Dear Zoomers,

It's come to my attention that while we Millennials were busy being impressed by your social and ecological responsibility, we failed to notice some of you have swallowed a lot of corporate propaganda uncritically. Sorry. Here's a thread on that. 1/

I remember sitting in the cinema with my friends watching the incredibly lame pre-trailer warnings about "digital piracy," and seeing the "YOU WOULDN'T DOWNLOAD A CAR!" admonishment. We all laughed because, yeah, we totally would, that would be cool as fuck. 2/

But we were so busy finding these things ridiculous we didn't realise they were targeting, not Millennials, but Zoomers. And by not paying attention to your developing attitudes on this subject, we've actually failed you. We've done you an incredible disservice. 3/

I'm going to explain, as well as I can, why copyright infringement is not theft (let alone piracy), why not all copyright infringement is bad, and why it's extremely important to recognise when laws must be broken for the social and personal good. 4/

Since Zoomers tend to be pretty good about Capitalism being shit and neo-liberalism being a failed political order, let's start with a little history. Have you heard of the land enclosures that began the rise of Capitalism? Stuff like the Highland Clearances in Scotland? 5/

Back in pre-Capitalist times, there was an idea called the Commons, whereby some things just... didn't belong to anyone. No specific individual, but rather they were held "in common" by everyone. Everyone had equal right (in theory at least) to use them, policed by shame. 6/

The archetypal example of this was grazing land for sheep. No one person owned the scrub lands, or the village green, but rather they were held in common by everyone. If you abused them, your neighbours got angry and shamed you, and there were even some laws about misuse. 7/

Another example were forests and deer. Sure, in some cases the local nobility would claim exclusive hunting rights, but in many cases there were no such restrictions. Hungry? You could go hunt a deer, and traditional Scottish footwear was made from its remains. 8/

This whole arrangement was a problem for would-be Capitalists. How exactly are you supposed to monetise every aspect of someone's life, force them to go work in a factory for shitty wages, if they have another alternative? If they can live off the Commons? 9/

There's an eye-opening (if kind of dry) book by Michael Perelman called "The Invention of Capitalism" where he quotes from letters sent between early would-be Capitalists discussing the problem. They were really blunt about it. 10/

"The unwillingness of the hand-loom weavers to enter the mills and manufactories is well known to the whole trade. This arises from them having acquired habits which render the occupation in mills disgusting to them, on account of ... the strictness of its discipline." 11/

"For such as have strong bodies ..., they are to be forced to work, and to avoyd the excuse of not finding employment, there ought to be such Lawes as may encourage ..." 12/

The book is full of openly depressing comments like this. A German government minister has a quote that stuck with me to this day, and I'm going to quote it in full. 13/

"Originally this compulsion was exercised by the institution of slavery, which came into existence at the same time as tillage of the soil and private ownership of land. ..." 14/

"When all the land in a country is privately owned, and when the same title to all land has passed into private ownership of land and capital exerts the same compulsion on liberated or free workers. ... " 15/

"Only now the command of the slave owner has been replaced by the contract between worker and employer, a contract which is free only in form but not really in substance." 16/

"Hunger makes almost a perfect substitute for the whip, and what was formerly called fodder is now called wages."

And that's what they did. They gave the Commons to private ownership, and deprived people of any choice but to go to the mills or starve. 17/

Like, think of it. If you had a choice between the abysmal conditions of being worked to death in a Mill or staying in your village and grazing sheep, growing crops, and hunting, which do you think you'd do? 18/

What I'm trying to get across is that Capitalism is based entirely on the theft of what was public, what belonged to all of us, and turning it over to a few individuals who then charge rent on it. No landlord made the field, or lays the bricks that build the house. 19/

So now in light of all this, it's time to ask you a very simple question. Should someone who doesn't work have food? Should everyone have to work to eat? 20/

If you think everyone must work to eat, a follow up question: work for who? 21/

And further, if you think people must work to eat: what about people who can't work?

