Janko’s observation drew a rebuke from Alex Swartsel at the MPAA, who described it as the “casual promotion of the idea that stealing movies, TV shows and music is a perfectly acceptable way to save money”, and went on to equate copyright infringement to physical theft in conjunction with other common arguments.

Both TorrentFreak and Mike Masnick at Techdirt responded to the MPAA’s comments and although we had very different approaches to the issue, we were in agreement – Janko hadn’t promoted illegal behavior of any kind.

Today, Alex at the MPAA published a response which seemingly for the purposes of debate toys with the idea that that some people may well download content in an economic downturn.

But if we rewind a few years, wasn’t it former MPAA chariman Dan Glickman making the same assertion – and meaning it?

During the December 2008 forum held by the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Glickman was expressing concern, according to AFP, that piracy on the streets and online might increase in the near future. But what would drive this phenomenon?

“If you look at the situation, the current economic crisis makes this problem much more serious than before,” he told the forum. “If we don’t protect IPR (intellectual property rights), our economic losses will be far worse.”

Now, just a few years later, similar words from bloggers and journalists draw complaints from the MPAA that piracy is being “casually promoted”.

Getting back to Alex Swartsel’s second post published today, instead of admitting that a link could exist between people’s piracy habits and their financial position, Swartsel continues to argue that people should not be inclined to pirate, ever. “Movie and TV theft is inevitable,” is a statement Alex can’t subscribe to.

“Why? Because it’s easy to steal something that, in physical form, exists only as data, and easy to justify stealing it as a result? Because information wants to be free, no matter the cost it took to produce or its creators’ judgments about how best to disseminate it? Because anything is fair game once it’s on the Internet?”

Alex then goes on to pick Mike up on his point that the MPAA should “adapt and deal with reality.” In basic terms, with a couple of omissions, the “reality” can be found in the quote from Alex above.

The Internet is a great big copying machine and yes, when something exists only as data it is ridiculously easy to copy and yes, some people will do that if they can. Information does want to be free and unfortunately the costs of creating that information, for the purposes of this debate, are simply irrelevant. The cost to the downloader is virtually nil and in the majority of cases, rightly or wrongly, the financial implications study will end right there.

The MPAA obviously feel they have no choice but to try and stamp out piracy, and that is their prerogative, but they are facing a general public, as Mike Masnick points out, who feel that downloading movies and TV shows is socially acceptable.

For this reason file-sharing of one form or another – for good or for ‘evil’ – isn’t going away and will continue to be the method of choice for a large number of Internet users to consume media. This is the “reality” and, to use the word that Alex won’t accept, it is indeed almost inevitable.

However, the “reality” according to Alex is that there are “more options than ever before to get movies and TV shows online safely and legitimately – we have a list on MPAA.org here, and the creative minds in our industry are working on even more as we speak.”

Well that’s good news indeed, since after trying more than a dozen of the provided links with my non-US IP address I couldn’t find a single one which would let me watch anything . The Pirate Bay, however, has no geo-lockout. Another uncomfortable ‘reality’.

“But if what Masnick means is that we need to throw up our hands and look the other way while people who had nothing to do with making a movie or a TV show steal and profit from it, that is a reality to which we do not care to adapt, period,” Alex concludes.

But of course Mike isn’t suggesting that nothing be done, he’s suggesting that what is currently being done to compete with piracy needs much more work. The reality here is that he’s absolutely right.

The reality is that just about every movie and TV show, no matter how old or how new, is available to every internet user almost immediately and the studios don’t provide that service. Until they do piracy will continue, through this economic downturn and the next.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Janko hasn’t been so prolific on that specific subject in recent times because as writer and co-editor of popular news resource GigaOm, his brief is understandably wider.

Nevertheless, his work on GigaOm’s NewTeeVee section naturally covers some piracy issues, as the official TV and movie outlets of the future try to compete with the BitTorrent networks of today.

