Schneier on Security

Connelly Barnes • January 4, 2007 7:31 PM

It seems clear that all reasonable outcomes involve (a) Copyright enforcement being maintained and (b) Nearly everyone pirating software and music. Thus one can argue quite convincingly that the current social dynamics serve simply to maximize hypocrisy -- everyone lies about piracy, breaks the law (and this is regarded as either a good thing or a necessary evil), and generally acts in a contradictory way. Those who do stop to question the ethics of the situation often assume that we partake in some sort of "Copyright war" and that to resolve the rampant nonsensical hypocrisy and sundering of civil liberties, point (a) should be abolished completely. (Those who stop to question the business efficacy of the situation naturally come to the opposite view). Of course using ethics and thought to try and resolve the situation is wonderful; to be praised; however, this particular suggested solution is entirely unrealistic as the average American wants his movies and his soda, and it's politically impossible to take away his movies by abolishing point (a), because he forms the majority of the population (and everyone knows that Americans fly into murderous rampages when you try to take away their movies or sodas). A more realistic solution is to acknowledge the hypocrisy carried out by nearly everyone (we're all guilty, all criminals), and consider Copyright infringement not so much as a criminal offense as the cost of doing "business" with society, i.e. fines should be nominal and people after being fined should not be discouraged from continued piracy, as it is the norm after all. The current solution that everyone seems to be "following" is to support either end of the "war," and the problem with following this solution is that the war is inherently unbalanced: the pro-Copyright side of the war will always win legally due to political and business dynamics; however, the winning side can ONLY gain new territory in the war by eroding basic technological liberties. This is a really bad situation to be in (i.e., legalistically losing a war by having the legal system be eroded by hypocrisy, where one can predict that it is impossible for there to be any outcome other than that the war will be lost legally, and by having every loss in this war manifest as a loss in the basic liberties available to those using technology). Thus I'd encourage people to see piracy as neither ethically reprehensible nor beneficial but simply as the expected group-theoretic outcome based on how our society works. As the "hypocrisy" is intrinsic in how our society is structured, it makes sense to not call it hypocrisy, to decriminalize it, and to regulate it instead.

Connelly Barnes • January 4, 2007 7:55 PM

Or, I could simply renounce my evil ways and delete my MP3 collection, or retract my head like a turtle and keep a low profile, thinking as most people do that the Man is made of Teflon (R) and hence nothing sticks to him. However, I think we all have MP3s in our closets, so I thought it might be better to have a discussion of the topic that ignores the war and focuses on the down-to-earth problem of everyone breaking the law (I think this is a problem, as I don't think people should disrespect the law, but if the law is being used as a pawn in a war of special interests, then people will naturally tend to disrepect the law).

Connelly Barnes • January 4, 2007 8:07 PM

Finally, I'd think it would be great if AACS were cracked, as in ten years this may let me watch movies on VideoLAN in peace and calm instead of fighting a depressing battle with some spyware and adware infested commercial gimmick of a program. (But wait, VideoLAN uses libdvdcss, so it's illegal, right? It's hard to get anything straight in the fray of the battle...) Also, it's nice to have those basic technological freedoms, just in case you need them. You never know when they might come in handy.