You probably agree that someone who is sick or disabled shouldn't have to work to eat (assuming you're not a monster). What about people who can't find a job? 22/

Because as should be clear from what I've laid out, the world has been set up to deny people food so that they're forced to work for the people denying them the food. The Commons have been stolen, the lands that were public enclosed, to compel labour to enrich others. 23/

If you are not a monster, and I don't think you are, I think you'll do one of two things. Either you'll agree this is monstrous, no one should starve, or you'll try to reject the whole premise, deny that this is the reality of material conditions leading to our present day. 24/

If you're in denial, I have nothing to say other than go read the book I mentioned (and also consider picking up Liberalism: A Counter-History by Domenico Losudro) and find for me the lie. 25/

Assuming you're on board, that you do believe no one should starve, the entire fabric of the society we live in starts to come apart. Like the death penality - it's a bad idea because someone innocent will eventually get merc'd - you soon realise restrictions kill people. 26/

If you say "Ah, we should only give food to those who can't work," then you inevitably have to set up tests to prove it, and inevitably someone is going to fail them who should have passed, and you will starve someone who couldn't work. 27/

For an illustration of this happening in the modern day, go check out the film "I, Daniel Blake" by Ken Loach. I promise you that I have witnessed the things depicted in it first hand. 28/

Hopefully, you're with me here. You agree that Capitalism is a fuck, that material conditions have been set up to enslave people for the benefit of our rulers, that nobody should be physically starved because they can't work. 29/

If you need a little more convincing, consider that there are less jobs available than there are people wanting work. Since the 70s, governments haven't care about full employment: having some people permanently out of work pressures the rest to accept whatever's there. 30/

Under the system we have made, there will be people who want to work but are not allowed to. I believe, and I think you do too, that these people shouldn't starve. 31/

What does this have to do with copyright infringement? It's simple. Our physical, material world hasn't been the only thing enclosed.

We've also enclosed our cultural Commons. 32/

There are many stories and works of art that are so old that we accept they belong to everyone, which is how things really used to be. Nobody owned the story of King Arthur. Nobody owned Robin Hood. 33/

Because we couldn't copy information, couldn't clone paintings or performances, de facto we used to restrict circulation of specific productions, and so artisans could sell their labour and be fairly compensated. But the ideas, the information, they belonged to everyone. 34/

Yet in modern times, we have the idea of copyright. Nominally, this is to protect the artist, so that the fruits of their labour aren't immediately cloned and stolen and circulated. Yet ask any artist on here how they're doing with sites like RedBubble stealing their work. 35/

In truth, copyright is another form of enclosure that's designed to protect private interest. And I won't sit here and tell you it's all bad, because dismantling copyright without dismantling the whole, you know, starvation thing will just make things worse. 36/

The greatest beneficiaries of copyright are those with the lawyers to enforce it, which are the rich and the powerful. The corporate. That's who the system is set up to benefit, and if you don't believe me, ask any non-billionaire musician on Spotify. 37/

The practicalities of the enforcement of copyright mean that individual artisans have to provide their labour to, and allow profiteering by, major labels in order to adequately protect their work. This includes labels like, oh, Patreon, and Twitch. 38/

You can't really make a living as an artist without allowing some form of landlord-like figure to profit off you, because copyright doesn't mean shit without accumulated wealth to enforce it. This is by design. One way or another, the corporate world gets its slice. 39/

Now we come to another question, a really simple question with profound implications:

Do you need art to live a fully human life? 40/

A curious and intentional side-effect of the enclosures was that early Capitalists said, no, you don't. You need only food, clothing, shelter, and basic sanitation. Everything else is worthless.

Why? Because it doesn't make them profit. 41/

Later Capitalists recognised that this deprivation provided a new opportunity to sell people back what had been taken from them by the structure of Capitalism. And throw this together with the evolution of the patent system, and you have copyright. 42/

From the beginning, copyright hasn't really been about artists so much as it has been about Capitalists being able to sell the work of artists. To profit off the artificial scarcity of culture that Capitalism has created with its walled gardens. 43/

Remember, when books had to be printed the people who got hit with copyright infringement were other Capitalists copying the books to sell them. I cannot stress this point enough. 44/

If you were poor, and couldn't afford a book to read, then it required physical theft of an object that incurred a loss. Someone paid to print the work, someone bought that print to sell, and you absconded with it. And so people were charged with theft. 45/

A question:

If you would allow a starving person to steal a loaf of bread to survive, would you allow a suicidal person to steal a book? 46/

Think about that. Meanwhile, we live in a modern world of tremendous communication, and now we can copy books, films, art of every kind, copy them effortlessly, at virtually no cost. The potential for Capitalists to make profit from art has increased exponentially. 47/

But so too has a danger returned. The Commons. Because art and culture are so easily copied we now see a new Commons coming into being. A collective Commons of art and culture, of memes and shitposts.

