Sooner or later we will have to do it

If we first found out where we are and where we are striving, we could decide what to do and how to achieve it.

On June 16, 1858, three years before the outbreak of the US Civil War, during a debate with his opponent in the Senate election, Stephen Douglas, the future president Abraham Lincoln delivered one of his most famous speeches, “House Separated.”
Being perhaps the most famous anti-slavery speech, it (like the policies promoted by Lincoln regarding slavery), caused heated discussion and resentment among the politically active population of the southern states. Lincoln was an opponent of slavery in general, and in particular an opponent of the spread of slavery in new territories, and believed that in the new states all citizens should be free by default.

This went against the way of life of the southern states, whose agricultural economy existed solely thanks to slave labor and the development of new territories. The tycoons, who owned huge plantations and thousands of slaves, had tremendous political influence in the southern region and, naturally, the support of the white population of these states. After all, all industry was concentrated in the north, and with the abolition of slavery, the southern states were threatened with the collapse of the economy, which was no longer supported by anything.
Naturally, this also threatened with the loss of the huge capital of the magnates, because as a result of the abolition of slavery, they lost not only their influence, but also the funds invested in plantations and the agricultural industry.

Lincoln lost the Senate election, however, setting himself the ground for the presidential election two years later. Lincoln’s victory in this election led to a split in the country and the outbreak of civil war between the free northern and slave-owning southern states, many of which announced their withdrawal from the United States before the inauguration of the new president.



Some series of events in recent years, including the trial of the creators of The Pirate Bay, discussions of PIPA and SOPA in the USA, recent discussions of the 187-FZ ("Anti-Piracy Law"), an interview with Lenta.ru president of the film company Amedia , who believes that in a year people will forget about “pirated products”, etc ...
so, a series of events made me wonder, what is freedom in general, and what can be the future of human freedom in relation to the exchange of information?

For decades, publishers have not been particularly interested in the Internet audience and what files they share and how. While people continued to rent films and go to cinemas for the most part, profits grew, and everything else was not very interesting for media companies.
Of course, piracy existed, mainly in the form of music and video tapes, which were illegally recorded and sold (usually cheaper than the original), naturally bringing profit to those who did it. But the pirates were quite easy to catch, because they existed in the form of real outlets and people who sold unlicensed products.
In addition, there were people who exchanged licensed tapes / disks with their friends and acquaintances, but naturally, the share of such people was small (and letting a few hundred acquaintances see the movie bought was at least problematic), so such people were not very interesting to publishers and imposing or imposing fines on a person for letting his friend see his tape was rather stupid and difficult.

Ten to fifteen years have passed, and piracy in the form in which it existed has gone almost completely. But the profits of publishers and media magnates from this did not become higher. At one point, they began to find out why people do not buy their products and do not watch their films, and found that the sale of unlicensed copies of films / music has largely exhausted itself, but people continue to exchange content, and the possibilities for such an exchange and volumes are very greatly increased with the development of the internet and p2p.
Publishers formulated their problem quite simply - they simply called all the people who share files “pirates”, and under this pretext began to fight with them, and not only with them.

Using the fight against piracy as an excuse, these people want to get the right to close any sites, file-sharing networks, and fine those who participate in file sharing and stand on distribution. In the broad masses (especially in the USA and Europe), piracy is propagated as an undoubted evil that must be fought.

And you know, this is not surprising. After all, it’s so convenient to sell other people's information, hiding behind “distribution rights”, to get huge money from it, which you don’t really want to lose.
Media magnates and publishers of music and films, for the most part, no longer even produce any “physical” products. All they do is acquire distribution rights and (at best) invest their money in making films and music (and not often). These people do not produce anything useful, they simply redeem the rights to sell from the authors, previously convincing them that without a publisher they are guaranteed a commercial failure, that they will not be able to release their products and put them on the shelves, that their films will not be shown in movie theaters, that "evil Internet pirates will download your music from torrents and will not pay you a cent, but you will be left without pants." And after the signature agreement and the rights are acquired, they begin to tear and throw and are ready to gnaw at anyone who encroaches on this very “right to distribute”.

But we all understand that their rhetoric is a lie. And you know, something reminds me of something.

Tycoons, millionaires with great influence, they hide behind lies, promote laws that will allow them to preserve their ways of accumulating capital. We have already seen all this in the history of the USA of the 19th century, when the magnates of the agricultural industry tried to maintain their huge capital and influence, hiding behind the lie that people with a different skin color should be their slaves by default. By themselves, they did not produce anything - they simply invested their money in slaves and used slave labor to produce and grow crops, which were mainly exported.
They hid behind the lie that people with a different skin color would never be able to live on a par with them, that if you give them freedom, they would simply raise a rebellion and kill all the whites, etc.
Now, after almost 150 years, we see that it was a lie, and a stupid calculation that this lie will help liars to maintain influence and money.

