The majority of the commentary on file-sharing and video downloading or piracy comes from very Western perspectives. The American government files suit against suburban youth, the French declare—against their own government—their support for an internet that is a laboratory of free culture. Pirate Bay, the focus of the most recent round of anti-anti-copyright litigation, is run out of Stockholm.

In these commentaries, the arguments in favor of file-sharing and the downloading of copyrighted media reflect, perhaps unsurprisingly, the economic and cultural position of their proponents. Media consumption, it is said, should be free, the internet is all about the sharing of ideas—file sharing is a victimless crime; TV is dying, and we should embrace the emerging mediums of distribution, rather than hold onto the relics of a past age.

This is to say: those who advocate file-sharing advocate the choice to share files. One could, of course, pay the standard fees to access the downloaded media legally. This is a choice that does not exist everywhere in the world. In many countries, movies, music and other cultural objects—some with well agreed upon value—simply aren’t available outside of “illegal” distribution networks. The simple value of having any access at all to media seems an overlooked wrinkle of the debate focused exclusively on so-called piracy.

Last month, the Russian news site Gazeta.ru ran an Op-Ed, or “Personal Experience” piece, in which file-sharing was imagined from the somewhat different perspective the Russian provinces. Techné provides the translation of the full text of the Op-Ed below; the original article is available here.

For Some, Piracy, and For Some—A Gulp of Culture
Nina Aleksandrovna

Doubtlessly, an author has the right to societal recognition, reward, and also—solidified and saved for him by the law—to dictate the use of the results of his work by society.

However, it’s necessary to remember that the unwieldy laws that touch upon authors’ rights and the possibility of fair use appeared in an antiquated era (in Russia, if I’m not mistaken, sometime during the 18th century).

Since then, it’s worth noting, our life has changed.

In exchange for carriages came automobiles, people of different continents became closer to one another with the appearance of “flying machines” and telephone lines. It’s impossible to imagine modernity without email, online search, databases or virtual libraries.

“To turn” the pages of newspapers in the morning on a monitor screen has become for many an accustomed act.
Many radio stations allow the downloading, from their own sites, of their programs for repeated listening or reading. And for what, we’ll notice—completely free!
And here the scythe is caught on a rock. With the creation of effective numerical ways of saving files, “the company went not to the foot”—millions of file-sharers of musical production and film turned out to be balanced on the edge of criminal prosecution.
The exchange of books and music didn’t show up today. Its existence is as old as the world. Then films got connected to it. With the era of VHS, the people started to trade bulky videocassettes—DVDs came to replace them. Then with the appearance of the comparably cheap and fast internet, music and film exchange acquired an especial scale.

The computer has become a part of the family—“the first after the television.”
The wonderful possibility of touching the world of music, movies or literature has appeared in small towns and villages by means of the internet…there is simply no other possibility there.

No, I’m making a mistake, there is the possibility—to order by that very same internet, pay 20 rubles a film by credit card, plus shipping at 20 rubles, and it will arrive in a month, if it isn’t torn from the packaging in the post. Although we’ll start from the fact that the a resident of a provincial town may turn out not to have a credit card, or these 40 rubles—and then, it’s not a fact that they won’t send him a pirated disk with 10 films on each side and the according quality.

So a file-sharing program for him—it’s simply a gulp of culture. Go to a file-sharing site—there is everything there, like “in Greece!”

But most surprisingly, the youth (and this is the principal user of the current production) massively downloads Soviet classics! In my opinion, it is rare for the idea to come into the head of this sort of young person today to go to a store and purchase, for $30, a disk with “The Lower Depths” or “Resurrection,” or more than that, the sort of masterpiece and world classic like “Battleship Potemkin”….But from file-sharing they get it! Some for free, and some acquire “premium” accounts…

They trade, communicate, digitize, install and either praise or criticize to one another…

Say for whom this is bad, if our young people are watching Russian classics and sound Soviet films.

They watch, of course, in trespass of the holiest of holy rights of the possessor, according to the existent norms. But most importantly—they watch, take it in and educate themselves! As it is known, “of all the arts the most important for us is the movie.”

It is possible that a moratorium is needed on the distribution of new films, for example, for a year or two, in order to allow movie theaters and DVD “producers” to make money. This time is fully satisfactory for active interest in a film or musical hit.

After this, interest in them, unchangeably, weakens:

Have you seen even one of last year’s masterpieces in a rental place?

And DVD piracy with its innumerable kiosks selling “cleanly licensed” production will noticeably decrease.

No, it is necessary to forbid! Do not allow it! Punish! For whom will this make things better? (We’ll leave aside for now the question about pornographic films; it’s possible, as they do produce such films, that somebody needs them, but here, doubtlessly, there should be age limits and an avoidance of open advertisements).

It’s possible that no one will ever see the enormous layer of video materials in the Government Fund of Movies of the Russian Federation, unless the laws about the protection of intellectual property, smelling of moth-balls and all the same visited by moths, are changed.

The wonderful television programs of the past will leave for non-existence, the popular-science films, Soviet classics, television spectacles, surprising children’s programs—that very same “Good night, kiddies” with kind aunt Valya, which was known to more than one generation of Russian children!

And already irreclaimably lost are the shows with shining actors, played on the stages of famous theaters….More than that, authors’ rights long ago stopped belonging only to “authors,” in that authors themselves have long already stopped paying attention to their rights to their own children, and in that they usually do not have control over the scaled distribution of their work—middlemen are occupied with this (for example, publishing house, movie studios, companies, employers and so forth).

Of course, “these sorts of questions aren’t solved without preparation,” but […]

Why shouldn’t Mosfilm or Government Fund of Movies of the Russian Federation (I don’t guarantee the name), for example, set up a virtual store, where anyone could download an old film, paying a symbolic amount?

By they way, the payment shouldn’t be high—in the range of a few rubles.

For those who cannot pay, the possibility need be left to download for free. All things happen. Naturally, this will require defined expenditures, and not a little: to hire specialists, acquire servers and to upload and digitize analog materials.

Japan has passed a new law on the criminal prosecution of downloading music and films (it seems that it will go into effect in a year)—and Europe is conducting a battle for the liquidation of file-sharing sites.…And right-possessors, with their own rights, will soon become like the a miserly knight on his own trunks of gold….And who, gentlemen, will this make happy?

Translation and introduction by Techné contributor and editor Isaac Scarborough.