Today the swedish online news e24.se presented an article with the headline “nedladdning gynnar musikindustrin” (the music industry benefits from downloading), rapidly followed by a subtext stating that in some instances the music industry may benefit from illegal downloaders since people sometimes buy the same music afterwards.

A few comments on my last post (and its comments) and this article is in order.

Scientific research made popular headlines.
If there is already such a vast descripancy between the headline of the article (affirming that downloading is generally benefitial) to a subtext explaining that instaces occur when illegal activity leads to legal activity, you may need to be suspicious. Also, being an academic I know the danger of trying to sum up extensive research and scolarly fieldwork - which in its original form usually spans over hundreds of pages. At exams you are often asked to sum up the important features of a whole book in about three A4 pages, which is off course extremely hard, subjective and also due to what interests or tendencies you are trying to explain. The shorter the text, the lesser chance of accurately describing the content. This is a 305 word article, again far less than a three page summary. With what’s in the article there is actually no telling what this study find to be good empirical evidence, nor what is plausible tendencies that needs further research.

The difference between complaining and explaining.
Let me present my response to a blog comment I got saying that it was of no use to complain about the situation. I agree that the first question regarding piracy is what can be done to prevent people from stealing music. However, my suggested solution is of a moral kind, not of technical. As a humanist I prefer invoking empathy, telling my story and arguing that my side of the story is also one of truth (that said I do not argue that truth is one-sided), rather than conjuring up technology that prevents actual copying of files or that electrocutes motherboards. I firmly believe that there is a point to be made once people see that piracy is not something that only strikes at an evil empire “music business”, but also at people passionate about music, and which tiny boats are being sunk on a broad scale by the pirates.

I see a difference here between complaining and sharing my narrative. True, the story above is one of resignation, but never the less it emerges from my wanting to present new music to the world, but the avenues being shut/shot down by self-proclaimed “guardians of the uncompromisable human right to share (whatever you like with whoever you like)”.

My ambition is to tell a personal story of what piracy does, which contrasts what the pirates claim is a victimless crime, and hope that this will make one or more people think of my story and hesitate next time they are about to open their torrent tracker. If that should be accomplished, even once, then what I’ve written is not merely complaining, but will have achieved its intended purpose.