It might be very tempting after watching “Pirates of the Caribbean” to think being a pirate is legit. You might think you want to dress as a pirate for Halloween. It is commonly acceptable to be on the pirate team and play against the ninjas when playing capture the flag. But there is one pirate you should stay away from.
It is not fun to find yourself jailed for piracy, not because you are a clever, rebellious man raising a Jolly Roger flag, but because the flag is the background of your desktop. You do not have to be able to fight with a sword and you definitely do not need a degree in computer programming to be a pirate. The world has advanced so much an ordinary man can be a pirate without necessarily sitting in front of a black screen and typing bizarre words in.
It definitely seemed trivial to me in the beginning when I was young and was guilty of piracy. What is wrong with using Limewire or Bittorrent? Do they not always emphasize how much we can achieve in this technological age where data can be transferred across the globe in matter of seconds?
I am a big fan of free stuff. I love free food, free parties, free money and most importantly, I love free education. The idea that you can connect to the Internet and get access to a wealth of information about anything you choose empowers hope in me.
Wikipedia, when it started, was a revolutionary way information was collected on the Internet and how we all can contribute our knowledge. Google gave people access to literally billions of Internet pages they would never have access to without such an extraordinary service to search the Internet.
The whole world is just a few words away from our hands. All I have to do is click in order to get connected. The Internet has been a portal for new inventions, discoveries and spreading news, research, thoughts and ideas. But unfortunately, like everything powerful, the Internet can be greatly abused.
We can now acknowledge Communism and Marxism were bad ideas because humans are not naturally kind, loving and caring. Therefore, when both freedom and power are given to humans, they abuse them. We have creepers stalking people on Facebook, and we have Web sites promoting devilishness and witchcraft. We have people ripping music, posting and uploading it online it so other people can download it for free.
In theory, it can take only one single human to distribute a single file, a music file for example, to the whole globe. In theory, it can take just a few hours for the file to reach every computer and Internet user in the world. In theory, only one person can buy the new Miley Cyrus disc and distribute it to the entire world.
But, how sad would Cyrus and her producers be when they discovered her new album sales were just one album and the net profit is a big six-digit negative number? How sad would Cyrus’ fans be when they found out she was sad? How much more upset would they be when they found out Cyrus would not sing or produce any more albums because she failed to sell music and make profit?
I am sure all of you who are fans of Cyrus or Jay-Z or Shakira or whoever you love, want to get your hands on the album and listen to it before everybody else.
It is very tempting to get the hijacked version of the album, song or music video days before it is released because you love the singer. You promise to buy the album once it is released. But then, it is more tempting not to buy the album because you already have it on your iPod and you have no time to go and buy the album, or you are a college student and are too broke at the moment to spend money on an album you already have.
You might not be wearing an eye patch at this moment, but you should know you are still a pirate, thief and cheater. You cheat me when you download an illegal version of a file for free while I have to pay money for it. At the same time, it is preposterous you would risk lowering the album sales of your favorite singer because you just want to listen to his or her songs. How ironic!
Abdallah Abu Ghazaleh is a freshman majoring in electrical engineering. He can be contacted at [email protected].