Cognitive Dissidents

An article in Wired today asks the question: Will Digital Cinema Can Pirates? before discussing the Digital Cinema System Specification which demands that:

every five-minute chunk of video must contain a 35-bit forensic marker specifying the date, time and location at which the movie is shown

If the latest plans by movie moguls will really stop piracy - then I support their efforts - if it could stop the type of piracy which is a concern to the International Maritime Organisation.

"Piracy" is defined in the 1982 United Nations Convention of the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) (Article 101) as follows:

Piracy consists of any of the following acts:

(a) any illegal acts of violence or detention, or any act of depredation, committed for private ends by the crew or the passengers of a private ship or a private aircraft, and directed:

(i) on the high seas, against another ship or aircraft, or against persons or property on board such ship or aircraft;

(ii) against a ship, aircraft, persons or property in a place outsite the juristriction of any state.

(b) any act of voluntary participation in the operation of a ship or of an aircraft with knowledge of facts making it a pirate ship or aircraft.

(c) any act inciting or or intentionally facilitating an act descibed in subparagraph (a) or (b)

According to the BBC website in February this year:

According to experts there has been a sharp rise in the number of people killed at sea by pirates.

The International Maritime Bureau's piracy reporting centre in Malaysia says 30 mariners were murdered in 2004 - half of them in waters off Nigeria.

That figure made the year one of the bloodiest since the centre started collecting statistics on piracy 15 years ago.

As the IMO says in the Piracy report up to the end of September 2005:

During the period under review the fate of 11 crew members is unknown - 27 crew members were held hostage or kidnapped, 15 crew members were assualted and 7 injured

We all know that "piracy" is dangerous - if you get caught - but meanwhile real people are suffering real piracy.

.. six robbers armed with machine guns and knives .. boarded the ship .. they overpowered the crew and took two crew members hostage ..

When the so-called "copyright pirates" invade the homes of the members of the RIAA and movie moguls with machine guns and knives - then it might be possible to call "copyright theft" piracy.

Until then I suggest they should find another name for it - like "copyright theft" or "copyright crime" - something a bit more honest and less emotionally loaded than the word "pirate".

Calling copyright violators pirates does a huge injustice to all the men and women who suffer and die every year at the hands of the real pirates.