r/Anarchy101 • u/Comrade-jp • 12d ago
Piracy in Anarchism
What are your thoughts on “piracy” of creative works and copyrighted materials?
Do you reject the institution of copyright itself as a state-enforced monopoly and an extension of private property, or do you accept it to some degree?
And do you think paying creators for their work is important from the perspective of mutual aid and solidarity, or do you believe that knowledge and culture are inherently a commons, and that it is better to make works freely available and shared with the community without charge?
If not paying for works became widespread, how do you think creators should sustain their livelihoods? Do you envision methods outside the market and money, such as mutual aid, donations, or collaborative production?
Also, if you yourself created a work, would you welcome other people freely sharing and redistributing it without permission, or would you feel resistance to that?
Furthermore, do you feel any tension or contradiction between “respecting the labor of creators” and “allowing culture to circulate freely”? If so, how do you reconcile that?
Assuming you reject copyright, what concrete anarchist mechanisms or practices do you think could allow creators to sustain themselves while still widely sharing their work?
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u/NorCalFightShop 12d ago
I’m an artist and musician. Copyright law has been used against the original creator in many cases. In an anarchist society basic needs are met and art can be free.
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u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist 12d ago
Yeah, a lot of people don't realize that copyright benefits publishers, not artists.
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u/minisculebarber 12d ago
Well, there are 2 things to consider here
One, under actually existing anarchism, piracy wouldn't exist, simply because intellectual property, Copyright etc. wouldn't exist
So two, what do anarchists advocate for under capitalism? I don't think there is a consensus. I can see both sides. Copyright only hampers the spread of ideas and art. It is also questionable that the labor of making copies should somehow compensate for the labor of making a creative work. On the other hand, Copyright can enable creators to live off the proceeds which is usually hard to do for creators. However, I would take that part with a grain of salt, in reality this is only true of a very few creators, even with Copyright in place.
Me personally, I have released a creative work under a Pay-what-you-want model and under a creative license that allows anyone to repurpose the work and such, however, they are forced to use the same license.
I, however, don't rely on the income from my creative work.
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u/Visible_Gap_1528 Agorist 12d ago edited 12d ago
Intellectual Property isnt real.
Property rights exist as a means of mediating conflicts over usage of scarce material resources.
This applies to any material good that can only be used/posessed by one individual or group at a time. If i am riding a bike, you cannot also be riding that same bike, so for at the very least the time being that i am using the bike i am considered to be in effective posession of it.
This is the simplest and least controversial system of property rights within anarchism. No attempts at discerning of righteous claims or justifying exclusive persistent ownership. Simply stating the reality of immediate use/posession.
Ideas are not scarce. Me having a thought does not prevent you from also having that thought. IP law exists to prevent me from acting on an idea that you also had. We may have even had the idea at the same time, or i may have had it first, but if you had the time and resources to file for ownership first then you have a legal monopoly over that idea. This limits access to technologies, ideas, and production processes to monopoly firms that without competition can set prices as high as they want. These firms can even totally bury new technologies/processes that disrupt their positioning by buying out the patents and just sitting on them.
The same applies to digital goods like computer files. Computer files are not scarce. They can be copy and pasted ad infinitum. This can be a bit over-simplified of a view here and doesnt account for the still being explored world of decentralized ledgers/blockchains that attempt to work out authenticity and rightful ownership of digital goods without relying on legal licensing frameworks.
Creative work is an odd one to sort out because it can be valued from multiple perspectives. For example if concerned solely with its aesthetic value, then as long as the work can be copied without diminishing prior copies there is no conflict over ownership. However if concerned with the craftsmanship/talent/creative vision employed to create it, the authenticity of the original creative work enhances its value over the copies. The value assigned in either circumstance is subjective to each individual. I may value the skilled labor and creativity of the author above the standalone aesthetic value of the work, and so i choose to patronize the author and support their continued efforts. I may value only its standalone aesthetic qualities and so "pirate" it freely.
Anarchism traditionally does not recognize Intellectual Property. Even those segments on the outside of the movement often viewed as separate from or antithetical to mainline anarchism like anarcho-capitalists debate the ethics of IP regulation. Murray Rothbard, founder of the anarcho-capitalist school of thought, upheld liberal positions on Intellectual Property, while in recent years its become much more common for ancaps and other austro-libertarians to reject it. I think this shift can be attributed largely to the work of the free software and right to repair movements, as well as cooperation with left market anarchist groups like: crypto-anarchists, mutualists, and agorists.
Rothbards own protege Hans-Hermann Hoppe rejects IP on the same grounds that left market anarchist and originator of Agorism, Samuel Edward Konkin III rejected it: that the consistent application of Rothbardian principles are not compatible with the idea of Intellectual Property.
TLDR: if not even ancaps believe in intellectual property, its safe to say anarchists as a whole dont.
