Last week I made a post reacting angrily to someone downloading a torrent of a friend's conventionally published book and then telling her about it with the expectation that she could effect change.

In the process, I condescendingly said this:

But, Internets, be it known. Pirating books bad. Telling an author you pirated, compounding the offence.

Don't be gross! It is a basic guideline for life.

I maintain that not being gross is a pretty good guideline for life, so it's a shame (and deeply shaming) that I managed to violate it in that very post, and moreso in the aftermath.

The thing is, the concept of intellectual property (IP), particularly as practiced in the West, is often a harmful tool of oppression.

And I actually knew that. I'm a fandom scholar, for god's sake. But I hadn't thought widely enough about the ways in which westernised concepts of IP are used - like governments ignoring colonised peoples trying to protect their cultural treasures against appropriation, or Big Pharma suing the hell out of people trying to make much cheaper generic versions of patented drugs for people in poverty, or Disney, having made a mint out of their own fanworks, swinging their big legal hammer at people trying to do the same thing with media that have the Disney logo on them - and how that intersects with the ways in which I benefit, or want to benefit, from this system.

Such as how restrictive and regional e-rights can make access to books very difficult for people with some disabilities. Or how people in poverty might not have access to any libraries, much less good ones, and that the mere idea of having enough money to pay for new or second-hand books is laughable. Or how the entire system is awful.

It is occasionally very tempting to look at an issue that affects one and assume that because it affects one it is all about one. If one gives in to that temptation, one might then go on to make obnoxious statements about how this is so obviously their issue most deeply affecting them, and in the process defend a deeply broken system that supports the privileged and "authoritative" over the less privileged and suppressed voices.

If one is very fortunate, people will be sufficiently gracious to say, privately and publicly, amongst other insightful things, "This is not all about you! You are not the central victim in this, and you have blundered into conversations we have been having for quite some time and extremely productively without your you-centred ignorance." If one is unfortunate, they won't, one will remain oblivious and continue blithely being gross.

I was very fortunate.

I have apologised personally to those I think I particularly wronged, and I want to now apologise generally for saying obnoxious things and rhetorically supporting a harmful process. I am sincerely sorry for being that gross.

I also want to point you to some links in particular, because these people said very wise things that I think are important, and informed much of what I have said in this post.



Before I go on, it's probably important to note two things.

First, as far as I can tell, almost everyone in this discussion is firmly in favour of the notion that authors and editors and other people making books in any format should receive fair compensation in return for their work. Or as deepad puts it: "I definitely agree that publishers as well as writers perform socially useful labour ... I would like them to be fairly rewarded for their labour".

And although there are huge problems with the system within which we all work, I do personally love my editors, as colleagues and as people, and am genuinely grateful to my publishers. I love writing; I'll do it in some form forever, paid or unpaid. I don't think I'm automatically entitled to RICHES AND FAME, either now or in the future. I do think that I, and everyone involved in creating books, should be recompensed for their creative labour.

But that's not really what's at stake; it's not all about me. As Deepad also says: "labour agitating for just recompense has been one of the great struggles of this past two centuries, and relatively bourgoise worries seem hard to sympathise with when they are presented as equal to the situation of the truly disenfranchised."

Second, some of the posts in this discussion and the ensuing comments are forthrightly critical of me and what I have said. I know I have fans, and I'm aware that it can be very tempting to go to the defence of people you like.

Please don't. Attacking the writers of these posts, or derailing the discussion (eg, to talk about how I am too wronged by people downloading torrents, or denounce the writers for being mean) would be totally inappropriate. I will be following the discussion: I can't prevent you from doing anything in their spaces, but if you engage in nastiness or rhetorical trickery, I will certainly temporarily ban you from mine.

Colorblue reacted to my original post, with "this is not a post about yoga!":

[W]henever you bring up intellectual property rights and make a moral issue out of enforcing them, whether you know it or not, you're invoking a very long history of the imperialist, capitalist West using it as a weapon against all the groups it classifies as Other, as lesser, both within its borders and outside them. Because you are not an innocent bystander caught up against your will in an unjust, bureaucratic system. There are no such things as innocent bystanders when it comes to these issues, and this is especially true when you stand where you are and make posts like that one, drawing such absolute lines between what is right and what is wrong, being so absolute about your concerns and needs being centered.

Because another thing you are definitely not is the most oppressed victim of this system.

(If you only have time and/or energy for one post, I really recommend that one; it's powerfully argued, impeccably supported, and beautifully written.)


Deepad wrote "The politics of discussing illegal fire-sharing" in response to a comment I made on epershand's post, and later copied and expanded upon with vito_excalibur*

I would like everyone to have the means of production and the mental, emotional and social support structure to creatively express themselves. I would like storytellers to be rewarded for telling me a good tale, whether they are writers or dancers or directors or illustrators. But I cannot see illegal file-sharing as anything but an inevitable response to the complex systems of unequal wealth distribution and political hierarchy that permeate the sphere of creativity as commerce.

And starlady wrote "Some links on illegal file-sharing and IPR":

I have very little patience with the concept of "intellectual property rights"; their rise is part and parcel of the neoliberalization first of so-called advanced industrial societies, and then the rest of the world; ... IPR are used systematically to disenfranchise and disempower vulnerable groups at all levels of societies globally, and then, the disenfranchisement complete, to sell that content back to those groups at immense profit--but only at fair market price, of course.

You might have noticed that, unlike the original post, where I was blithely proposing solutions ("Go to the library!" "Don't read books you can't acquire legally!") I'm not recommending any remedies here. I'm still thinking through a lot of these wider issues, I am clearly unqualified to speak on most of them, and I would probably do better to shut up, listen, and attempt to remedy my ignorance.

I will not be making any further public contributions to the discussion, and this post is closed to comments. I have been (and will continue to do so) nutting things out in private discussion. If people want to contact me personally, via email (karen@karenhealey.com) or LJ private message, please feel free, though I can't guarantee prompt (or maybe any) response.




* There was some concern raised as to whether my using the "spoons" metaphor in that comment was another instance of my being appropriative. I'm uncomfortable talking about some stuff publicly, and it would be a massive derail in any case, so briefly - no, not this time; my personal circumstances do make that vocabulary appropriate. But I understand and appreciate the concern.