1. Lambert 1
(Robert) Curtis Lambert
English 101
Professor Bolton
25 June 2012
The Persistent Piracy Plethora
or “What’s wrong with downloading music and movies for free?”
Lawrence Lessig’s essay, “Some Like it Hot,” addresses the pressing issue of the current
digital age: is media piracy, in any form, really wrong? Lessig is a professor of law at Stanford
University and is the founder of the Center for Internet and Society. The Center is a self-
proclaimed leader in the study of the law surrounding the internet and all other emerging
technologies. Therefore, one would presume that the author has considerable knowledge of the
laws covering media and technology, so his assertion that there are still some unanswered
questions about the legality of media piracy is unsettling. According to Lessig, “The question is
one of balance, weighing the protection of the law against the strong public interest in continued
[media] innovation. The law should seek that balance, and that balance will only be found with
time” (92). The author continually maintains throughout his essay that the issue of time has been
a persistent problem in dealing with piracy and the legalities surrounding who owned the rights
to what, and how those fees were to be disbursed. However, Lessig wants the reader to continue
to be patient in this digital age of ever evolving technology and just give the law “….time to seek
that balance…” (Lessig 92). We can all agree that laws are difficult to establish when navigating
uncharted territory and I feel that Lessig continually straddles the proverbial fence on this issue
throughout his essay. It seems the author wants us to believe it is alright to have it both ways.
However, I contend that the precedent for media piracy laws have been set since before the turn

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of the 20th century, and although the type of media continues to develop and progress at a pace
beyond our ability to keep up, the basic statute of the law has not changed: if one duplicates
and/or sells or uses someone else’s media, in any form, without their written or express
permission, then they are breaking the law.
The vast majority of the media that is duplicated is done legally and the artists whose
work is being recorded, in any fashion, is compensated according to the law. However, it has
become increasingly difficult to monitor and protect the rights of artists in the media industry,
due largely to the fact that digital technology changes and advances at lightning speed in today’s
market. For example, today’s media savvy youth culture sees nothing wrong with Peer-2-Peer
file sharing. It is an accepted practice, largely by teens and college students, to download and
share files among themselves, without ever paying for the data or media being shared. How do
we hold the YouTube generation accountable to the piracy laws? Peer-2-Peer file sharing
dismisses any importance to copyright laws and infringements. Lessig’s claim that piracy of
developing media technology is not new rests upon the questionable assumption that there is
always going to be a certain element in society that does not adhere to these seemingly random
piracy laws, and we need to be patient, while giving the courts and the laws the opportunity to
catch up. I disagree with the author on this point. I think the law is very clear and leaves no room
for error on this subject. True, the laws have to evolve and adapt as the mediums change, but the
rudimentary basis of the original piracy laws are still applicable: artists own the works they have
created and we owe them monetary compensation when we use their said work, even if we don’t
profit from it ourselves. When it comes to this topic, most of us will readily agree that taking
someone else’s property without their permission is stealing. Where this agreement usually ends,
however, is on the question of ownership of digital technology and its availability to the masses

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via the World Wide Web. Whereas some are convinced that if the information is floating around
in cyber space then it is theirs for the taking, others, like me, maintain that there has to be some
way of policing this issue more thoroughly so people are paid according to the law for their
work.
The Internet has made every artist’s work readily available at the click of a button. No
thought is given to who owns the work on the Internet or how to pay for it, and there is no sense
of urgency in legislating these artist’s rights. Julian Sanchez, of the CATO Institute had this to
say in an article he wrote, Internet Regulations & the Economics of Piracy:
…I remain a bit amazed that it’s become an indisputable premise in Washington that
there’s an enormous piracy problem, that it’s having a devastating impact on U.S. content
industries, and that some kind of aggressive new legislation is needed to stanch the
bleeding…our legislative class has somehow determined that—among all the dire
challenges now facing the United States—this is an urgent priority…But does the best
available evidence show that this is inflicting such catastrophic economic harm—that it is
depressing so much output, and destroying so many jobs—that Congress has no option
but to Do Something immediately?...the data we do have doesn’t remotely seem to justify
the DEFCON One rhetoric that now appears to be obligatory on the Hill. (par. 2)
In making this comment Mr. Sanchez reveals that he is of the same opinion as Mr. Lessig when
it comes to the time factor and media piracy: be patient, the copyright laws will catch up,
eventually.
Lessig gives a myriad of examples on how, throughout history, people have been going
to great extremes to avoid paying royalties attached to media copyright laws. He states that
Hollywood was founded on two production studios refusal to pay royalties to Thomas Edison,

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who owned the rights to the inventions the film industry was utilizing at the time. The studios
were so determined not to pay Edison what he was due, that they moved from the east coast of
the United States to the west coast, which was out of the local jurisdiction of Edison’s patents,
thus Hollywood was born. The studios managed to produce films using his copyrighted
technology for seventeen years before the laws on piracy were finally amended. Unfortunately
for Edison, however, by the time the copyright laws had changed to include the west coast, the
statute of limitations on royalties had passed; therefore Hollywood legally owed Edison nothing
for his inventions they had used to create a new, and very profitable, industry. Subsequently, the
advent of Radio and Cable television followed suit, and the artists whose works these new
mediums were profiting from fell victim to the same lack of urgency in the courts that Edison
had been faced with.
Lessig’s essay initially makes a strong point: he concurs that the inability to render a
legal decision on copyright royalties has been a problem since the media piracy debate began at
the end of the 19th century, and the discussions we are having today about how to reign in media
piracy are not new, only the technology we are debating is new. However, the author follows up
this point by asking the reader to accept that all piracy is not wrong and we should give the laws
time to decide accordingly. In my opinion, the author cannot have it both ways. On the one hand,
Lessig argues for the rights of artists and the need to protect their work with amended laws. On
the other hand, he implores us to be patient since these new laws take time. I would be willing to
bet that if Mr. Lessig, or Mr. Sanchez, were being robbed of monies owed them through
copyright or media piracy they would both have very different arguments on the urgency needed
to reform the current legislation.

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Works Cited
Lessig, Lawrence. “Some Like it Hot.” The Norton Field Guide to Writing with Readings and
Handbook. 2nd ed. Eds. Richard Bullock, Maureen Daly Goggin, Francine Weinberg.
New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2010. 88-92. Print.
Sanchez, Julian. "Internet Regulation & the Economics of Piracy." Cato Institute. 17 Jan 2012:
n.pag. SIRS Issues Researcher. Web. 18 June 2012.