Pirate’s Dilemma

One of the most interesting contemporary issues today is the Pirate’s Dilemma, which is, simply put, an issue surrounding modern day piracy. Piracy is, simply put, an unauthorised use of a certain service or product whose legal rights belong to someone else. The most common form of piracy would be the unauthorised distribution of media online by pirates.

At first sight, piracy seems to be an issue with a very simple solution—dealing with the pirates. There are however, many underlying issues and repercussions surrounding it, as the world has actually run on piracy for ages and reaped benefits from it.

Piracy, while illegal and unethical, has actually been the vessel of innovation for many of today’s technologies. Apple’s iTunes, for example, was inspired by the previously pirate method of posting media online for download. Piracy shows us new ways of doing things—new shortcuts. It pioneers technologies that improve the modern world—technologies that might not have existed if piracy hadn’t existed.

Piracy also helps push development of technology that might have otherwise been halted by the sometimes ridiculous copyright laws of today. Human development has always been about people taking the innovation of others and making it better—something that copyright laws of today are severely prohibiting, as companies and manufacturers of top-end products today sign patents and request laws to provide them with the unique privilege to manufacture their products. Piracy, as it works outside the hands of the law, allows the continued development of this product.

Piracy also exposes people to forms of art and media who might not have used them otherwise. The high cost of some of these forms of media means that have it not been for piracy, most of these media will not have reached a significant amount of their audience. As much as piracy infringes on the rights of the creators of these media, they also help the media reach a very wide audience.

The Pirate’s Dilemma is an interesting issue that is very relevant, not only to game designers, but to innovators all around the world. As designers, we need to understand the influence of piracy and how to use their influences to our advantage.