Not so Jolly Roger

Piracy, banditry, or any other self-serving tag line you want to apply to thieves in the act of burglarizing intellectual property (IP) is never romantic, or audacious, or heroic, Jack Sparrow with his bandanna, earrings and self-effacing grin be damned.

Recently, Julie Andresen started a discussion on Google+ entitled “What are your thoughts on content piracy?” She got over thirty comments with opinions varying from “piracy is great,” to one advocating a personally administered penalty of “trans-anal evisceration.” Most of the heat came from a handful of the respondents, who purported to be listening but obviously were not hearing one another.

Ms. Andresen started her discussion by including a reasoned post, entitled The Question of Piracy by David Amerland in which Google stresses the major, and oft repeated, argument for piracy, namely, “Piracy often arises when consumer demand goes unmet by legitimate supply,” which, of course, is really no argument at all. It attempts to justify lawlessness by blaming inefficiency. With this reasoning, any time your mail is late you could go down to the Post Office to raid their coffers.

Here are some of the (slightly paraphrased, intent intact) arguments  in favor of piracy from that post. No names have been attributed to prevent author embarrassment:

• Piracy is great. People who don’t want to pay for a book get to read it regardless and the author gets their work read and maybe some exposure. It’s a win-win. If that wasn’t the case, they’d have never read it, anyway, so…
• It does not cost the creator much and provides him/her with exposure. Plus the more the public gets to know an author because of exposure to his/her work, the more personal the connection to that person becomes and the less likely they are to pirate his/her work.
• While piracy may be against the law, there is insufficient data to prove it damages anyone.
• Buying second hand anything  (like books or DVDs, etc.) is basically the same as piracy. None of that money goes to the creator or developer/publisher when you buy pre-owned.
• Those who are against piracy, regardless of their reasoning, need to understand that their objections are practically irrelevant. They are not going to stop people from copying music, movies, books, or whatever. The market has changed, they must adjust.
• Piracy is necessary. The copyright laws have been subverted by the media conglomerates in order to tie it up so that future generations won’t have access to it.
• The industry is doing it to itself by charging too much.
• You are presuming that you have the right to the buyer’s money. You don’t. Copying your work doesn’t actually deprive you of anything that you’re actually entitled to. If someone steals your car, you don’t have a car. If someone copies the bits and bytes of your story, you still have your story
• Have you ever repeated a joke that you heard somewhere? What about the poor comedian you ripped off?
• The default assumption against piracy is that every item downloaded is a retail loss. That’s nonsense. In the real world, people have limited budgets, and their entertainment budgets are realistically going to be smallest portion of their overall budget. Therefore, just because someone downloaded your book or movie or song doesn’t mean that they were going to give you money for it
• I’d rather deal with pirates than the corporate looters of the publishing industry
• There have been plagiarism laws on the books for decades and infringement laws as well. Enforcement has always been the problem and with global markets just a click away, the issues become more intractable. When the cost of defense is more than the loss, the only victories are Pyrrhic
• Intellectual monopoly protections almost always hinge on Marxist notions of the labor theory of value. “I worked hard on this, so I must receive the benefit from it!”
• I hope, for the sake of intellectual consistency if nothing else, you don’t use any elements from the public domain or the common cultural history of mankind. Since you evidently think that so-called intellectual property is identical to real, physical property, I can’t see how you can abide a time and statute-limited-definition of that property right.
• The people who would pirate your material wouldn’t have bought your book anyway.

Notice that there is no real logic here. One excuse is offered after another, including some upside down interpretation of Marxism.

The main argument of this warped mentality is that if I want it, but it is unavailable for whatever reason, I will take it. This is akin to the argument that someone wearing a gold chain on a NYC subway deserves to be robbed, or that if a woman dresses provocatively and I desire her, I can rape her.

Their secondary argument is that piracy always has been and always will be, so I might as well participate.

And there is no shame.

