The Dark Side of Digital

I feel contaminated, covered in sludge, weighed down by sewage and just plain dirty.

“Why?” you ask.

Well, I’ll tell you. This weekend I traipsed into a discussion of digital piracy at DST and my eyes were opened to the underbelly of digital scrapbooking.  Not that the pirates were posting at DST (let me make that clear) - the DST members were posting about pirates.

In a community that is about artistic expression, connection and positive emotions, it’s entirely unsettling to learn that there are those who seek out pirated material with glee.  I expected the “pirates” to be women who unwittingly share a few kits with family and friends, not understanding the basics of copyright as it applies to electronic data.  (There are people like that, so I’m certainly not painting a wide stroke and calling everyone scum-sucking parasites.)

What I found was a piracy forum where usernames like ‘anonpirate07′ and ‘piratemama’ are flaunted and they wheel and deal in digital scrapbooking kits like bookies in a grimy, smoke-filled, back-alley room.  I picture soccer moms toting diaper bags, hunched over their digital kits and swapping them like Yu-Gi-Oh cards, sweeping their eyes furtively, side-to-side, looking for the internet “cops”.

And would you believe that on their blog I found a posting requesting a Nativity kit?!?  Someone wants to steal a Nativity kit!  The irony was a sucker punch to the gut.  When I posted a comment about how ridiculous that was, it was deleted by the moderator, as expected. 

The pirates justify their theft in various ways:

Everyone on DST was raving about this designer when she debuted, so she must have had at least a hundred sales,

I spent $25 in her store, so she took in a minimum of $2500 in just one day,

No one can tell me that files I purchased do not belong to me - I can do what I want with them once I’ve paid for them.

And the list goes on.  Of course, there are logical and reasonable responses to all those points but pirates aren’t listening.  They’ve got their fingers planted firmly in their ears as they chant, “La, la, la, …” but here’s the facts: 

• Raves by potential customers don’t always translate into sales. I, myself, have gushed about a designer or kit that I did not, in fact, buy.  Often, it’s because I really love it but just cannot afford it at that time.  That does not diminish my joy at seeing a beautiful product and I figure that sharing that feeling with others may ensure that the designer gets orders that encourage her to continue designing so I may purchase a future offering from her (or him).
• I realize that some members of the digi-scrapping community have taken their old paper-scrapping budgets and converted them to PayPal for spending at digi-stores but many of us (possibly the majority?) do not spend anywhere near $25 at one store, let alone one designer.  My largest digi-purchase ever was $23-something for a gigantic kit and I’ve vowed to never again do that.  On average, I spend between $2 and $10 per purchase and make no more than 3 or 4 purchases per month, excluding charity kits.  I would never assume that my own purchase of a designer’s product is representative of all purchases and extrapolate an income based on that.
• And finally, purchase of any electronic file does not entitle the purchaser to any rights beyond personal usage unless the Terms of Use allow otherwise.  When you purchase individual license software from Microsoft, you may not then turn around and load it onto hundreds of machines.  It is the same with digital scrapbooking supplies.

I followed up with some copyright research and reviewed the facts.  First, copyright exists as soon as an idea becomes tangible, whether it is published or not.  An idea that has not been put into any form cannot be copyrighted. Fair enough.

Registration of copyright is not required, but it is necessary if the holder wishes to sue for damages.  In other words, you may hold a copyright but if it’s not registered, don’t ask a court to intervene.  Also, early registration of your copyright has benefits.  If you register within 3 months of publication (or even before the infringement has taken place) the court views it as validation of your copyright claim and may award up to $150,000 without proof of financial damages.  You could even get your legal fees covered.

What does this mean with respect to electronic files? Well, exactly what you’d expect it to mean.  Those pirates are infringing on copyrights and putting themselves at risk for prosecution. 

Register your copyrights, designers!

Tschüss!