For Just A Few Dollars More

It is astonishing to me that a man as smart as President Obama continues to do stupid things. His recent proclamation that his administration will be cracking down on piracy is stunningly short-sighted and poorly thought-out, and it is entirely possible that his position will have detrimental political implications when he comes up for re-election in a couple years.

The President claims that a failure to put an end to piracy will result in nothing less than the demise of the global economy, which sounds disturbingly like the sort of fear-mongering we endured in the eight years prior to Mr. Obama's election. Even worse, it is completely unfounded, as the Government Accountability Office released a report to Congress earlier this year that found no evidence of the million dollar losses claimed by the entertainment industry, most notably the Recording Industry Association of America and the Motion Picture Association of America. Indeed, the report suggested that piracy could actually be a boon to the economy.

When the American public overwhelmingly elected Mr. Obama to the presidency in 2008, it was in part because they dared hope that we would at last have a president immune to lobbyist dollars. Unfortunately, it has proven to be more of the same. For Mr. Obama, this decision comes at a time when the MPAA and RIAA (the latter in particular) have become increasingly archaic and unpopular with the American people, who see them as protectors of corporate interests, all too eager to gouge your average working stiff who just wants a night out at the movies with his family, but finds himself swindled for upwards of fifty bucks for a few tickets and a bucket of popcorn. Even worse, this appears to be just the next in a series of unwinnable wars against ideas, and this is certain to be a failure as complete as the wars on poverty, on drugs, and on terrorism, among other things. There are those among our populace who are becoming very aware that such battles are really nothing more than a distraction, the wave of a hand by a skilled magician to ensure that you won't notice the coin he has palmed in the other.

Despite this, I am less concerned with the political fate of Mr. Obama than I am with the rights of the people. Though I am not a judge or a lawyer, I have plenty of common sense that tells me that if somebody pays for something, they can do whatever they like with it. If you purchase a DVD or buy an album on iTunes, then the files contained therein belong to you, and if you choose to give them away on the internet, then you are well within your rights to do so. Downloading those files is not, as Vice President Biden suggests, equivalent to smashing a store window and taking something. Rather, it is accepting something that has been offered freely as a gift. And as for the alleged loss of millions of dollars, even if you don't accept that report from the Government Accountability Office, you should know that the record labels represented by the RIAA, for instance, make virtually nothing from album sales. Their profits derive almost wholly from live performances and merchandise. Likewise, film producers aren't making much from sales of hard copies of their movies; their big bucks come from box office receipts, and they aren't hurting for those. In case you hadn't noticed, numerous box office records have been set in multiple categories just in the last couple years. Of course, as much as it costs to go to the movies these days, it would be difficult to not be raking in the green.

At some point, we have to start applying common sense to real life, and our politicians have to be made to enact and enforce laws that protect the common man rather than corporate interests. Not everything has to make money for someone in this country, damn it! These people would have you believe that they are being robbed at gunpoint, but the truth is very much the opposite.