Copyright World in Miniature

Last week, the Swedish Young Pirates Association completely inadvertently recreated the copyright world model: their free distribution of waffles in their own tent at the municipal festival was attempted by the security service to stop, but not because they did not have permission to cook or distribute food — everything needed, but because ordinary waffle makers were afraid of losing revenue.

According to the story of Gustav Nypa , the chairman of the organization and its members handed out waffles at the festival, then a certain lady complained about their actions. Instead of selling them for 25 crowns (115 rubles), young pirates shared them for free.

As it turned out, this was a sufficient offense. The worker responsible for the festival and the guards quickly appeared at the tent of the young pirates and tried to expose the "violators" from the festival. Knipe , as he writes on Twitter, called the police, and the situation resolved well: the distribution of waffles soon continued.
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And, according to Rick Falvingj , this little example perfectly illustrates the events of the big world of the copyright industry. At the slightest threat, a large and established business calls attention to law enforcement services on the pretext that preserving the economic order is more important than the freedoms of people.

With the entry of the Internet into our lives, social norms have undergone significant changes, and business practices are changing too. Entrepreneurs lose the comfort of their position, like those waffleers who saw in a younger group of people and their free distribution of waffles a social problem, to solve which you can and should call for protection, while in reality this is a business problem whose fault lies only on waffle makers.

Social norms have changed so rapidly that the structures that keep society from plunging into chaos cannot distinguish ordinary rights violations from business problems. Here you can draw a clear parallel with the world of file sharing: if a company cannot compete with the gratuity provided by file sharing, it will not be successful. However, in the field of copyright, they prefer to talk about file sharing not as their own blunders, but as a violation of rights, in order to be able to attract law enforcement agencies.

There is no difference between these waffle vendors at a festival in Sweden who tried to expose young people who were giving out waffles from the festival, and the lawyers of major copyright holders.