Stop stealing electronic content from artists

If we really want to help artists, let’s stop stealing their work

A number of news organizations (including The Examiner) have published columns discussing how we’ll support the arts in the wake of the COVID-19 crisis. It is an important issue.

Social isolation has worsened an already precarious financial situation for many artists and writers. Yet, in the face of their own challenges, artists are stepping up to provide free online concerts and workshops, helping others find comfort, meaning and community.

We owe our artists and writers gratitude and respect, but we also owe them a living wage. While government policy changes may be helpful in the long term, there is one simple thing we can all do now. Stop stealing electronic content from the artists and authors who created it. This will have an immediate, tangible impact.

Digital property theft and hacking electronic copyright protection are not victimless crimes. Unprotected digital books and music can be shared broadly and repeatedly, making the potential harm to the creator’s livelihood far greater than most physical property theft.

It is perplexing that people who are otherwise ethical will steal content or break copyright protection on digital books and music. Most would never think of stealing physical property. It is paradoxical behaviour, until viewed through the lens of class privilege and entitlement.

Those of us who have financial means, an internet connection, time and technical knowledge enjoy the privilege of being able to take and share, without consequence, whatever we can steal from artists who have published content online.

When we recognize we have an unearned privilege that gives us an unethical advantage in society, what do we do about it? First, we must acknowledge this privilege and stop exercising it; we have to at least stop being part of the problem. A further step is to start naming this behaviour as the ugly theft that it really is. It needs to become socially unacceptable.

Let’s buy the books we want to read, or borrow them from a legitimate source. Let’s support our musicians by purchasing their art and let’s put something in the tip jar when we catch a band at a local pub. We’ll all be better off for it. Paul Sobanski

Middleton Drive

Peterborough