By James Harle — February 2, 2012

A number of notable websites, including Wikipedia, recently conducted an ‘internet blackout’ protest in order to raise awareness of two bills moving through the US congress: PIPA and SOPA. The acronyms stand, respectively, for Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act.

There are a number of websites explaining the two acts in detail, but in essence they were intended to allow the US government greater control over what content is available on the internet. Under the new laws, the government would aim to prevent internet piracy, potentially making changes which would affect the web worldwide.

Many are saying discussion of these bills is now academic, after the decision to indefinitely postpone them last week.
However, this delay in a Congress vote on these US government proposals is only until February, where a further decision will have to be made on whether to shelve the bill in the long term or re-open debate.

The short-term defeat of SOPA and PIPA has been met with jubilation amongst the sites that participated in the demonstrations – the most notable of which was Wikipedia ‘blacking out’ for a day. It seems internet-based opposition has been strong enough to overturn the propositions – for now.

Don’t be fooled. SOPA has died, but another identical act will be along in two or three years, if not sooner, to take its place. Why? Because the two bills are only a symptom of the underlying problem: the conflict of web freedom and media giants. With the amount of content freely shared on the internet (music, video and pictures), the creative industries (music, television and film) can’t continue to make the kind of money they used to in the past. One of the two has got to give: their profits, or our freedom to share.

The problem is, we no longer live in a world where these kinds of media are in short supply. In fact, there’s an excess of them – everyone wants to be creative, so most people create. It’s the most basic rule of economics: supply and demand. We’re used to having that kind of freedom, and I think that taking that freedom away will prove too hard. Salaries in the creative industries will fall.
And I think that’s good.

I think the people who work in these industries have had a free ride for too long – and it’s about time their bubble burst. They won’t lose everything – CDs, DVDs and cinemas will still be sought after, just not in the quantities they once were. There is still an intrinsic value to having the physical product – the special edition album or director’s cut box set. And people who work in music and film and television will still make a living – but perhaps it will be closer to the literal sense of the words. I think that’s healthy.

The other thing about web sharing that the industries don’t like is the fact that it raises the bar for quality. Take film: without the internet, your choice is between the few mainstream films in your local cinema. At best, between the 50 films in your local rental shop.

To make money, all a film had to do is be mediocre. With the internet, your choice of films quite literally includes every movie ever made. To be significant, a new film must compete with all of them. The same is true of music and television. And I firmly believe that this is a healthy phenomenon for the industry.

I think piracy is coming out of the closet, because we all do it. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t. And when it’s out, there’s going to be a revolution in the concepts of copyright and media distribution.

I hope that SOPA and PIPA are just the tip of the iceberg as far as legislation restricting freedom to express and share goes, so that we as an internet community can prove our strength time and time again.

The creative industries cannot exempt themselves from the laws of supply and demand – like all industries, they must bend to accept it, no matter how hard it is to come to terms with.