The Pirate and the modern day Robinhood

The contemporary artist Andy Warhol always felt that as and when a learned fellow wants to share his knowledge and wisdom with the general public; there would always be some kind of barriers created by the capitalist to ride on for profit which disqualified most unfortunate people from knowing these knowledge and wisdoms. Whereas these unfortunate people are the one really need these wisdoms most.

The learned fellows at Warhol generation are widely influenced by Karl Marx who favorite of pinpointing the capitalist as the culprit for every ruined parts of life. Unfortunately, they are quite right in some parts.

We lately have a heated debate during our New Year Eaves Dinner when one of our colleagues started the spark by pinpointing those people who buy the pirated books, songs, games & etc are people of ill-moral and only benefiting the ‘Pirate’. Belonging to the semi-well-to-do level, many of us we could afford most genuine products rather than going for the knock-down version. We do agree on the portion that our actions of buying the pirated products might discourage the creators’ i.e. novelist, architect & etc for further creations while spawn numerous of ‘side-effects’ as captured in the anti-piracy propaganda but branding us and those unfortunate people as ill-moral are harsh and definitely an overstatement.

We definitely believe thing happen for a reason. It is rather unfair for Bill Gate and Tom Hank who have made a fortune for a relative small contribution to society. Nelson Mandela should be wealthier in comparison to them. Therefore, we romantically believe the existence of the Pirate is as those days in the Caribbean Sea to strike a balance between the fortunate and those not. They are the modern day Robinhood who prints CDs to rob the richest and help the poorest. They have given the poorest an equal chance to obtain knowledge & entertainments as the well-off people; a chance to fight back to the top rank. Therefore so long there is gab between the rich & the poor, those afford and those not; there shall always exist the Pirate to fight and break the system like Keanu Reave in the Matrix and bring the world back to a more balance equilibrium. So to speak, Tiger Wood is really talented and should be better off in comparison to lay person like us but his fortune should be some sort of double or may be triple of us rather than a thousand times of our lifetime earning.

I believe the pirate way is the less costly and little bloodshed method of rebalance the society. Alternatively we should learn from Andy Warhol. As he believed the Art belongs to the people, he has printed Campell Soup in mass quantity and sold in lowest possible price to general public. Likewise, we architect should not be so copyright conscious but should segregate our creations from our service and brand. We could embrace the Open Source concept in practicing architecture to make our design more affordable for the public. By doing so, we could definitely create a better world.