People steal. Especially online, where acquisition only requires a few mouse clicks. Many aren't even aware they're violating intellectual property (IP) rights, which vary from culture to culture (The south-Alaskan Tlingit have some of the world's most stringent concepts. To them, a tale is a present, bestowed from one person to another. Re-gifting is a serious offense, never mind mass-replicating a story in print...)
Is it that big a deal if someone swipes a few hundred words? For some, intellectual property theft violates their creativity and privacy. Others can shrug it off as the give-and-take of the online world. But how would you feel about thousands of words? Or hundreds of thousands even? While editing for a Michelin guidebook, I stumbled across the entire text translated from the Italian version into poor English, seemingly via Babelfish or a similar program (never mind that a proper English manuscript existed).
Precise numbers remain rare. But the U.S. Department of Commerce estimates stolen IP costs companies a collective $250 billion each year.
Amplified, even the smallest act of piracy has serious repercussions, especially in a flailing economy that's based more and more on intellectual property. In February 2010, the Business Software Alliance (BSA) estimated that 41 percent of all PC software is stolen. Its President and CEO Robert Holleyman noted this "theft totals nearly $53 billion a year, $31 billion directly from US companies. We would never tolerate having four out of every 10 cars on the road be stolen, yet that is the very problem the software industry faces."
Ironically, illegal downloads aren't the main culprit, but rather businesses and governments around the globe, who duplicate unauthorized software. Trimming that by 10% would create 600,000 new jobs and deliver $24 billion in tax revenues, a BSA study explained.
Sounds like something that just happens to the big guys, right? But consider this: the average book runs 60,000–90,000 words. Post 500-word entries three times a week and you hit that threshold in 10 months. Could you stand by while someone else profits over a year's – or years' – worth of your work?
The decision to share content can benefit us all – from software to art sources and user-generated sites. But it should be just that: a decision.
Yours. Not some grabby freeloader's.
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