Now, here are some of the arguments against piracy:

• It robs the creator of his just dues
• My concern isn’t piracy by an individual who wants to read, watch, or listen.  My concern are those who pirate with the intent to make money for themselves and/or their business concern from the pirated works
• Piracy sucks, and people who do it should let me take money out of their pockets. It’s exactly the same thing
• People pirate because they can get away with it. It has nothing to do with how much or how little something costs, or whether or not they “like” it
• If I can’t get paid for what I do, why bother doing it? I have to eat, too. I have to pay bills. It takes months of hard work to create a book that must then be edited and proofed and formatted and a nice cover slapped on it. This stuff isn’t free. It’s asinine to say pirating is okay. Pirates steal from creative people. They’re taking the bread out of our mouths
• Take enough of our work without compensation and pretty soon there will be nothing to steal
• No one has the right to suggest that the IP creator should just bite the bullet and let his/her work go for free. We do NOT live in either a communist nor a socialist nor a fascist world…at least not yet.  IP anarchists be damned.
• Copyright infringement is theft by any other name.
• I am the creator.  My work is mine to monopolize.
• At least pirates, thieves and scam artists are honest in their intent: “We will make as much from you and/or your stuff as we can get away with stealing.  IP abolitionists are off the cliff all the way around – beyond all rational mind,

I am not neutral. I believe in the ownership of intellectual property. I know how much work it takes to produce a product. If time is money, than all the time an artist takes to produce a work of art puts a value on that work. The popularity of the work determines how much people are willing to pay for it.

In no case is it free.

The post Piracy is never romantic, Jack Sparrow be damned appeared first on Thomas McGann.

Please, Honey, let me explain

Baby, please let me explain.

It was just an article I wrote because of the episode with the Jets and the female reporter that was in the news.  I didn’t really mean it the way you took it.  You know how I get sometimes.  And, no, I don’t really want to interview Anna Kournikova while she’s showering.  I was just kidding.  Besides I don’t have the proper press pass.

Me and the guys were down at Hooters having a few beers and watching the game when the subject came up about that hot attractive female reporter who wanted to interview Mark Sanchez, the Jets QB, you know quarter back.  So we started discussing it and one of the guys, probably Tommy (you know how he gets) starts sticking up for the guys in the locker room.  Well, it got pretty funny at the time but then again we had all been drinking beer.

When you got on my case last night about my column I realized that I had overstepped my bounds with those “reporterette” and “chiquita” cracks.  You know I love you, Sweetheart.  Please forgive me.  I was just trying to be funny.

Likewise about the sprayed on pants.  They weren’t really sprayed on but they were awful tight – not that that’s an excuse.  I’m just trying to explain myself and as to the “teats” thing I just couldn’t think of another acceptable term to use and the editor didn’t change it and she’s a woman so how wrong could I have been.

OK, let’s get to the “packages” part.  That is a modern term that’s used a lot in hip-hop these days so I used it to try to sound cool.  I thought my comparison of their “packages” to her “package” made it even cooler until I saw how red your face got when you read that line back to me.  I guess that was pretty stupid of me, huh?

But wait until I get home tonight because I know you’ll just love the little “package” I have for you tonight.  Wait!  I didn’t mean it that way but that is funny isn’t it.  See, I can be a little funny sometimes without even knowing it.   I meant the “package” I bought for you today at one of your favorite stores.  You’re gonna love it.  It’s an “asking for forgiveness” package.

And I totally get your indignation at the “feminist thingy” thing.  I got carried away while I was writing the piece.  You know I support equal rights for men too.  It was the beers, I guess.  “Thingy” seemed funny since I was writing about “packages.”  OK, OK!  I’ll let it go.  It was just a weak joke and you know my sense of humor (or lack thereof – ha, ha, ha.)

And Pandora’s Box that was funny too.  Even you lightened up when you read me that part remembering it as a children’s story.  It’s really a Greek tragedy but the important thing is that you got it.

