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Everyday Ethics Article
Music Piracy
Q: A few weeks ago a friend 'burned' me a pirate copy of a new CD he'd just bought. It's not a band I would usually have bothered with, but I have to admit the music is pretty good. However I now feel guilty every time I play the CD. Should I give the CD back, and risk alienating my friend? Should I just throw it away and hope he doesn't raise it in conversation, forcing me into an awkward situation? Or can I keep the CD with a clear conscience, knowing that I didn't make the illegal copy, and that it's pretty unlikely that I would ever have bought a copy anyway?
A: Music piracy, while not as sexy as the old skull-and-crossbones kind, is certainly a good deal more widespread. 'Piracy' is generally considered to include a) 'pirate recordings', where it's just the music itself that is copied, usually by ordinary people using ordinary equipment on a not-for-profit basis ('Dude, I just got the new Kaiser Chiefs album - do you want me to burn you a copy?'); b) 'counterfeiting', which involves copying the music as well as the packaging, and generally involves attempting to pass off the copy as the real thing; c) 'online piracy', which is basically the same as either making a pirate recording or counterfeiting, only it's done via the internet; and d) 'bootlegging', which is the recording and trading of a performance, usually a live concert, which has not been officially released by the artist or her representative.
RIAA, the Recording Industry Association of America, claims that the recording industry 'loses' around 4.2 billion U.S. dollars to piracy each year. This figure is reached by way of an inference that each pirate transaction represents a lost legitimate sale. This is obviously overly simplistic: people buy pirated music, or make their own copies, because doing so is cheaper than buying the real thing from a retailer. It's not at all obvious that if the pirated version were not available then all those people would head straight for the nearest Musica. That said, it's pretty obvious that full-blown music counterfeiting is both illegal and unethical, and we ought not to support this industry by buying cheap counterfeits at fleamarkets and street traders. Your query, however, is about home-made pirate recordings
Many people who make pirate copies of CD's, particularly the 'home pirates' who don't actually make money out of piracy, think of themselves as modern day Robin Hoods - stealing from the obscenely rich recording company fat cats and their seriously overpaid 'artists', and giving to the poor (er, themselves). RIAA tries to undermine that kind of thinking by claiming that it's the consumer who is the 'ultimate victim' of piracy. Why? Because the poor consumer who buys a pirated copy is thereby denied the superior sound quality and flash packaging that comes with the real thing. Ag Shame.
While RIAA's argument is not particularly convincing, it's not clear that the Robin Hood argument holds water either. Presumably the idea is that in this sort of case stealing is justified by the nastiness of the person or persons being stolen from, and the real need of the person or persons the stealing is supposed to benefit. But does this really hold in this case? While it's hard to feel too sorry for either Sony or their latest boy-band, we do need to ask ourselves whether they're really doing something wicked by making money out of their product. Perhaps the argument is that CD's are overpriced. Well, in a free market system there's a pretty good way of driving some product's price down - don't buy it. If enough people agree with you, then the product won't sell and price will eventually come down. If it doesn't, then you were probably wrong about the overpricing in the first place. And let's face it, it's not as if music is such a fundamental need that you might die while waiting for the market to make things right. If you're really desperate, there's always the radio.
There are those who believe that there is price fixing going on in the music industry, and that piracy is a legitimate form of protest against the music barons. But if protest is really your goal, rather than just a convenient excuse for stealing, then copying your buddy's new CD is not a particularly effective way of doing it. Protests need to attract attention. If you REALLY want to protest, and don't like any of the wide range of legal means of protesting that there are out there, then one good route would be to start openly selling counterfeit CD's outside your nearest big-name-brand record store, and wait to get arrested. You'll then get more than enough opportunity to get your message out through the media.
If protest is not really what's on your agenda, what should you do about the situation you describe? If you do really like the CD, buy yourself a legit copy and toss away the pirated version. If your buddy is concerned about why you didn't keep the pirated CD, you can always try RIAA's 'ultimate victim' line. And if you decide not to buy the CD, then get rid of the pirated version anyway, and go out and buy two copies of the latest release from your favourite South African artist or band - one for you and one for your friend.
[This article was previously published in the 'Everyday Ethics' column that is authored by members of the School of Philosophy and Ethics at the University of KwaZulu-Natal and which appears fortnightly in the Witness [www.witness.co.za]. The article is republished here with permission.]
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