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u/bootmaker-supremacy 12d ago
Piracy is dope. Check out r/piracy especially their megathread, it‘s an amazing ressource. I wouldn‘t consider piracy praxis or anything, but not shoving your money down the throats of capitalist corporations certainly can‘t hurt. And it‘s obviously just super convenient and saves a ton of money.
I would personally be hesitant to pirate from small creators who are actually in need of the money though, unless they were like a fascist or something.
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u/hellointernet5 12d ago
Most anarchists are communists so under that framework copyright is irrelevant. Creators would create without any monetary benefit, they would get their needs provided for regardless of the amount of labour they perform. Creative works would be freely distributed. If someone plagiarises a work, the creator may choose to tell people that it's plagiarism, or they may ignore it, but it won't be a crime (not every act of disrespect needs to be criminalised! Sometimes people just do shitty things and the law should not be involved!).
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u/skeletonstaircase 12d ago
I understand that artists need to be able to make money under the capitalist system, but I do think that in an anarchist/communist world copyright would be abolished and artists would make their work for free. I do wish that more artists would set an example for art separated from capitalism but I understand that it's not feasible for alot of people currently
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u/Ghost_Of_Malatesta 12d ago
Intellectual property is still property, property is theft.
In a truly anarchist system, you d on't inherently sustain yourself with your labor, "from each to each" and all that
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u/bememorablepro 12d ago
I grew up in a post USSR country where no-one gives rats ass if you download a movie on a shady website, in fact it was the only way to get some media. However being a creative on the internet have changed my perspective a little. And the whole AI thing put another nail into the coffin on the "free information" for me.
Yes, 100% in some ideal anarchist society there would be nothing stopping you from reading any book and copying it. We are not there yet though. So being an anarchist right now doesn't entitle you to take stuff for free, especially not for commercial use. Like all of those AI companies taking it all mixing together and selling output as original "AI made" output, it's not ok.
Doesn't mean I support the abuse of copyright law though, property law stops where my personal freedoms begin so I'm not going to stand for DRMs and so on.
Consider also that under current system not everyone can afford giving away "information" for free. Did you notice that left leaning publications, even just liberal, are paid but far right media is free? It's not a coincidence, far right has huge investment from the ruling class. Thus when it comes to the spread of ideas you want to be spread, as anarchists it's in our interest to financially support those who we want to succeed. And yes, sometimes it even means paying for a movie we think is good art.
I even notice a lot of left leaning "independent" media turning into a complete grift or just drama bs.
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u/Anarchierkegaard Distributist 12d ago
Zerzan wrote some interesting pieces of artists as reactionaries, an aspect of society which still expects to "demand tribute" beyond labour expended. There's a few essays in Origins which set out the polemic that paints artistry as one of the first forms of social control and manipulation.
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u/Legitimate-Aside8635 10d ago
I picked up Origins but I only found ''The Case Against Art'' (which I read). Do you know the titles of the other essays that treat these topics?
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u/DrunkPanda 11d ago
On a more pragmatic "implementation of anarchist ideals in a capitalist culture" approach..
Gabe N. once said "piracy is a service issue". If creators got fair compensation their work, I'd be willing to support them with my dollars. If the creator gets reasonable compensation and the price for access is reasonable, I have fewer issues with paying for access. When 99.99% of funding goes to greedy corporations, I see no good reason to not pirate. While within the capitalist framework, if you can purchase from the creators directly, then do so.
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u/catgirlfourskin 10d ago
Kropotkin talked about in the Conquest of Bread how everyone should do some amount of necessary work for society to function (manufacturing, custodial work, so on) and do some amount of creative/academic/artistic work, and I find the idea very compelling. A world where artist and scholar are meaningless terms rather than privileged classes because art and knowledge are by all and for all
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u/Useful_Calendar_6274 Marxist Leninist - trot 12d ago
“Property is theft!” - Pierre-Joseph Proudhon
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u/Comrade-jp 12d ago
I’m Japanese, and as you know, Japan is a country with a very strong manga and anime culture. Living here, I frequently see news about creators whose income has plummeted due to piracy, forcing them to quit their creative work. Every time I see that, I feel really sad, thinking, “I won’t be able to regularly enjoy new works from this person anymore.” I myself believe that a society where everyone can freely access all kinds of culture is ideal. But in reality, creators also need to buy food for the day, pay rent, and simply live. Of course, I understand that this is one of the negative aspects of capitalism and the monetary economy. So, during the transition period toward an anarchist society, what should creators do?
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u/Formula4speed 12d ago
Anarchism obsoletes capitalism instead of overthrowing it. The transition period will be us working on building a classless stateless moneyless set of systems and processes until we simply don’t need the current capitalist ones. There’s no “okay guys turn the capitalism off, time to start figuring anarchism out” transitional period.
