This is a 5 minute speech which speaks to the proposition “That all content should be made available to everyone, everywhere, immediately.”, presented by Rodney Serkowski, Treasurer of Pirate Party Australia at a Metro Screen piracy debate.
This evening’s proposition that all content should be available to everyone, everywhere, immediately — is actually quite close to reality. Pirates, otherwise known as fans, are satiating demand for services where industry has so far failed, or refused, to catch up to norms and expectations of a connected populace.
The proliferation of the Internet has fundamentally altered how we interact with knowledge, culture and information. Even the ACCC has acknowledged that illicit file sharing is simply a market response to the resistance of industry to adapt to those shifts by perpetuating pre-existing limitations on their customer base,[1] although I will argue later it is both a market response and a wider cultural or generational shift in attitudes.
There are several factors that drive demand towards illicit file sharing.