But now, 150 years later, they start to lie to us again. This time, people are lying who claim that we do not have the right to freely exchange information , that this causes enormous damage to the industry, etc. That exclusive rights to disseminate certain information belong to a small group of individuals.

But everyone understands that this is a lie. Is it by buying and watching a movie that I have no right to give it to another person to watch? When I buy a car, I can do whatever I want with it (within the law, of course). I can open a company and deliver people to it. I can sell it. I can show it to other people. I can destroy him. I can do whatever I want with him, because this car is my private property. Why, having received any information (if I have not stolen it), I can not dispose of this information as I please?
This rule works with any property, so why does it not work with information? They are trying to limit my right to disseminate information, guided by the fact that they paid money for these rights. But if I suddenly pay someone money for the right to jump on one leg, can I forbid you to do this? This is absurdity.

A person cannot be considered a slave to another person only because the latter paid money for him. Everyone should be free by default, this is the truth that they tried to challenge 150 years ago. Fortunately, now, after a while, it became obvious to us.
I believe the same truth is the following statement:

Everyone has the right to freely exchange and disseminate information that is not a state or commercial secret, and no one has the right to prohibit him from doing this, arguing that someone had previously paid for this right.

All arguments against this claim are false.
They argue that intellectual property is the result of long and hard work of people, which we must respect. Yes it is. But weren't the slave markets in the US the fruits of hard work? There were - after all, someone organized them. But does this cancel the fact that, from a moral point of view, slavery is evil, and everyone has the right to be free?

I have unlimited respect for the intellectual work of writers, artists, screenwriters, directors, etc. But let's face it - most of these people do not need multi-million dollar profits. On the contrary, they would like that as many people as possible would listen to or watch their work. Recently, more and more examples of people appear - musicians, writers who “made themselves” themselves, simply by working and posting their works on the Internet.
Of course, they want to make money. But this has nothing to do with publishers and "copyright holders."
When I personally saw my iOS application hacked under jailbreak'nnye devices and laid out on torrents, on my face there was just a smile. I was glad that people are interested in my game (being very simple), and that someone took the time to hack, lay out, just not to pay $ 0.99. Well, let them play their health!
I am sure that in this regard, 99% of the authors of both applications and games, as well as music, books, etc., agree with me.
Moreover, everyone understands that if a person really likes it, then most likely, if he is not a miser or a schoolboy, he will spend his dollar.

Unfortunately, copyright holders, publishers and media giants do not understand such simple truths. Let's be clean - they generally do not understand much how the Internet and information exchange work now. But naturally, they are ready to do anything to keep their profit.

It has always been, and always progress has triumphed. Yes, the introduction of the right to free exchange of information will change entire industries. But this is inevitable. Ultimately, it’s not so bad, it’s not the USA in the 19th century. Then the exclusively postulate that all people should be equally free led to a split in the country and civil war.
Now everything is not so bad. For example, most TV shows already rely solely on TV channel ads. And things like product placement and unobtrusive advertising in films are already classics. Almost all films are already shown in cinemas, and then released for sale. For example, I have not watched the screens for a very long time - I am much more pleasant to go to the cinema and see in good quality. Yes, the quality of amateur camcorders is increasing.
But let's be frank. The problem of piracy of screens even now is solved very, very simply - it’s enough to prohibit bringing cameras to cinemas. I’m not even talking about movie theater employees who are ready to close their eyes and “not see” a camera with a tripod in the middle of the hall.

But what about software and games, you say? After all, if we legally allow the free exchange of information and cancel such a thing as copyright ...
Everything is very simple. Cloud computing has already entered everyday life. I am sure that over time 99% of the software will be transferred to cloud computing. And the games will be mostly multiplayer or with multiplayer features. The single player can work as a free “demo” for those who have not decided whether they are willing to pay.

As you can see, there are no objective reasons why it would be impossible to legislate an act on freedom of information exchange. But of course, this will affect multi-million dollar industries and force people to change their ways of earning.
And people who earn on their “exclusive right”, for which they paid money, will always resist.

About 150 years ago, Abraham Lincoln was able to win the civil war. This was a war for the truth, for the fact that all people have the right to freedom from slavery. Regardless of skin color or money paid by the slave owner. Regardless of what kind of economic decline in some states this will follow.
The price of victory in war and truth was also the life of Abraham Lincoln himself.

The freedom to exchange information as an absolute right of every person is not only an opportunity to watch films and listen to music. This is primarily an exchange of knowledge, the opportunity to get acquainted and disseminate the cultural heritage of your country without risk of falling into multi-million fines or going to jail for it. This is the right that everyone should have.

I don’t know how many years should pass before people understand this. Maybe ten, maybe a hundred.
But when this time comes, we will need to defend our right to freedom of information exchange.

Sooner or later we will have to do this.