Internet piracy viewed as part of a historic tradition of defending public goods

Dutch weekly De Groene ran an interesting article on piracy last week. In this article, the authors place Internet piracy in a long, historic trend of resistance against privatising commons.

Throughout history, and certainly with the rise of capitalism in the 19th century, more and more collective property, things that are owned by no-one, neither by private parties nor by the state, have been privatised. In the 18th and19th century, more and more commons, collectively managed pastures, were made into private property. These developments were always surrounded in controversy and were often resisted. The boom of Atlantic pirates in the 18th century, for example, was fed by people who lost out on the division of property.

Internet created a new environment where property was not privatised, argue the authors. A place where cultural exchange accelerated. Now that copyright threatens to limit this freedom, different groups create active resistance and subversion. Not just to defend the free-for-all consumption of creative goods like movies, music and games, but especially motivated from an ideological dissent with the division of property.

In the end, it is not about technology. It is an ideological debate between supporters and opponents of capitalist societies.

7-12-2009