Poaching in the king's forest.

A thousand years ago, the taking of a deer from the king’s forest was considered a capital offense. Penalties included fines, floggings, and often death. However, for every crime there are at least two stories. The king contended the land and all resources on it were his. Those that poached a deer, no matter the reason, were thieves and dealt with as such. To the peasant, however, the king was the thief and ultimate con artist who promised good fortune but offered only hardship. Royalty sat on its golden throne and sapped the common man of his money, liberty, and sustenance. Taking a deer, while illegal and risky, provided needed meat for a family and sometimes a brief reprieve from the gruel of indentured servitude. Two sides to the same story.

A thousand years later, we continue to play this same game. The stakes are no longer life and death, but the danger and allure of poaching still calls to the common peasant. No longer is the prey a stag; the quarry is now a movie. The DMCA helped usher in the MPAA’s coronation as the royal sovereign and succeeded in fencing off public domain to a small tract of land. With its passage, the DMCA increased the intellectual property owner’s power while increasing the penalties for taking the king’s deer. Poaching is as dangerous as ever, yet it continues to happen on a record scale. According to the MPAA in 2005, poaching cost the industry 18 billion dollars. So why does it continue, because there are two sides to the same story.

The king’s version of the story is simplistic, yet accurate according to the law. The king owns everything. The entire film industry is his forest, and peasants must pay to suckle from his teat. He paid for it, he created it, and he assumes all risk and keeps all profit. The stags are his intellectual property, but he also owns everything from smallest field mouse to the crappy two-minute flash trailer. Every spoken word, every image, even the idea itself, is his to tax. His relationship with the peasant is two dimensional and flat. He is the sovereign, and the peasant is either a revenue stream or a thief.

Since most of us are peasants, the other side of the story is easy to relate to, yet complex to get a handle on. The complexities arise because each peasant has a unique relationship with the king and although the king influences our lives immensely, individually we affect the king very little. The MPAA’s intellectual property permeates our lives. It shows up on our lunch boxes, on our fast food bags, and stares us in the face as we consume mass quantities of breakfast cereal. It influences our language, our wardrobe, even our political opinions and if we are caught poaching; it can even affect our freedom. The peasants, however, have only the power to affect the king’s treasury.

This imbalance of power has a tendency to foster a strained relationship where perceived grievances can excuse or justify the unethical act of breaching copyright law. Whether poaching takes the shape of downloading or just outright copying, the relationship has deteriorated to the point that the peasant harbors no sympathy for the king or his copyrights.

The peasant’s grievances stem from the game the king plays with his intellectual property. As the peasant drudges through his daily grind, the king shows up selling a box. He promises that in that box is a succulent cut of meat from the forest stag, an exciting alternative to the monotonous diet of television reruns and early post-season exits of his favorite sports team. Intrigued, the peasant asks to see the meat. The king refuses explaining that if the peasant wants to see the meat, he must first buy the box. Unsure if the box even contains meat, the peasant protests until the king offers to crack the box a small amount allowing the peasant to sniff the contents. Convinced the box contains his desires, the peasant, hands over his hard-earned money. Upon opening the box, the peasant finds a succession of six smaller boxes all wrapped in advertisements for other boxes and either a rancid piece of meat or something masquerading as meat. Feeling cheated and disappointed, animosity grows and the peasant longs for his money back.

After playing this game repeatedly, the peasant stops buying the box and starts poaching. To the peasant, there is no value in the box. Convenience, ease and cost overshadow the risks involved in poaching. By poaching, the peasant no longer has to suffer ten minutes of “unskippable” previews or commercials. He does not feel cheated when the smell, advertises deer and the box contains chicken. Since he is out no money, the ridiculous anti-piracy ads that previously called him a thief, even though he purchased the movie, provide only a thirty-second laugh.

So what is a king to do? Regardless of any action by the king and any attempt to address the grievances, a certain number of peasants will always feel conned and therefore continue to poach. For years, the decision seemed black or white. Either crack down hard on poachers risking the perception of tyranny or ignore the problem until the poachers deplete the forest. Nevertheless, in this entertainment feudal system there seems to be an alternative. For many peasants, myself included, the option of paying a king’s vassal a monthly fee in return for access to an all you can eat buffet is a wonderful compromise. For the price of purchasing one DVD, a peasant can rent dozens of movies through a service such as Netflix. Granted the box may still be a lie, but there is value in having the ability to see the contents cheaply before deciding to buy it.

Maybe the answer lies in creating two versions of the box, one for rental, devoid of all previews, commercials, hard to navigate menus, and special features. And another version created strictly for retail sale containing all the special features those willing to pay top dollar for the movie really want. Then again, maybe there is no answer. If the underlying problem has nothing to do with soured relationships or perceived grievances, and it all boils down to the fact that it is easier and cheaper to poach then there will always be poachers in the king’s forest.