Whack-A-Pirate: The Economic Game of Digital Piracy

If we do not examine history and discover the ways that piracy of the past was stamped out, then just like the days of old we will find ourselves trapped in a new golden age of digital piracy, one where a common nuisance becomes a very real terror that will continue to disrupt many aspects of our lives.

The face of digital piracy

Imagine you’re playing a game of whack-a-mole. You lift your hammer and smash it down on the plastic head of a fuzzy little animal… only to watch two more pop up by it’s side. You try to get another, and watch as three more appear. Within a very short amount of time, with every target you successfully hit, you find yourself quickly outnumbered and, ultimately, are forced to surrender, your pride and psyche disrupted as you admit that you were outmatched by a bunch of simple, colorful, moles.

This is the conundrum that is currently facing not only our corporations, but the American economy at large. With the emergence of the digital pirate, very much modeled and alike to the pirate of the golden age during the enlightenment, we are finding our civilization disrupted as piracy continues to grow. While it is currently not a widespread issue, there is a need to make the topic of digital piracy as the practices costs an average of $250 Billion dollars and 750,000 jobs per year (Leahy). If we do not examine history and discover the ways that piracy of the past was stamped out, then just like the days of old we will find ourselves trapped in a new golden age of digital piracy, one where a common nuisance becomes a very real terror. From the way we purchase online to what we print out to use offline, from how we view the economy to how we even treat each other as human beings, we are dealing with disruptions that impact many aspects of our lives.

Pirates then, pirates now

Digital Piracy is partially controversial as it is growing increasingly difficult to define what a digital pirate is – so much so that Adrian Johns spent a chapter in his book Piracy explaining that it is currently impossible to define what digital piracy is (Past, Present, Future). While he is right in the regard that all attempts to define digital piracy to the point that it would work in the dictionary has so far failed, a basic legal categorization has been formed. In 1976, with the growing widespread popularity of digital taping, the United States created ‘Title 17, United States Code, Sections 501 and 506 of the United States law’, a law that was supposed to detail digital piracy as only being copyright infringement (Digital Piracy). However, with additional law suits, the emergence of the internet, and a host of digital crimes that the law was not adequate prepared for, additional sections were added to Title 17 that has since gone on to cover nearly all forms of digital crimes; while the person who downloads thirty songs illegally and Edward Snowden differ in the severity, motivation, and even types of crimes they’ve committed, because of their digital nature they would both have at least one charge of ‘digital piracy’ under Title 17 (Digital Piracy), (Johns), (RIAA – The Law), (Brewin), (Salcido). As such, the simplest way to define Digital Piracy is simply by the sum of its parts: Piracy (Which was defined by England and Woodes Rogers as any crime committed at sea) (Hunted), committed in the digital ‘ocean’.

Additionally, before we divulge into the similarities of the historical pirate and the digital one, careful note should be taken that so far, Digital Pirates have (so far) not proven to be as violent as their predecessors in the past. While the depictions of violence, torture, and pillaging are over-glorified and misrepresented in Hollywood, the word ‘parley’ coming into common usage as to mean a attempt to negotiate with pirates before lives were hurt (Woodard). However, for the times when peace talks failed, a pirate wasn’t afraid to resort to physical violence while, to this point of writing, digital pirates have not had to use means of violence to establish their goals. On the same day I write this, however, I read a new article of how Digital Pirates are now infecting hospital equipment and monitors with malware and violence, threatening to turn off life support and other vital equipment of hospitals if their demands are not met (Storm).

With that note in place, let us look at some of the easy, immediate comparisons we can make between Digital Pirates and, specifically, the pirate of the Golden Age. Some common traits shared between the two types of pirates are that both venture out onto an open sea (the oceans versus the internet), both steal from merchants (European monopolies versus the mega corporations of our day), and both do it for a variety of reasons that mainly consist of pleasure, wealth and freedom (an unchanging vice in all ages).

