“Pirates of the world, unite…” Well, that wasn’t me, it was Paulo Coelho. He’s the voluntary brand ambassador for Piratebay (www.piratebay.org), the hub of free books, movies and music for connoisseurs who believe that the invariable consummation of intellectual property happens with free sharing. A community that believes knowledge should never be commoditised, and a candle loses nothing by lighting another – rather, it spreads light. And here are Coelho’s words that need to be screamed out to all corporate lobbyists favouring the zealous, feudal guarding of intellectual property: “Pirates of the world, unite and pirate everything I’ve ever written.”

I wholeheartedly agree. I do unabashedly support and champion the cause for free, unrestricted and universally accessible sharing of intellectual property.

At home, a team of janitors that comes cleaning every morning sits at leisure during lunch, exchanging movies and music with Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones. When asked about their never-ending inventory of cheap Bollywood entertainment, they tell me: “Download kiya hua hai” (these have been downloaded). Maybe they still struggle through signing their names. Maybe they need to struggle through signing their daily roster. But yes, they’re savvy enough to use technology to their advantage, even if from a mobile phone or a cybercafé or a neighbour’s desktop, formal education be damned. Today, the quality of entertainment they’re leeching on is cheap. Tomorrow, it can only get better. Yet, I feel it’s just the beginning of a revolution in the learning curve of less fortunate urban Indians who have never set foot in a decent school. The definition of literacy needs to change, therefore. It’s a revolution happening, albeit imperceptibly. The evolution of information technology and its rapidly plummeting prices have ensured its percolation to the lowest rung of our society in a developing country simply because, er…only BECAUSE sharing is still free for all. We are not bound by the iron chains of ACTA, SOPA and PIPA. Well, not yet, thankfully. Yes, crackdowns are happening and “pirated” (I hate that word, say copied) CDs and DVDs are being seized, and random arrests are being made across the country. The roadside vendor of photocopied books runs for cover at the sight of policemen. And who suffers? People who can’t afford to pay for knowledge. Obviously, intellectual property in any form is knowledge. It’s affordability and availability (read free and unrestricted distribution) which is as important as free and compulsory secondary education. It’s important, say VERY important to put power in people’s hands.

Because beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, so let us behold. And I support free sharing of intellectual property as much as I support free and universal secondary education for all in India. And that can only happen in a world where “knowledge is free, where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls”. The walled city of copyright laws that accrue knowledge in the hands of a select few should be pulled down and the doors laid open for all. Because in this day and age, knowledge is power, perhaps more potent than monetary equations. Perhaps the latter follows the former. Else Americans wouldn’t be talking Korea and Taiwan. Or India, for that matter. It’s a changing world where national economies are bearing the brunt of changing global dynamics and shared currencies, a world in which the advancement of technology (say nuclear) can empower a country to hold the world to ransom even when it’s too poor to feed its population.

So what happens to the “poor” artist, writer or musician who creates intellectual property if sharing is free and unrestricted? Doesn’t (s)he need his/her fifty cents? Oh yes, she does. And I appreciate the fact that she does. And here’s how she can get it in a world where time is money, and where time probably flies faster than ever before, deepening the Tofflerian Future Shock. So why should we stick to archaic copyright laws stipulating 50 years of applicability after the artist’s death at a time when the cyber medium twists itself almost unrecognizable in 50 days’ time? Come on, all forms of knowledge have to stay ensconced in the cyber medium – well, almost. Let’s try to seek an answer.

Coelho pirates his own books, and puts them up online for downloading. He’s very clear it lets him penetrate closed markets, like in the Communist countries where access is sometimes restricted. Piracy, he says, is the way out.

Fair enough, and when the writer pirates his own work, everybody shuts up, including the sulking publishers. Considering that intellectual property needs to be paid for, up to a point, let us assume that a piece of work i.e. a piece of music, a movie or a book or a game, stays hot on the sellers’ list for a maximum period of six months before making way for other titles to creep up the charts and replace the old titles. I am not suggesting, though, that there aren’t classics that sell forever – even entertainers like Titanic (1997) ring loudly at the box offices when repackaged in 3D more than a decade later. But that’s not our point. We’re simply saying here that while time flies, audiences turn to other and newer things, and this sheer momentum of movement could be captured in determining values through copyright laws. To put it simply, it’s enough for the artist and his publisher/producer to earn through copyright-protected routes for the first six months and to tap all resources during this period before laying it free and open for universal sharing. This would ensure maximum earnings within the stipulated first six months, and make the process of sharing (beyond this point) more transparent – overt rather than covert. This principle might ensure willing purchases by those who want a taste of the pie first before passing on the plate to other, less fortunate individuals we presume, who cannot afford to buy the pie fresh out of the oven. In practice, this may or may not work out to be as simple as it sounds, but a solution along these lines shall be welcomed by the larger internet community as a whole, if only it serves the artist to reach wider audiences that she cannot normally hope to reach. Because “they also serve who only stand and wait,” after all.