Morning Coffee
They Are Pirates
On April 12, 2009, United States Navy SEAL snipers gunned down three “pirates” while attempting to rescue Richard Phillips, captain of the U.S.-flagged ship Maersk Alabama. While this precaution by U.S. forces appears noble, it thrusts the question of what effects piracy has on society and how those effects should be combated rationally and effectively by government. Clearly, the precedent has been set for piracy to be combated in the literal sense with the “solution” generally exploding from the end of a 50 caliber rifle. Is this truly the best way to address the problem?
Somali piracy has an indisputable effect on world commerce. With many private corporations being forced to embark on circuitous trading routes for the sole purpose of avoiding the pirate infestation off the coast of Somalia, the fiscal burden is carried by consumers all over the world. Because of this, there has been no questioning the justification and reasonability of using force to thwart piracy. In the end, however, bullets have nowhere near the resolving capacity of diplomacy. Do Americans truly want to end the attacks on U.S. corporate vessels halfway around the world, or are they simply content with the entertainment Somali piracy provides when being narrated by Tom Brokaw or Katie Couric?
From a land of one star to the land of fifty, internet piracy is becoming an increasingly alarming issue. The entertainment industry, especially the music sector, has been hit hard by the online pilfering made possible by websites such as www.thepiratebay.org, which allows visitors to fish through a sea of copyrighted software, movies, and music available for no charge. The Institute for Policy Innovation concluded that global music piracy is to blame for $12.5 billion of economic loss every year, as well as 71,060 US jobs. Despite the dramatic economic impact of illegal online file sharing, legislators and industry officials have yet to find a way to embargo the illegal bays housing their precious cargos. Finding a solution the American people are willing to swallow isn’t quite so challenging in regards to Somali piracy. The public shovels piles of encomium onto the Obama administration for pumping lead into the pirates, yet this same public would surely not tolerate the executions of their fellow countrymen who create peer-to-peer file sharing applications.
When one takes into consideration the adverse effects of piracy both in Somalia and on the internet, there is no doubt that action must be taken to halt both forms; the negative impact on society far outweighs the benefit to these gluttonous few. The true question regarding the piracy issues is not whether action should be taken, but rather what policies should be adopted to preempt the impacts thereof. When considering these policies, take into account that you and/or your peers, not just some scoundrels on a distant continent, are pirates in one bay or another.
We Are Pirates
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