But simply saying this misses a pertinent doctrine: that according to the law, there is no difference between the various sorts of pirates and they are, in fact, equal. This is partially given by the inability to classify pirates of a sea faring or digital kind. In his book Piracy by Adrian Johns, the author spent a significant portion of his first chapter explaining that impossibility of give a concrete definition of what constitutes not only a digital pirate, but any kind of pirate. Every kind of thief has been given the slanderous name, while those who rob themselves try to claim they should not be labeled in the same category as these infamous sea dogs (Johns).

Digital disruptive scurvy

Why take such interest in understanding what a digital pirate is? Because digital piracy has affected us as a civilization at many rungs of the social ladder. From the simple lowly artist to the mega corporations that churn out multi-billion dollar hits month after month, Digital Piracy has affected us all. While the parenting moniker of Digital Piracy is often used as a stand in for the more specific crime of ‘digital copyright infringement’, it has even began to manifest itself in different ways as to harm the normal citizen.

I am an author. I originally tried publishing my first novel myself in January, and was delighted to hear of many friends and family members who were reading and enjoying the book. However, when I tracked the sales of how my book was selling, I was shocked to find that only three people had bought it. When I started questioning others about how they acquired my book, I was disappointed to discover that one of the first people who bought it had uploaded the entire ebook for free online, my own friends turning into pirates and stealing against me.

Now, having signed a contract with a publishing company who will distribute it nationwide in the near future at this point of writing, I can’t help but feel nervous as I consider the digital platform being one of the main tools to distribute my book. Fellow artists, like Logan Lynn, a newly signed musician who wrote a guest post for the Huffington Post, expressed the same thoughts I had in expressing the thoughts of the wider creative community (Lynn). Due to Digital Piracy, many would be artist like him are no longer making the already meager living that they need to maintain themselves and are forced to pursue other vocations to live (Leahy). Such a economic shift has been compared with shrinking the long tail: while those earning massive sums like corporations will continue to survive the damage being caused by digital pirates and those indie artists that only receive five downloads a month have yet to grow dependent on their trade, those caught in the middle of the long tail are having their portions decreased, often to the point where like Logan Lynn where they either have to get a second job or switch their careers entirely. A significant portion of the business sector, or long tail, is currently being damaged and cut out by digital pirates (Semlyen).

The damage goes far beyond simple artists, however. In 2011, Senator Leahy of Vermont and his constituents, while making an argument to pass several new bills regarding online properties,were able to show that Digital Piracy had costed the American economy approximately $250 billion dollars and 750,000 jobs per year spread across nearly every business sector (Leahy). Further studies, conducted by the Business Software Alliance and the Recording Industry Association of America, produced similar results (Online Piracy in Numbers).

Perhaps worst of all is that our very appreciation of art and ability to cultivate new masterpieces is degrading. The very works that people pirate by the millions are quickly becoming non-existent as the pirates that pillage the internet sea ruin our ability to enjoy things as they are. 3D-Printing, the new innovative method of creation though digital schematics, is currently facing legal trouble and possible regulations as Digital Pirates upload their stolen schematics at best and, when they’re truly vindictive, hacking and uploading viruses to prevent further use by the unlucky owner (Bender). The Indie, so well beloved and praised in our modern culture as a symbol of a more diverse society, is now being throttled as what could have been semi-successful groups are now forced to live on mere breadcrumbs should they wish to pursue their craft (Forde). Even our normal, day to day behavior away from the digital world is starting to shift from this crime; in recent studies conducted by universities across America, digital piracy was seen as a gateway crime that caused a higher likelihood in additional deviant behavior, including addictions to the internet, pornography, actual physical in store theft, and drugs (Dewey).

Digital Piracy is no longer a nuisance; it is a wrench disrupting many aspects of our society. The economy cannot continue functioning in this manner, and will continue to bleed out and cost thousands of jobs and billions of dollars every month if we do not adjust for this sudden influx of digital crime. We must do something to adjust to the new status quo of the digital economy.

Thankfully, there are answers and solutions, many of which originate with one man: Woodes Rogers.

