The so-called “copyright war” began years before I joined the fight, arguably in 1999, when defenders of the P2P platform Napster equated music piracy with liberty. Thus, rather than a rational discussion about the interdependence of creators and technology, Big Tech cultivated a syncretic foundation from which to sell the paradox that devaluing individual rights was somehow good for democracy. After all, it was easy to promote the view that copyright only mattered to wealthy rockstars and giant corporations while eliding the subtle but significant fact that it is a constitutional right of every citizen.
The “copyright war” peaked in the public eye in 2011/12 when the tech-funded campaign to defeat the anti-piracy bills SOPA and PIPA raged across the social platforms, convincing even professional creators that free speech and the “internet as we know it” were doomed if those bills became law. Outlandish lies about the perils of that legislation—mostly crafted and promoted by left-leaning organizations, journalists, and academics—masked the cyberlibertarian philosophy of tech’s most influential figures. Because for many leading tech-bros, it was never just about copyright, but rather, their barely disguised contempt for rights in general and that outdated political model we call the Republic. And what better way to hide an anti-democratic agenda than in plain sight with populist slogans like democratization?
Timothy Snyder, in a recent article making the point that destruction of the American state is the only agenda of tech oligarchs, writes: “The logic of ‘move fast and break things,’ like the logic of all coups, is to gain quick dramatic successes that deter and demoralize and create the impression of inevitability. Nothing is inevitable.” Citing Facebook’s old motto in context to events in Washington since the start of Trump 2.0 is spot on. Yes, for many tech companies the assault on rights like copyrights was purely about siphoning wealth from creators, but for the biggest egos in the room—like the guys on stage at the inauguration—it’s about usurping power.
When I first jumped into the copyright fight in 2011, I was lectured by Mike Masnick and others that I simply didn’t understand the economic concept of creative destruction. My friends and I were accused of “clinging to buggy whips in a world of automobiles,” failing to see how new technologies opened up new opportunities for artists, even as they closed “outdated” modes of production and distribution. But in the same way those messages distorted the math—omitting evidence of destruction without creation—the “digital rights” crowd ignored or endorsed the fact that what they were really promoting was the an ideological, anti-democratic agenda.
The idea that an independent photographer or songwriter might dare to remedy widespread, unlicensed uses of their works online was not just financially anathema to platform owners’ interests, it was philosophically repugnant that the “unthinking demos,” to quote Peter Thiel, should have any say whatsoever about the geniuses building our new utopia. This is the real spirit behind the “don’t stifle innovation” talking point—promoting that alleged inevitability cited by Snyder, now being used to push unfocused development of artificial intelligence as a mandate without public oversight.
From a broad perspective, the ideological assault on copyright was a powerful framework for teaching citizens to disregard the rights and dignity of other citizens through the anonymizing medium of digital technology—a “concealing paint emancipating us into savagery,” to borrow from William Goldman. Getting permission to use a creator’s work was scorned by the same rationales that Redditors applied to sharing stolen nudes of celebrities or which tech-evangelists still use to justify all manner of toxic content under the general view that it’s all just speech.
Parallel to Big Tech’s attack on the very idea of permission and respect for individual rights, the major platforms arrogated the role of oversight—and everyone fell for the trick. It was illusory oversight, of course, but both message and perception were that Facebook, Twitter, et al. offered better transparency (i.e., more truth) than any journalist or civil servant ever could. As more news and politics populated social media, the word “sunlight” was often repeated as a talismanic code, which meant that no government agent, no journalist, no expert could be trusted because the “real truth” lies somewhere in the morass of alternate realities hosted on the web.
The assault on copyright was often described by my friends and colleagues as a “canary in a coal mine” because it was easy for most observers to compartmentalize the “war” as a minor skirmish that, at worst, might deprive already rich people of a few bucks. In truth, it was one battle in a broader war that has now manifest in lawless, incompetent, and violent individuals mucking about in the federal government—including one non-American tech oligarch getting his mitts all over our public affairs without any oversight. As shocking as these events may be, they’re not surprising. Big Tech said, “Disrupt everything.” They weren’t kidding.