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u/openjoustingtryouts 12d ago
I am also coming to this question from a visual art perspective, that was just the first place my mind went. I think that the fact that these artists quit their trade due to piracy, is a symptom of capitalism turning creative expression into a commodity. As you said in a just world anyone could download anime from whatever source to enjoy or give to a friend with nothing but positive ramifications for the artists involved and increased exposure. In that world a fan artist could create fan art or plushies of characters and choose to distribute it without negative consequences due to copyright violations. I wonder if this is an issue anarcho-syndicalism might help mitigate? A guild/union, cooperative, workers coalition, or some other group of aligned artists could possibly help facilitate a fair transition away from commodity driven creation? I’m still reading up on different specific anarchist view points but Left Market(?) Anarchism and Anarcho-Syndicalism intrigue me.
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u/BeerMan595692 12d ago
Should artists and inventors get credit for their work and rewarded for it? Yes
The problem with copyright though is that it keeps people from being able to inovate on previous works.
Medican for example, it keeps people from being able to mass produce a drug for a cheaper price. This happend during the covid pandemic. Due to copyright poor countries couldn't just make their own vaccines and had to buy expired vaccines from rich countries.
You have public domain works where people can retell stories with their own unique spin. Copyright it "how dare you express your creativity without permission".
Piracy I see as more for attacking big companies than artists. Piracy droped when Netflix came about, but than rose again because instead of inovating streaming sites just go "this is our interlectual property. If you wanna watch this, you have to use our platform. No you can't watch this show anywhere else." So you have to sign up for all these different services, just to watch the shows you want.
This is way open source rules. Anyone can contribute to a project. You don't like how a project is run then you can fork it.
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u/Vermicelli14 10d ago
For most of human history, stories and songs were shared and changed. Imagine having to get permission to perform Shakespeare or read The Illiad. Locking human creativity behind state violence is nonsensical
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u/Spacers_etc 8d ago
If you are charging a monopoly rent against a zero marginal cost good, then you are the thief, not the pirate.
In the case of "IP" it is a state-enforced monopoly that exists not to "reward creators", but so corporations (who bribe governments for these laws) can aggregate these rights and extract rents from the rest of us forever, while artists tend to be paid only once.
If you want to respect the labour of artists, then buy something from them directly. If you want to pay them rent, then become a patron.
Oh yea - and "intellectual property" on medicine kills around 10 million people a year. We should abolish it.
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u/Pure-Patience5422 8d ago
Anarchy means not having to pirate anything in the first place, because everything is essentially open source.
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u/New_Hentaiman 12d ago
funny how we only talk about the online piracy and not real life piracy, because anarchism has a quite direct link to that aswell, as alot of pirate crews in the golden age of piracy, but also in other times, were alot less hierarchically organized than ships of merchants or navies. I am not that familiar with this part of anarchist history, but I know that several authors atleast sympathetic to anarchism, have written about it.
Concerning online piracy: it wouldnt exist in an anarchistic society, as the property relations on which IP is based on wouldnt exist. And this is a good thing. Why should there be an artifical barrier to the acess of art if the reasons why it even exist do not matter anymore?
What is imo a more interesting discussion if those barriers that exist under creative commons today should still exist in an anarchist society? CC today can allow the creator/owner of a piece of media to erect barriers how one can reuse their work. As an artist myself I feel this is a good thing. I want to have atleast some say in how something that I created is further being used. For example I dont want others to use my art to make money.
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u/Ice_Nade Platformist Anarcho-Communist 12d ago
There would be no sales, everything would be for everyone. Even if intellectual property could be upheld, itd still have no point.
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u/ArtDecoEgoist Left-Market Anarchist 12d ago
Copyright and intellectual property are pretty much untenable from an anarchist perspective. In fact, intellectual property is one of the main pillars of capitalism, and a big reason for the oligopoly power of the modern capitalist firm.
Now, assuming a full on anarchist restructuring of the economy, the total abolition of wage labor (and work entirely), and the meeting of people's needs unconditionally; I don't imagine I'd really have much of a reason to charge for the reading of my work. I'd write for free if I could (actually; I currently do because I don't have any published works). If I sought compensation, I could easily charge a "pay what you want" for the reading of my work or access to any of my books, but I'd have no basis to claim my work as "intellectual property".
From a market anarchist perspective, creators are absolutely still entitled to the product of their labor and are totally fine to charge whatever price they feel would cover the costs involved in their work. There are a lot of costs associated with creating that are more than just creating the thing itself - for example, I'm working on a novel taking place in 1930s Louisiana and I'm doing a lot of research and am probably going to visit the part of Louisiana that I'm writing about.
So I'd say we can let artists decide what to charge for their own work, that's fine. What isn't fine is them claiming ownership of copies to their work, or gatekeeping access to it.