Woodes Rogers, pirate exterminator extraordinaire

Pirates have existed since man first put a boat on the water: just as Cain killed his brother soon after the first humans appeared on land, men began to rob and hurt each the moment they put their feet into the water, going back as far as 14th century BC (Hill). Additionally, piracy hasn’t been contained to the seas either throughout the course of time: copyright infringement, the most prevelant form of digital piracy, even has roots to the 15th century AD and before (Edwards).

The most interesting pirate, the one we wish to compare to the digital manifestation that plagues us and also the type of pirate most exemplified by the mass media, is the pirate of the Golden Age. Lasting from about 1620 to 1730, the Golden Age of Piracy was the era when the sea faring pirate was at is strongest. Much of what transpired because of these rouges can be blamed partially for the benefits of the Age of Enlightenment; while the Enlightenment is normally an era marked by great scientific, individual and physical prosperity and growth, it was marked principally as the age of freedom: a man, like no time before, became free from the near all powerful reigns of magistrates and priests

The best example of this search for freedom and the core values of the new political shift of the Enlightenment was the so called ‘pirate republic’, a twisted realization of Locke’s dreams. Based out of Nassau and covering a near six thousand square miles of islands and sea, here were lands where men were free to choose who they served and were not only permitted but encouraged to do whatever they pleased (Woodard). While Woodard mentions a little bit about the benefits of a being a pirate in his book, a quote coming from the infamous Bartholomew Roberts, who became a pirate just after being a sailor for six weeks, can better and more quickly express some of the common thoughts for becoming a pirate in this era (Breverton).

“In honest service there are thin commons, low wages, and hard labour. Yet as gentlemen of fortune we enjoy plenty and satisfaction, pleasure and ease, liberty and power… so what man with a sensible mind would choose the former life, when the only hazard we pirates run is a sour look from those without strength or splendor? No, a merry life and a short one shall be my motto, for I have dipped my hands in muddy water and found it is better to be a pirate than a common man” (Breverton).

There was little reason to be a honest man: according to Welsh historian and author Terry Breverton in his work Black Bart Roberts, a sailor had no disability or retirement benefits and was only making an estimated four dollars per month in pay, adjusted for inflation. Furthermore, he said if you did not already come from a prestigious family or accomplish some miraculous feat such as killing a world renowned pirate, the chance for promotion and improvement were next to none: a man working a navy ship would often be held with the same contempt as one who had been aboard for two weeks. The benefits of being a pirate, as Black Bart Roberts explained, were far better than being a common citizen (Breverton). Isn’t this true for our day as well; isn’t the benefits for being a digital pirate still far more numerous than that of being a honest buyer?

Yet within ten years of the establishment of the republic of pirates, when piracy was at it’s peak more than any other time in history, sea-crime was almost completely eradicated as pirates were morphed once again from a terror to a bed time story to put your child to bed at night. In 1718, England has had enough of this pirate menace and appointed Woodes Rogers to act as governor in the Bahamas and resolve the pirate disruption. Ultimately, his mission was a success, and by the end of his first term in 1721 the Golden Age was nothing more but a lingering memory as the seas were once again largely safe to travel. This sudden turnabout can be traced to three very important, decisive actions that demonstrated a simultaneous combination of tenacity and mercy that no pirate could have prepared for (Woodard).

The first was that of mercy: through a variety of actions organized by the government of England and implemented successfully by the famous governor of the Bahamas, Woodes Rogers, a general cry of pardon was given to all willing pirates who would submit themselves temporarily to an officer of the law, give an account of their crimes and renounce pirating for the foreseeable future. Should they have done this, they were granted a prize instead of a punishment: some gold and a small piece of land in the Caribbean should they so wish. As such, one who wished to gain power within society no longer had to become a pirate to do so: in fact, if you were not a captain one would gain more prestige through the pardon than by serving under a black mast (Hunted).

