Would you download a car?

It's already a few years old, but if you ever bought a DVD in the UK you'll remember this one:
You see nasty people stealing all aforementioned items, and then a teenage girl behind her computer downloading a film, thereby instilling the notion in us that downloading content illegally is tantamount to mugging old ladies in the park. I love the British tenuous sense of proportion in what is otherwise an annoying and superfluous yet unskippable on a perfectly legal copy, but I won't go into that paradox now. Try youtube for some of the hilarious parodies it inspired.

Propaganda works with imagery that evokes an emotional response to accompany your message, but can be completely unrelated to it. Don't underestimate the power of association. People will create a context between what they see, hear and smell, however flimsy the connection. Bad breath has nothing to do with a person's character, but it will ruin any date.

At the far end of the propaganda spectrum we have the infamous anti-Semitic pamphlets of the Third Reich and in a less pernicious form we have Michael Moore's controversial editing of George Bush's finest moments in Fahrenheit 9/11. Even the fact of me mentioning Moore in the same paragraph with the Nazis is purposely creating a connection in your brain right now. Objection, your honor!

I'm not a lawyer, but I did study Dutch law for one year and I will tell you what you and the people who commissioned this silly bit of agitprop already know.

Yes, copyright infringement is against the law in most countries, but if you equate downloading with stealing you practise justice by analogy. You may claim that the effect of sneaking a physical disc out of the Virgin Megastore or downloading it from the Pirate Bay boils down to the same thing – leaving Richard Branson out of pocket. You may even have convincing evidence that verbal abuse can be as bad as physical assault. However, a criminal act is defined by what people do, while the harm it causes to society is (or should be) expressed in the punishment.

There's no people more fussy about wording than lawyers and judges, with the exception of good translators. Informally put, in Dutch law stealing means removing (1) a physical item (2) belonging to someone else (3) without permission (4), with the intention of keeping it (5). If the prosecution can't persuade the judges of all five elements that means you're off the hook.
How about not returning my library books? They're physical, they're not mine, I took them out from the library and I don't intend to bring them back. Ah, but my client did have permission to remove them from the library, your worship. He's not a thief, he's a rotten embezzler of books.

If you want a better analogy, then downloading is like getting on a train or in a cinema without a ticket. You're enjoying something for free that other people paid for. Provided there are enough seats, you don't impede their enjoyment.

So much for this overly long pedantic preamble. I have a confession to make. I count many illegal downloaders among my friends, colleagues and acquaintances. None of them steal cars or beat their spouses as far as I know. So why do they do it?

Downloading is just too easy to do and too easy to get away with. Historically, when a crime is ubiquitous and the perpetrators tough to track down the law retaliates with excessive punishment. Charging Jammie Thomas two million dollars ($80,000 per song) reminds you of the practice of killing horse thieves in the Old West. You wouldn't break the speed limit if it cost you your car and your house. In the Netherlands no civilians are bankrupted for ripping a few albums. Although the political climate is set to change, right now the most compelling incentive for people not to download content would be their conviction that it is simply wrong. It appears most people, especially the young, don't feel that strongly.

The effect that being completely invisible would have on a person's morality has been argued by philosophers and explored in literature and film. I myself believe that the getting-away-with-it part of the attraction is weaker than the it's-not-that-big-a-deal conviction. The effect of illegal downloads is not tangible, like punching somebody in the face. When you don't see your victim you cannot contemplate the harm you have caused. Some will argue that their downloading does no harm at all. They still buy as many CDs as before and will claim it is a victimless crime.

If you want to convince people that downloading hurts, show some of the small record stores and video rental shops going out of business. I don't grudge Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich his wealth, but when he spoke out against Napster I didn't feel sorry for him. The average punter has no compunctions about making millionaires a little less wealthy.

I hope the Capitol v. Thomas case will prove to be Pyrrhic victory in the end for MegaCorp Inc and that the Internet will prove to be a blessing, not a curse. Authors become publishers through print on demand. Bands let you download their music from their own web sites and sell must-have limited editions straight to the fans. Power to the people!