Is It Time To Form A 'Rogue' Party Instead Of A 'Pirate' Party?

from the what's-rogue? dept

We’ve discussed a few times how important language choices are in the debate over copyright — something that entire books have been written about. For years, the key term was always around “piracy.” It was all about stopping pirates and dealing with piracy. But, some have noticed a gradual shift in the language, away from piracy. In fact, much of the debate around COICA has focused on “rogue” sites rather than “pirate” sites. Copycense and Glyn Moody recently had an interesting Twitter discussion on the topic, as seen below:

Part of the discussion centers around whether or not this allows for greater conflation of copyright infringement with other types of infringement, such as patents and trademark/counterfeiting. That certainly sounds reasonable to me, though, I also wonder if part of it is the realization that condemning people as “pirates” just isn’t effective any more. Part of it is that people have realized how ridiculous it is to compare non-commercial, personal file sharing to “piracy,” and part of it may be the overall embrace by some of the term (e.g., “The Pirate Party”). Perhaps, for all the attempts to use the negative word “piracy” as part of the failed education campaign aspect, the industry is realizing it’s time to move on.

Of course “rogue sites” seems like an odd choice as well. Is it really accurate or appropriate? The definition of “rogue sites,” seems to depend very much on who’s talking. I guess that’s part of the beauty of it. It allows folks in the entertainment industry, for example, to label any site they don’t like, or which represents a challenge to them, business model-wise, as being “rogue.” It’s “rogue” as in that it doesn’t fit with the way the industry wants to do business.

And, yet, historically, if we look at some of the most innovative businesses in the world, they started off as being “rogue,” as in going in a different direction and going “off-the-farm” with some crazy ideas. For example, a little industry known as “the movie industry,” started out in very much this manner, running out to Hollywood where it could grow without having to deal with Edison and his aggressive patent enforcement attempts. Perhaps “rogue” isn’t such a bad thing.. and maybe we should be embracing rogue sites and services, in that they seem to be driving innovation forward in useful ways.

Filed Under: coica, language, piracy, rogue sites