Saturday 11 August 2012

PIRACY? NOT ONLY ON THE SEAS

Isn't it obvious?

Take the case of the gazillion torrentz that are swarming all over the Internet. You can pick up almost everything - books, music, movies - for free. And so the debate begins.

Buying an audio CD here in India costs me about INR 500 (or about USD 9), for 'English' (read any other language apart from a regional language) music, and maybe somewhere around half the amount for the desi stuff.

Let's rip apart the desi music first. Not like I'm not a fan - you'll find a fair amount of Hindi film music on my BlackBerry - but I'm not a fan of the pricing on the CDs, given the amount of songs on a soundtrack. Seven, maybe, of which three will be remixes of remixes, while the other two will be the sad and/ or romantic version. Which leaves us with two 'original' songs. Which, again, in all probability, have anyway been ripped off some 'English' (read any other language apart from regional again) number, or some earlier Bollywood song.

It doesn't even cost a kidney to manufacture a CD; I figure it's about 10 bucks or so. That's hardly going to register on an ECG. So here's the deal - why should I donate a large chunk of my salary towards increasing the stock prices on these companies? I don't understand the stock market anyway; and am an ocean away from playing it. And that's only in this lifetime.

Coming to books. May as well save a twig or two, or maybe an entire branch replete with wasps' nest, if I don't give in to temptation and buy 'real' books. Not that I like e-books, really, I must confess here. But my bank account does, even if the card company doesn't. See, it's again about upwards of 500 bucks to read a thriller/ mystery novel, just the once - unless you pretend not knowing whodunnit even after the 50th read, just to justify the purchase.

So let's break this down now: (a) I don't want to pledge my kidney to be able to buy 'real', 'original' stuff, and (b) piracy isn't restricted to the seas.

Isn't it being like Robin Hood, stealing from the thieves?

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