Some entertainment industry honchos seem to be regretting their choice in terminology when referring to online copyright infringers as “pirates.” Apparently, they’re just coming the realization that pirates are kind of awesome. Pirates have long been seen as cool renegades and with the huge success of the Pirates of the Caribbean movie franchise they’re more popular than ever. Perhaps equating your foes with popular anti-heroes isn’t a winning strategy.
At a European press conference, Agnete Haaland, the president of the International Actors’ Federation, said “We should change the word piracy. To me, piracy is something adventurous, it makes you think about Johnny Depp. We all want to be a bit like Johnny Depp. But we’re talking about a criminal act. We’re talking about making it impossible to make a living from what you do.”
You’d think the industry would be better at branding things, since that’s such a large part of their jobs. It seems like that’s not the case. The so-called pirates have embraced the label, proudly flying the digital Jolly Roger. They’ve even formed popular political parties in several European nations.
Personally, I think the entertainment industry has far larger problems with the digital genie than what they call these online file-sharers. But it seems they’d rather focus on anything that prevents them from having to actually deal with the harsh reality they face going into the future. At least they didn’t call them “ninjas” then the industry would REALLY be in trouble.
