The Law of the Pirates

sido
2005-04-03T00:29:47Z

1. If the packaging doesn't mention that it's an illegal copy, then it's not. Really, pirate, what's the difference anyway?

2. Pirating is a social process. No one group or entity can take responsibility for it. The media companies are just as responsible as us pirates.

3. Pirates are self-organizing. Like our products, we can be in many places at the same time without diminishing our value.

4. As long as market forces are on our side there will be work for pirates. This is our mandate and is as good as any. The people have spoken, and they want cheap media.

5. A distribution network can't grow forever. Eventually, some parts of the network will die. Allowing those parts to expire, like retiring old ways of thinking, contributes to the vitality and evolution of the network. Here, the pirate also has the advantage.

6. Piratism can only die when the big media companies remove the barriers to pirating. Otherwise, pirates have no need to organize. Fortunately, this isn't going to happen.

7. Without technology, pirating would cease to exist. Excessive rigidity and formality regarding technology only serve to impede the consumer process and keep pirates busy.

8. There will always be a black market in film and music. Big media can either learn to profit from it, or exhaust themselves trying to fight it. Which leads us to our last law...

9. The survival rate of diverse, decentralized clans is higher than that of rigid, centralized clans. This also means that big media will die out before pirates do. After which time we'll just call ourselves something else.