The second crusade that helped end the golden age was that of betrayal: in the same pardon, Woodes Rogers began to employ the more successful pirates that turned a new leaf into pirate hunters, paid more handsomely than the navy men of old. In this way, it became more profitable to be a pirate hunter than a pirate: they were paid a base income per month of service, a bounty for every pirate captured, and allowed to keep for themselves whatever items were found on the ships of their captured foes. Benjamin Hornigold, even took it further: once the second mate to the infamous devil known as Black Beard, he went from being a dangerous pirate to a successful hunter who became a national hero in England for his service, intriguing to all for his dangerous past and new way of life. There was little reason as to avoid taking a pardon (Hunted).

Last of all, the grapeshot that destroyed the way of life for these pirates was perpetuated without consent by the English government: the economy. As seeds and other products had been imported for so long into the European nation, local businesses began finding ways to manufacture them themselves without resorting to India, Asia, or the Americas. Thus, the price of goods being shipped across the sea were not was valuable as they once were: there was little reason to risk your life attacking a ship, which were much better equipped than at the beginning of the age of piracy and now escorted in fleets, when the reward for doing so had severely lowered in value. Thus, with the deaths of the prestigious few who fought until the end, like Blackbeard, Roberts, Rackham and finally William Fly, the golden age of pirates came to a close in 1726… only to be reborn in the digital age of piracy.

Stopping digital piracy

So to return to the ultimate question, how will we stop digital piracy? How can we win this game of Whack-A-Pirate, when the tactics of the past have done little to nothing to stop the disruptive wave of Digital Piracy? Author Adrian Johns theorized about a way to end this Golden Age of Digital Crime, a topic which he used to close his book with in the chapter titled Past, Present, and Future in a way that agrees with history’s success of Woodes Rogers and the thoughts published by historians such as Colin Woodard (Woodard). Discussing the two steps that must be taken, he first opened with

“As piracy has grown and diversified, so a counter-industry has emerged, dedicated to combating it. The coherence and scope of this industry are relatively new and remarkable. In previous centuries, particular groups or industries mounted efforts against piracy; but they did not generally them as fronts in one common cause. Now they generally do. The same tools, tactics, and strategies can be seen deployed across what would earlier have been discrete conflicts. So the first implication is that we need to appreciate the historical significance of this industry of antipiracy policing” (Past, Present, and Future).

To go along with this thought of historical reenactment, the pardon of 1719 was one of the most brilliant moves that could have ever been perpetuated by a governor: typically, a thief is moved to stealing not only by a desire for riches but a vendetta as well. With the a full pardon excusing any acts of revenge carried out in the past, coupled with a small bribe on the side to incentive the offer, it went a long way to demonstrate to pirates that they had no viable reason to continue their life of crime. If we could do the same with men such as Gottfrid Svartholm and Fredrik Neij, the imprisoned founders of The Pirate Bay, we would be taking a huge step in extending a hand towards reformation.

Also taking a note form the proven playbook of Woodes Rogers is the act of pardoning pirates. Edward Snowden, who caused the NSA controversy a few years back, earned his asylum in Moscow by agreeing to work for the Russian government. Now, he is more content than ever as he is put to a far better use and pay than he ever was in the United States. While there may be a slight moral qualm to this aspect, it is hard to argue that we are in need of men like Snowden with their very specific and modern set of skills.

Lastly, to touch on the second thought of Adrian Johns, is his recommendation that we shift the economy itself. Just as the devaluing of goods caused a decrease in piracy, Johns mentioned how the end of the copyright or in his words, ‘intellectual property’, will cause an immense shift from pirating to abiding by the law (Past, Present, and Future). Alternatively, as suggested by computer science major and Huffington Post Writer Mac Hart, companies simply need to find ways to release their product with superior features that are impossible to pirate, such as a cloud based saving and the ability to save their product in various formats. In his words “Once our government and the media industry realize that they need to compete with piracy rather than destroy it, they will overcome it.” (Hart).

Altogether, I believe that this is a way we can greatly decrease the act of digital piracy: Both Adrian Johns and Colin Woodard established in their works how the digital pirate of today is almost a perfect copy of the pirate that terrorized the seas during the Enlightenment, and there are countless articles that discuss the current disruption being wrought within the social structures of our society by this modernized criminal. While a pirate may be driven and operate by a variety of reasons, the law recognizes all digital based crime to be digital piracy and we, as good citizens, have the legal and moral responsibility to uphold the law.

