Ahoy Mate, Pirating in 2011

Earlier today, while eating at our favorite Guatemalan restaurant in Miami, our table was approached by a young man binder full of peliculas (movies), all of which are still playing in the theaters. After flipping through the binder that featured blockbusters like Black Swan, The Tourist, and Harry Potter VII, my companion told the vendor, “Gracias, I have all of these already. I bought them in Colombia over the holidays. But, do you have any CD’s?“ And, out came the second binder… This exchange is extremely commonplace in Miami, and probably most major cities across the world. It’s just as easy to acquire a bootleg version of Rosetta Stone or Microsoft Office as it is to download the latest episode of Gossip Girl or Rhianna’s latest record. Professor Anthony Miyazaki of E-Marketing for Sensible Folk published a blog post on online music piracy earlier this week stating that piracy, “in the really old days, happened at flea markets and with shady street vendors”. While Napster, Kazaa, LimeWire, BitTorrent, and even YouTube bolstered online piracy, my lunchtime experience is proof that piracy continues to take many forms. As Mizyaki states, there are new efforts in the UK, US, France, and across Europe to combat online piracy, however, can these efforts succeed? Even if they do succeed in curtailing file-sharing and other forms of online piracy in developed countries, there is little to be done about the street vendors selling bootleg DVDs around the world. Further thoughts on the role of all things pirata and marketing Socially: The only complete albums I purchased off of iTunes last year were Artists for Haiti, Hope for Haiti Now and other similar albums to support the relief efforts in Haiti. I wasn’t alone. According to The Independent, Hope for Haiti Now which featured Rhianna, Wyclef, Justin Bieber, Alicia Keys, John Legend, Dave Matthews and Taylor Swift topped iTunes Charts. Profits benefited Oxfam America, Partners in Health, Red Cross, UNICEF, World Food Programme, Yele Haiti Foundation and Clinton-Bush Haiti Foundation. Of course I, and everyone else who purchased the album, could have easily listened to all these songs for free, however, I would have felt guilty (I normally would not have) since in my mind, I would be essentially robbing Haiti of much needed funds. Likewise, I also purchased the haunting Eminem/Rhianna video for "Love the Way You Lie" when I read that star Megan Fox’s paycheck went directly to a women's shelter. If more artists and recording companies donated a stated portion of proceeds to causes, would more people be inclined to purchase properly? Perhaps this would eliminate the tendency for consumers to justify downloading and purchasing entertainment illegally by saying that they are only costing the entertainers, movie stars, and theatres a little bit of money that they don’t need anyway. Perhaps one path to combatting piracy is artwork is to market it for a cause. Think about the success of VH1’s Save the Music Campaign that has provided more than $47 million in new musical instruments to 1,750 public schools in more than 100 cities around the country, impacting the lives of over 1.6 million children. What if someone like Bono (a prominent voice for the global poor and, also, against music piracy) promised a portion of music royalties to charity? Would people care?