On Thursday Janko published a piece called “Sorry, Hollywood: Piracy may make a comeback” which mulled over recent Netflix price hikes, fresh HULU restrictions, the economic downturn and how they may combine to cause a boost in piracy. It contained the following words:

The U.S. credit ratings downgrade, tumbling stocks and international instability have made not just financial analysts nervous this week. Consumers are also starting to wonder whether we’re about to enter another recession. Whenever that happens, people start to tighten their belts and cut unnecessary expenses — like paying for movies and TV shows…

With memories of the housing slump still fresh, many people could simply return to BitTorrent and download movies for free instead of going to the movies or paying for VOD.

The piece was read by Alex Swartsel at the MPAA who took issue with Janko’s “casual promotion of the idea that stealing movies, TV shows and music is a perfectly acceptable way to save money.”

Since Alex had much more to say, GigaOm allowed the MPAA to have a guest post on their site in which they took the opportunity to chastize Janko and drive home the notion that, among other things, copyright infringement is the same as physical theft.

“But if Roettgers had written that financially insecure families will shoplift clothes from a department store this fall to save on back-to-school costs for their children, he would be laughed out of the proverbial building, right?” wrote Alex.

GigaOm reader Dave Warner could barely control his anger.

“Why is GigaOM publishing MPAA propaganda that continues to try and convince us that copyright infringement is the same as theft, when there are quotes from Thomas Jefferson that convince us it clearly isn’t?” Dave began.

“Why is GigaOM giving web space to an organization that spent decades expanding copyright to the point of absurdity and now wants us to pay them for every film made in the last 80 years, most of which would be in the public domain now?

“Why is GigaOM giving newshole to an organization has bought our malleable Congress and suppressed cultural exchange worldwide to line their pockets?

“Keep these bastards out of our tech news feeds,” he concluded, an opinion shared by many in pro file-sharing, anti-restrictive copyright and other associated movements.

But while Dave makes some good points, GigaOm were right to let the MPAA have their say.

Firstly, Alex’s problem with Janko is based on a fundamental misunderstanding. Read any of Janko’s articles and try and find one where he has ever – even casually – condoned copyright infringement. None can be found. All Janko did here was make a credible observation, that people who have the ability may choose to reduce their TV and movie bills in times of hardship. Picking Janko up on something he didn’t do undermines the basis for the whole article.

MPAA 0, Critics 1

Secondly, shooting Janko – the messenger – is another mistake. All this has done is draw attention yet again to the fact that when the MPAA can’t effectively punish the “thieves” taking their content, shooting the messenger (ISPs, webhosts, writers?) is what they’ve been reduced to. That notion is unpopular with just about everyone apart from rightsholders, and very few people – especially journalists – think that is a good idea.

MPAA 0, Critics 2

The other thing is this – no one should be scared of an opposing viewpoint. Letting the MPAA have their say – even when they have criticized a site’s co-editor – is a show of strength and GigaOm are to be applauded.

Last week TorrentFreak published two guest articles together. One argued that people shouldn’t be held responsible for copyright infringements carried out by others. In the interests of balance, we published another from a lawyer operating a porn-based “speculative invoicing”-style model who argued that people should.

Pro-adult industry website Xbiz went on to republish the latter but not the former. I’d venture that TorrentFreak’s readers are now much better informed on the issue, precisely because a dissenting voice was given a platform, an option rendered unavailable to Xbiz readers.

Of course, it will be a cold day in hell when TorrentFreak is allowed to publish an uncensored guest post on piracy for the MPAA blog. However, if the MPAA ever wanted to respond to us here in a piece, we would welcome them. It’s an easy choice because, quite simply, there is nothing to fear.

Free flow of information and freedom of speech is inclusive and if one side of the copyright debate demands it, then the other should receive it too. There is no danger in letting people voice their opinions – one-sided debates are not only boring, they rarely achieve anything.

Vive la différence!

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.