Piracy, it's the way you look at it.

The word piracy still causes many people who did not grow up with technology to think of rough seafaring men who robbed ships and ports and struck terror into the hearts of their victims. These types of pirates have become a popular topic in movies, stories, and fashion.

On the other hand, today most people also realize that piracy does not happen only on the sea and does not always involve pillaging and plundering. Computers have opened the door to another type of piracy, the piracy of people’s intellectual property. It is extremely simple to copy something off the internet for free, or to share what you bought with others for free by making illegal copies.

Because piracy is so easy online and with the use of mass storage devices, many computer users have turned pirate, some without realizing it. It is just a convenient way to obtain the things they want without having to pay any money for the product. This is against copyright laws, and for a good reason.

Imagine if everyone started shoplifting just because it is easy. Most small stores do not have any security on their doors, and they may sell many small products that easily fit inside a pocket or bag. So it is easy to just take it and walk out of the store. Why worry about standing in line at the register and then trading money for it?

The two main reasons that most people do not shoplift are pretty simple. Either people are afraid of the consequences of getting caught or they just know it is wrong. They want to be honest people and give the store what it is due.

So then why do people who would never consider shoplifting still pirate things? There are severe consequences to piracy, and people do get caught. What is missing from this issue is the attitude people have towards the two different crimes. Our parents taught us from a young age that shoplifting is a bad thing to do. Many children will take things from a store and when the parents find out they are scolded and made to return what was taken. On the other hand piracy became easier when the internet was developed. Many parents did not know to teach their children not to pirate things.

Now there are some who brag about their pirating skills, thinking it gives them a cool image and encourages people to want to be their friends because of the free music, software, and other pirated items they can receive. It will be very hard to convince our society that it really is a crime that harms everyone. Artists and developers who have their products pirated are losing money and through that losing the will to create more work that would be pirated away from them. Bit by bit society loses the creative element that each person decides not to contribute.

Some artists and authors have found that their sales actually increase when their products are pirated. For example, Neil Gaiman compares it to lending a book to a friend so they can discover their favorite author. I think if these types of things increase sales then the artists and authors who desire to do so could post samples of their work or downloads that expire after a certain amount of time. This way customers could see if they like it or recommend it to friends and would still support the artist if they wanted to keep it indefinitely.

Another grey area in this debate is what to do about the items that are not available through any means except piracy. The answer to these problems depend on the case, and still there may be no easy solution. If a particular item is no longer published or sold online anywhere, piracy might be considered the only solution. But then the question is, if we didn't have the internet and an item went out of publication, how then would people obtain it? Maybe some things were not meant to be available, users can definitely make the choice to move forward and support a different artist that is still publishing their work.

The common outlook on piracy is that it does not matter, it is too easy to avoid, only a few people get caught, or even that we have a right to distribute the things we buy as we wish. This is the wrong way to look at the issue. Piracy does matter; it does hurt the people whose intellectual property has been stolen, and it needs to come to a stop. All that needs to change are people’s habits and personal view on what they are doing. Spread the word; buy the intellectual property that you appreciate.