Ever since that live press coverage in July of 2000, where Lars Ulrich and James Hatfield declared that music sharing was inammissible and that Napster was the problem of the 21st century, I understood that the internet was going to be the biggest enemy of Metallica and others artists on the same position about P2P. But wait, that's not everything because little time after that press conference artists like Madonna and Fred Durst (Limp Bizkit), signed along with other musicians a statement of solidariety towards the mp3 sharing over the internet. That was probably the very beginning of the global confusion that today still exists on what is legal and what is not.
I live north west of Milan, Italy, in a town of roughly 60,000 people. Piracy in this country is on a different level because it's not only the single internet user downloading files, others have their hands in this like organized crime frou south of Italy, China and Africa. This is a story of how pirates are born and how pirates live here, but there are many different pirates.
- From the mid to the end of the 90s me and my friends (the teenage years) were crazy about when the latest album of U2 or Rolling Stones was out on the shelves of music stores, we spent what is now 15 to 25 Euros of our allowances to buy what we believed into. We would spend endless hours listening the same songs, but we knew that of those 13 album tracks maybe only two or three were the best one. The remaining tracks of the disc/tape weren't that great, but we didn't care because we would always trust our favourite artist to do better in their next album, unfortunately it wasn't the case.
Allowance after allowance me and my buddies realised that the costs of the albums kept constantly rising (minimally but continuosly) and concert tickets weren't cheaper either. Occasionally we had a shirt of Guns n' Roses, Queen or Iron Maiden to show off, but those tees had a serious price too and occasionally we would look back and say "Dude, we just spent over 100 Euros for one ticket, one t-shirt and their latest album! Fuck!!!".
Now that we are in our late 20s we still don't have money to spend for our favourite artists, our salaries aren't strong enough to let us buy extras and we re sorted to downloading and burning those amazing tracks only for our stereos. If you walk into yor record store and buy one or two albums you just spent what you earned in one or two hours of work; it's not probably going to change your life but it is another expense on top of the other bills, only considering a monthly purchase.
To claim that something is legel or not takes time and knowledge. Laws are written in order to set standards among people so they can have a guideline on the civil and penal aspects of society, but music labela and majors are dictating the policies on what you can and what you can't do, so they suddenyl decided that they have that knowledge over anything else to make something legel or illegal and to call you a criminal. What I don't understand is that the majorities of the songs that are shared via internet are tracks that already received their royalties long time ago, got shares of merchandise revenues as well with those of concerts. So why do we have to pay again and again and again for something that has already been paid? The answet to that is simplae: GREED!
Piracy is a broad word that is now describing god knows how many kids and young adults that use P2P software, but they only do it to listen their favourite artists; record companies aren't out to bust those who sells DVD copies online of the lastest flicks, those who are making out of it a lucrative business. That is illegal, that were the focus should be diverted, not towars kids that are an easy pray.
I do see now in my country that immigrants from Africa sell illegal DVD copies for dirt cheap, they got movies that are still playing in theaters, porn movies, Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 games in the parking lot of many electronic stores; how hilarious. Sometimes they stop me and ask me if I want to buy something and I tell them that I can get that from the internet for free, they smile and laugh and they understand that I'm not interested and they walk to the next guy getting out of the car.
This is how it happens: a guy has two or three computern at his place inside one room, he got his desktops towers with at least two DVD/CD burners that are continously working all day and there is a pile of empty disks 3ft tall waiting to be burned with everything is new. On the other side of the room there is another pile of empty slim DVD cases and on the other side a laser printer that isejecting all kinds of movie, game covers to be inserted into the cases. This is the operation on only one person who usually has many contacts with the underground crime, usually mafia or camorra, with a financial aid to cover the expenses; then the same person will offer poor immigrants the task to sell everything. They set up territories, like medium/big size department stores, hardware stores, electronic stores and four to six men are spread evenly around the parking lot surface so theycan easily spot who's coming and who's leaving.
The division of terrotories in important because they are not alone, there are others doing the identical job, and others like gypsies that only beg at street light; they are very vicious when their territory is invaded. Sometimes there are confrontations that end with bruises, black eyes and in the worst case a knife stab anywhere it landed. The friction between these "sellers" is big because profits can be high as much as 1000 Euros per group per day and nobody wants to loose a crowded parking lot or a busy intersection with long red lights.
During the winter we occasionally have open markets and flea markets downtown the biggest cities with folkloristic thems, there too you can buy illegal copies of movies, game and so on mainly by Chinese people. Not all the time the police steps in, only if who sells them is by him/herself in a corner of the square or on the sidewalk, they ask for ID and then tell they guy to pack up and leave the area. The next day he/she is still there to sell his merchandise again, the cops will turn an eye blind or ask again to leave, but they do understand that they can't patrol the street only to make sure that the guy doesn't come back.
In those open markets there are many titles you can buy, but if you dare to buy any of those products you know that you can get a lemon and forget to have your money back. It is part of the black market that Italy faces, not only with music, movies and games, but also with fashion sunglasses, purses, belts, wallets, etc. The market has high prices and people cannot resist the impulse of the purchase, so they will find alternative ways to get to their object, this means that they will resort to buy, copy or download something that isn't original.
A pirate, that's what is written on your forehead today, this thanks to the sport of lobbying/nagging inside each parliament inside each country of the western world, from north America to Europe. But the solution used can be compared to applying a bandaid over an internal bleeding, it is not working because record companies wants their laws applied and enforced by police. Now rather than later because everything is moving online and less is stored at home, that's why YouTube is te main target, silenced videos, tv shows cancelled, songs taken away. The music industry knows that when everything will be online it is going to be impossible to obtain royalties anymore, much like trying separating the sugar from your hot coffee.