Works Cited

Bender, Adam. “Will 3D Printing Usher in the next Wave of Internet Piracy?” Computerworld. Web. 5 June 2015.

Breverton, Terry. Black Bart Roberts: The Greatest Pirate of Them All. Gretna, LA: Pelican Pub., 2004. Print.

Brewin, Kester. “Edward Snowden - Modern-Day Pirate?” The Huffington Post UK. AOL UK, 4 July 2013. Web. 29 May 2015.

Dewey, Caitlin. “Study: Digital Piracy Linked to Internet Addiction, ‘deviant’ Friends.” The Washington Post. 2 July 2014. Web. 04 June 2015.

“Digital Piracy.” TheFreeDictionary.com. Mode Trend, 2015. Web. 09 June 2015.

Edwards, Phil. “What Elizabethan Book Pirates in the 1500s Can Teach Us about Piracy Today.” Vox. Vox Media, 01 June 2015. Web. 05 June 2015.

Forde, Eamonn. “Column - How Free Is Ruining Everything - Q MagazineQ Magazine.” Q Magazine. Bauer Consumer Media, 22 July 2012. Web. 04 June 2015

Hart, Mac. “Embrace Piracy.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 2 May 2012. Web. 31 May 2015.

Hill, Karen. “Who Were the First Pirates?” Super Beefy. 14 Oct. 2007. Web. 29 May 2015.

Johns, Adrian. “A General History of Pirates.” Piracy: The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates. Chicago: U of Chicago, 2009. 8-15. Print.

Leahy, Patrick. “A BILL OF DUTIES.” Advocate of Peace through Justice 84.2 (2011): 46-47. Leahy.senete.gov. Partick Leahy, Senator for Vermont, 6 Jan. 2011. Web. 29 May 2015.

Lynn, Logan. “Guess What? Stealing Is Still Wrong.” The Huffington Post. TheHuffingtonPost.com, 03 Aug. 2012. Web. 31 May 2015.

“Online Piracy in Numbers - Facts and Statistics [Infographic].” Web Design Dubai Dubai Web Design and Web Application Development Company Online Piracy in Numbers Facts and Statistics Infographic Comments. Go Gulf, 01 Nov. 2011. Web. 04 June 2015.

“pirate.” Dictionary.com Unabridged. Random House, Inc. 28 May. 2015. <Dictionary.com http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/pirate>

“RIAA - The Law - May 27, 2015.” Http://www.riaa.com. RIAA, 27 May 2015. Web. 29 May 2015.

Salcido, Jerry. “17 U.S. Code § 506 - Criminal Offenses.” 17 U.S. Code § 506. Cornell University of Law, n.d. Web. 01 June 2015.

Semlyen, Phil De. “| Features | Empire.” Empireonline.com. Bauer Consumuir Media, 23 June 2013. Web. 09 June 2015.

Storm, Darlene. “MEDJACK: Hackers Hijacking Medical Devices to Create Backdoors in Hospital Networks.” Computerworld. Computerworld, 08 June 2015. Web. 09 June 2015.

Woodard, Colin. The Republic of Pirates: Being the True and Surprising Story of the Caribbean Pirates and the Man Who Brought Them down. New York: Mariner, 2008. Print.

Image Credits

Partially used: Digital Piracy by The-Camo. Used under the Creative Commons Share Alike 3.0 Liscence. The original work at (http://the-camo.deviantart.com/art/Digital-Piracy-65086168)

Special Thanks

Karen Hill, Mac Hart, and Logan Lynn

About the Author

Anthony Johnson was born and raised in Oregon and can usually be found with his eyes glued to a book or some kind of screen. Having gained a love for literature at an early age, he tried his own hand at writing and signed on to work at Green Ivy Books in 2015. Be sure to check out his premier novel, A World of Strife, and be sure not to pirate it.