And now to the other difficult part for me to explain…that “cubbies” reference.  I must have gotten that right because you got that too even though it gave you a migraine.  And, yeah, I can see how the scent thing could be taken the wrong way but I’m innocent of all charges on that one.  It was that bear analogy again.  I think I explained what the word “analogy” meant when we were discussing the differences between our mothers.  Remember?

And wasn’t that “Goldilocks” reference clever.  Oh, oh, and forget about the work “fecundity.”  I don’t really know what it means anyway.  It just sounded good and it had more than three syllables which impresses my readers (and my editor.)

You know I love you and respect your opinion that’s why I am replying so openly.  Please forgive me and can I sleep in our bed tonight?  The couch is lumpy like cellulite and it frigid cold out there this time of year.

Love you,

Me

Xxxoooxxx

The post An open apology to my wife concerning females in male locker rooms appeared first on Thomas McGann.

Tennis Champion Anna Kournikova

Are you kidding? Hello! Is anybody home?

Yeah?  Well, there are many male reporters would like to interview Anna Kournikova while she’s showering too.

Let’s get real here.

The New York Jets got into some unwarranted trouble a while back when a female reporterette entered the Jets locker-room after practice to conduct an interview. She was whistled at and called a “bonita senorita.”  The media reported the story and the feminists got all in a twitter.

You have fifty-some sweaty guys coming off the field with their testosterone all pumped up and in walks a pretty chiquita in spray-on pants with teats prominently on display and no one expects the guys to react?

If the guys did not react there would be a problem. To attempt to denigrate guys for being guys is full frontal sexism.

The reporter in question, Ms. Inez Sainz, twittered, “I’m in the Jet locker room and trying not to look at anything.” What is she trying not to look at?  Lockers or benches or exercise equipment?  No, she’s trying not to look at male packages, in their prime, with or without jock straps, wrapped or not wrapped in towels.

Ms. Sainz, a former Miss Universe contestant, is obviously in touch with her sexuality and should be mighty proud of the package in which she is wrapped. For her to feign surprise that some guys would whistle or call her a “bonita senorita” is just plain silly.

That’s what guys do.  Get over it.

Oh, that’s right the incident happened in the workplace where sexual harassment is verboten. For football players the workplace is the field on which they war. It is not the locker-room. Do men enter the ladies room at corporate HQ or vice verse? Verboten! Hell, they even have separate suites for his and her executive washrooms.

This is all part of that feminist thingy that has been around since the late sixties.  Feminism means well but it escaped Pandora’s Box. Guys interviewed guys in the locker-room after the game and some female reporters objected. It got into the courts and, in fairness to all, the gals won the battle. Since then, however, the repercussions in the war of the sexes have been ignored.

The sexes are not the same and no attempt should be made to treat them the same.

For decades now women have been protecting this ersatz equality like mama grizzlies protecting their cubbies.  Meanwhile they continue to leave their scent on other heretofore male territories. Trouble is males like that scent and follow it for reproductive (or not) purposes. When males smell it they whistle and make unbearable sounds meant to announce their presence.  The females, depending on their own sensitivities and/or the sensitivities of other females around them, can welcome those advances or not.

When the female is alone with a team of male jocks, depending on the fecundity of the female, she may or may not feel uneasy.  If that prickly feeling makes her uncomfortable she leaves.  If she chooses to stay she is welcome but she cannot, then, complain about her surroundings.  Like Goldilocks who wandered in uninvited she might find some circumstances too hard or hot, some too soft or cold but she also might find some just right.

That feminist thingy spoiled it for everyone. If males cannot interview males in locker-rooms without granting women the same allowance, than females cannot interview females in their locker-rooms without granting men the same privilege and gay men must be excluded from male locker rooms and lesbians from female locker rooms, anyplace that scent might arouse desire.

Consequently if no one was allowed to interview anyone, any more, in any locker room we would all suffer for it by losing the spontaneity that follows both triumph and defeat and can only be captured in the immediacy of the moments that follow the game.

Sexism is not treating the sexes differently but treating them the same.  Vive la difference!

The post Concerning female reporters in male locker rooms appeared first on Thomas McGann.