Things used to be simpler.

I suppose that’s something every generation has said – whether my repetition of it marks me as old or mature, I don’t know. Maybe I’m just crazy.

Today, the four administrators of The Pirate Bay were found guilty of “assisting in making copyright content available.” Not too surprising, considering an enterprise named “The Pirate Bay,” but it’s more complex than this.

Rewind a few decades – and look at what copyright infringement was. (I know some people will know a lot more about this than I!) Let’s look at a classic example of commercial copyright infringement – the blatant copying and reproduction of someone else’s work, to be sold for a profit. It is simply making money off of another’s work, that they are entitled to sell themselves.

Why would people buy a fake, and refuse to support the artist? For one, ignorance – perhaps they didn’t know which was real and which was fake. But far more likely is price – the fake sells for less. Seeing a designer-brand accessory for $5 should be fishy, but people would rather buy the fake than actually purchase the full-price commodity.

Remember, now, that this has some interesting conclusions. Not every swap-meet bargain-bin shopper would actually have purchased the authentic article. Also, this requires an investment from the counterfeiter.

But look at modern piracy – and the digital revolution. Now, piracy refers to many digital and digitized assets – programs, video games, operating systems, and above all else, music and movies.

The first problem is that these are digital assets, and thus are all exactly identical. There is not a “hand compiled” program in the same way that you can purchase a “hand-made” clock, or clothing. Each copy of a song from a CD is exactly identical, equal in quality to the original, and most importantly: infinitely reproducable.

Now intellectual property crime is much different. Copyright infringement is no longer commercial – it’s free, done for free – no money is involved. Nobody profits; they just don’t consume, they don’t purchase. Comparing the act of downloading a CD to the act of stealing a CD from a store, or purchasing a counterfeit copy from some back alley, is a flawed metaphor that is completely inappropriate.

I personally have downloaded my fair share of music – and note what this word means. When I say I downloaded music, that doesn’t necessarily mean I illegially downloaded it. I download music off of iTunes, which I pay for. I download music off of artist sharing sites, where artists upload their own music for others to share and listen to. I download movies that people have made to be distributed for free. All of this is perfectly legal – “downloading” is not illegal in any way, shape, or form.

What is illegal is the downloading of copyrighted content. I’ve also done this many, many times. At least I’m honest.

Although if you really want to be correct, the above paragraph isn’t technically true. What constitutes “illegal downloading of copyrighted content” is such a variable and confusing subject that entire court cases have been over this – such as the Pirate Bay’s trial.

Take some countries – I believe Germany is among them – which allow downloading of content as perfectly legal, but consider the uploading of copyrighted material as illegal. (Downloading is receiving information on your computer from the internet; Uploading is sending information from your computer to the internet. Generally, when you “download” copyright material, you “share” it, sending the parts you have downloaded to other people who want to download them.)

This seems complicated enough – differing laws on a phenomenon less than 20 years old, new methods of sending content, the digital revolution, actual “free” infringement rather than any money transactions…

Technologically squeamish readers might want to avoid this next block of text and instead pretend to have read “There are really confusing methods of using the internet that make it unfathomobly difficult to determine who is actually comitting a crime, or if a crime happens at all.

The new kid on the block is the “Torrent” file.

In the early days of digital copyright infringement – which is a long word, so I’ll use the term ‘pirating’ – people used programs like the infamous Napster (now a legal music service). Limewire is another program that functions similarly. How they worked was fairly simple: a user (the downloader) would search for a file. Depending on what other connected users had to share (the uploaders), there would be different results.

The downloader would then choose a result, and begin downloading the file. Each person who had that file – the uploaders – would try to send part of the file to the downloader. However, as the downloader began to have parts of the file downloaded, his computer would begin uploading the file to anyone else who wanted to downloda it.

These systems needed a large number of users connected, sharing identical copies of files. It was also easy to find out who was downloading – you were directly connected to the computer of anyone who was trying to download a file from you or upload a file to you.