Speaking of which, Twitter. "I can't believe this site is free." 48/

In actuality, we know it's not free (we pay with our personal information being sold to advertisers). But we've been conditioned that culture should cost. And that conditioning comes from the same corporate interests that profit from it. 49/

"You wouldn't download a car."

Millennials, we figured out that you could just share music and books, that it cost nothing. And this became such a huge threat to this artificial scarcity of culture that the music industry, the film industry etc. all balked. 50/

Thus the propaganda, which many Zoomers appear to have bought into. And maybe part of it is because they misidentify themselves as future Influencers, and want to protect copyright so that their copyright will be protected, ignoring the reality of copyright enforcement. 51/

Who knows! But we're left with the reality that it remains trivially easy to infringe on the copyright of cultural materials, and we are left to grapple with the ethics of when and why to do such a thing. And this is the point I now come to. 52/

Zoomers, if you cannot afford something, that doesn't mean you're not entitled to it. In this very thread I've shown you how the ability to feed yourself through your own labour has been taken away, replaced with an artificial scarcity of food to force wage slavery. 53/

If you agree that someone who is starving is morally right to break the law to eat, then you accept that the law itself is based on unjust foundations. In the case of food, the enclosures of land, the death of the Commons, and the creation of employment. 54/

So too then when it comes to culture. By human right, the stories hoarded by Disney and others are your culture, and you are entitled to participation in them, to dream and create. But artificial scarcity is here when we have the ability to share freely. 55/

One day, we may have a society that isn't Capitalist, where artists can make their art without the threat of starvation forcing their hand, and without someone powerful profiteering off their work. But for now we must contend with it. 56/

When is it right to copyright infringe? You're going to have to answer that given the glimpse of context that I've provided you here. I encourage you to research, and to think, and to *be aware of corporate interest and its propaganda.* 57/

Here's how I do it.

1. Is something wholly corporate owned, such that the original artist gets no payment from purchase? Fuck the corporations. 58/

2. Am I incapable of purchasing the article due to arbitrary divisions designed to extract maximum profit from different populations? Fuck the corporations. 59/

3. Can I literally not afford the work in question? Then they wouldn't have made money off me anyway. I'll enjoy the work, and when I can afford it, I'll pay the artist back. Preferably directly. 60/

4. Is it something I literally wouldn't purchase under any circumstances, wouldn't have unless it was given away for free? Then they wouldn't have made money off me anyway. This rarely comes up. I still tend to compensate artists when I can afford it. 61/

Those are the very rough general rules I follow when deciding whether to infringe on copyright. I look carefully at individual situations, and decide whether it's right to infringe or whether it's a situation where I need to find another way. 62/

Another thing worth considering is whether the original artist needs the money. I recognise not everyone is comfortable with that, but I am personally of the opinion that once you're set as a multimillionaire you should either make shit free or use all the profits to do good. 63/

But lastly, a personal note.

Is your life so bleak, so absent of joy, that you can't see a reason to keep going?

Take whatever you need. Don't even hesitate. Whatever gets you through, worry about the rights and wrongs later. Your life is worth more. 64/

And always, regardless of the ethics of copyright infringement, if you're going to do it then you need to be careful. Don't pointlessly martyr yourself. There are plenty of other Millennials out there who will teach you how to infringe safely, in a way that won't get caught. 65/

Through these acts, we dismantle the artificial scarcity. Through these acts, even if we don't know it, we're rebuilding our cultural Commons. /End

If you're a teenager and you find this interesting, do me a favour and help radicalise your fellow Zoomers: stick it on r/teenagers and any other appropriate subreddits. Or reword it yourself and stick it there. I'm not after clout, this isn't copyrighted.