Páginas

14 marzo, 2012

Now sharing free is a crime

[Puedes leer este artículo en español aquí]


Yesterday, the police arrested the Chilean administrator of Cuevana. This is a website to watch movies, documentaries and series online. This fact is in addition to what have suffered the creators of sites like The Pirate Bay' and 'Megaupload' who have been sued for breaches of intellectual property.


The defendants and plaintiffs have several characteristics in common. The defendants are characterized by young, idealistic and natives of the web (i.e., had internet at their disposal from children). The plaintiffs are characterized by being over 40, foreign to the web (many fail to understand how these websites work) and tend to apply severe restrictions on such sites guided by the principles of the major labels or large companies that profit from the creativity of artists.

In mid-February 2012, was closed a popular site known worldwide as 'Gigapedia', whose address was library.nu. This site hosted about 1 million digital books of all types. It hosted from bestsellers to college textbooks. What kind of damage is that produced by sites like these?

How long to spread knowledge is transformed into a crime? How much these websites help emerging countries that most people have no purchasing power to spend money for a book on traditional libraries?

How have helped websites like ‘The Pirate Bay' movements as the "Arab spring"? Has anyone stopped to think how much they have helped countries with high inequality and even totalitarian regimes like North Korea?

I think we are living in a situation similar to that predicted Ray Bradbury in his dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451, where the firemen instead of putting out fires, were engaged in setting fire to books. I think that instead of arresting these people, we should be stopping mass murderers, sex offenders, thieves "in suits", drug dealers, etc. I think society makes the fatal mistake of being more aware of the letter of the law instead of the spirit of the law.

No hay comentarios:

Publicar un comentario