Now, we have torrents, which have made what can only be described as a complete cluster**** out of the legal system.

To use a torrent, a user must first use a torrent tracker service. This is generally a website – such as The Pirate Bay – which has links to millions of files. A user finds the file he is interested in downloading, which is generally indicated with two numbers: the amount of “seeders,” or people who have finished downloading the file and are uploading it to other people, and the amount of “leechers,” or people who are still in various stages of downloading the file.

To put this in perspective, there are plenty of ‘torrents’ which have many thousands of users. Within 30 seconds I found one with 27,000+ seeders and 12,000+ leechers.

But here is where the legality of this becomes dubious – to download the file, you must first download the ‘torrent file,’ a very small piece of information that instructs your computer as to how to download the file. This is the file that is on The Pirate Bay’s website – no copyrighted material, just links to material that can instruct your computer as how to download copyrighted material.

That’s all that is on torrent tracker websites – little pieces of information about files, no the files themselves.

And to put this into perspective: You pay an internet service provider in order to have access to the internet. On the internet, you can commit any number of crimes, ranging from stupid pranks to national security issues. But, although someone else has provided the means – for money – how you use the service is your own issue.

The Pirate Bay offers a means to download files, many of which are perfectly legal. However, it makes no attempt to censor these files. It has always been their claim that how the people use their service is their own responsibility.

It gets more complex than this, but that is essentially what it boils down to – the Pirate Bay has a website that lets people share any type of information. Many people use their service to share files illegally.

And today, a judge found the Pirate Bay guilty of assisting in making copyrighted material available. I suppose this is true; they did ‘assist in making copyrighted material available,’ but how this amounts to a crime is in some ways dubious.

For instance, I can use Google to find illegal copies of copyrighted material. Is Google liable for assisting in making copyrighted material available?

I couldn’t download anything from The Pirate Bay without my laptop. Is Apple guilty of asssiting in making copyrighted material available?

Anything I could download on The Pirate Bay, I could download elsewhere on the internet. Sometimes, the Pirate Bay is not even involved in the tracking of the torrent files.

So what is The Pirate Bay, to me? It’s a place where I can download whatever I want. The administrators have made a forum for completely unrestricted communications. I don’t think I could blame anything I do on them; and after all, they’re just one such service in a veritable sea of identical services. Compare it to a public storage warehouse – they let people store whatever they want. If something illegal was found, are the operators of the warehouse – who were probably unaware of (and certainly not involved in) the illegal materials – in any way liable?

Of course, the main point I want to make is that – get this – piracy services help artists make money.

Read that again.

I downloaded a song I liked, once, and looked up the artist. Within the week I bought two CD’s. That never would have happened if it weren’t for piracy.

I download movies that I like, even if I buy the DVD. Sometimes I’ll find a movie I like and then later search for the DVD. This never would have happened if it weren’t for piracy.

I’ll hear of small bands I like, and tell my friends. I give free publicity that I am sure has resulted in sales – and it never would have happened if it weren’t for piracy.

And there are millions upon millions of people like me.

In fact, a survey was done to try to quantify some numbers for pirates. It was assumed that people who downloaded the most music never payed for anything, knowing how to get it for free. After all, why would you pay for something – if you knew a method to get it for free?

The results of the survey – a scientific study – were that the people who download the most music and the people who buy the most music are the same people. They aren’t pirates or customers; they’re music fans.

I honestly fail to see how downloading something I never would have paid for is a crime; and groups like the Recording Industry Association of America should recognize that sometimes, I find out that I would have paid for it – and then I do.

I have made music – nothing on a professional level, and nothing very good. It never would have sold. I put it online for free, and later read that someone had really liked it. Many people are beginning to understand the power of communication – it’s why some bands, large and small, encourage their fans to download, share, and discuss their music.

Piracy isn’t a crime; it’s a new business model.