world, say nothing with their protests but "This is not about art and we are not artists. We would record farts and farts alone if we believed you would buy it. You, the masses, on average much more poor than us, exist to give away the little money you have, and you exist to give it to us. I, Lars Ulrich, am here to say that I, and those like me, are only in it for the money."

If you're not already aware, I'm trying to justify a crime. I wish to perpetuate crime and I wish to do so in a way in which the criminals are not caught. I also wish to tell you that the law that those criminals are breaking is unjust and we all know that it is unjust. If you remember your history then you know that this is exactly what the good things about America are founded on. It was illegal for us to have freedom from the Brits. The founding of this country in any other name than that of a king on an island far away was illegal. We won that battle and made freedom legal. Since freedom is in such high demand, however, there's always someone who wants to control it and tax it and make it legal for some and illegal for others. So we keep battling to free freedom. When we download, upload, share, transfer, seed or leech, we share information, information being thoroughly understood as free, freedom and belonging to all. When someone like NBC / Universal sends a letter to your internet service provider and they shut off your service because you think its stupid to pay $15 for a movie that is most likely a disappointing adaptation, remake or sequel, wouldn't it be nice if you could write back and say, "Nice try, but information belongs to everyone. I foresee a future and you're going to be swallowed whole by it."

I wish to close by citing the motto of most downloading sites and downloaders: "If you like it, buy it." Support artists by buying good movies, albums, books and comic books. Promote what is good on your Myspace, your Facebook, your Twitter, your blog, in your daily life. Go to concerts. Re-watch a good movie on the big screen if you get the chance. The high definition projector technology these days, especially at Rave Motion Picture Company, is magnificent. Find your own way to support what is good, especially if it is both good and unpopular. We too need to exercise our creativity in the way we pay back those few artists who are creative and support their fans.

Support always good art, but do so recognizing that information is free and belongs to all.