Language is important. She who wins the battle of terminology often wins the battle of the mind. I think it’s fair to say that the creative community has been losing this fight from day one, and I think things may even be getting worse. Think you know what it means to “share”? Think you know what a “gift” is? Think again.

Those not fully embracing of copyright understand the stakes in the defining of words. Take the fierce resistance of Professor Lawrence Lessig, repeatedly, to the recent use of words such as “socialism” and “collectivist” by Kevin Kelly to describe the current Free Culture movement. Mr. Kelly’s use of the terms was intellectually honest and historically and philosophically defensible, and as a former student of philosophy Mr. Lessig knows this. But Mr. Lessig also knows that there are historical and philosophical associations with the words “socialism” and “collectivist” that are not what Mr. Kelly meant — clearly Mr. Kelly is not advocating Leninism or Stalin-like forced relocations. Mr. Lessig himself has for years been emphasizing the “Free” in “Free Culture” does not mean “free” as in “free beer,” although Chris Anderson doesn’t appear to have been paying attention to that message.

One thing that amuses me about Mr. Lessig’s passion on the subject is that one slip from a philosophical peer aside, the Free Culture crowd seems to be winning the battle over language. One victory they’ve pretty much locked down is what term to use to refer to online infringement. Some of my friends use piracy — at term synonymous with infringement in the English language for hundreds of years, long predating copyright law — but I agree it is not a very useful term. Pirates are either harmless and silly, as popular entertainment depicts them, or dangerous and morally bankrupt, as we see in Somalia. Pirate Bay and the Pirate Party have wrapped themselves up in the term, and now Pirate Bay has been bought by a group looking to commercialize it. What commercial value does a non-profitable web site have? Oh yeah, name recognition.

So “pirate” has been co-opted as a satirical tool, but those of us in the creative community have accomplished little in knocking down the other side’s choice of terminology for online infringement — file sharing. Yes, we are talking about files. But are we really talking about sharing? Sharing generally involves on some level a sacrifice; you give something up so someone else my experience pleasure. What does a Pirate Bay “sharer” give up exactly?

When I think of sharing, I think of a time when I got in trouble in sixth grade. Our class had a spelling bee, and the winner won a bag of M&Ms. I won, but beat a boy named David who I thought had been given tougher words than me at the end. After being given my M&Ms, I said I’d like David to have some. My teacher said no, he hadn’t won. So I got up, walked across the room, and poured out half of the M&Ms on David’s desk.

Now when I think back on that day I realize the teacher got mad at me because I had defied him. I should have slipped David some candy after class, rather than make a scene. But mentally I associated my wrongdoing with my act of sharing. I gained a strong appreciation for generosity, and it is something I have always valued highly in those I befriend and something I have strived for in myself.

When I gave David those M&Ms, I didn’t have anymore the ones I gave him. There was a sacrifice involved. But do a scan of newspaper articles on online infringement, or blog entries, and see how often these actions are called file sharing. There is nothing noble about taking creative works — whether you have paid for them or not — and allowing others to obtain copies. Give away your copy of Chris Anderson’s “Free”? Sure, that’s the First Sale doctrine. Make a photocopy or scan of “Free,” keep that copy, and give away the original? Sorry, you still have his book. He may say that’s okay — he should, given his thesis, even though he’s not giving away his book — but that isn’t sharing.

I mention Anderson because in his new book he refers to the “gift economy.” (This is based on reviews of his book, which isn’t out until tomorrow.) What exactly is a “gift economy”? I think we have one every December, where many retailers cover losses from the rest of the year by people buying holiday gifts for friends and family. But what Anderson is referring to is the “economy” surrounding online infringement. In this case, when I download a PDF of “Free” from your hard drive, you have given me a “gift.” Anderson would also, it seems, argue that you and I have given him a “gift” by spreading his book, even though he hasn’t been paid for it.

Another childhood anecdote. When I was young I rode my bike to a nearby K-Mart to buy my mom a birthday gift. I had completely fallen for the music of Scott Joplin, so I bought her the soundtrack to “The Sting.” Thing was, my mom wasn’t into Joplin all that much. (She loved Paul Newman and Robert Redford, but staring at the two of them on the album cover wasn’t going to do much for her.) She said, “Patrick, you didn’t get this record for me. You got it for you.”

She was right. I went back to the store and bought my mom, a coffee fiend, a nice coffee mug. But I kept the album.

The coffee mug was a gift; I wouldn’t be using that mug, but she would. The album was not a gift; I was the one who would be listening to it, not her.

To this old-fashioned writer, “sharing” and “gifts” involve one person surrendering something to someone else. A sacrifice is made. That is why there is so much positive energy around the words. Who could be opposed to “sharing” and “gifts”?

I am when they’re used as synonyms for infringement, for taking possession of someone else’s creativity without that creator having say in the matter or compensation as a result.

We have, for all intents and purposes, lost that struggle over the term “sharing.” I most certainly hope we don’t lose it over the term “gift.”

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This entry was posted on Monday, July 6th, 2009 at 3:39 pm by Patrick Ross and is filed under copyright opponents, creators, p2p, piracy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.