Thank You For Sharing

I am a big fan of Japanese animation, or anime, as it is more popularly called. I have been since I was in grade school, watching Daimos, Voltes V, Astroboy, and other popular afternoon cartoons we were bombarded with during the latter part of the Martial Law era and the late 80’s. This was my rite of passage to anime “geekdom”. As my appetite for this kind of entertainment grew even more, I found myself hunting for lesser known anime and manga (Japanese comics) in obscure little shops and would go so far as watching those shown in the Chinese and Japanese cable channels, without understanding a thing since none of them were subtitled or subbed in English. Discovering new and exciting anime always gave me a feeling of satisfaction, not to mention a certain amount of pride. Anime has brought me so much joy, it’s embarrassing. But I’m not writing this piece to rant about the wonderful world of anime, which could go on for more than a hundred pages or so, rather, I would like to expound on the virtues of torrents and my eternal gratitude to whoever came up with it.

Being an anime enthusiast, I used to spend so much cash buying or renting anime VHS tapes and later on, CD’s. It was an expensive hobby, although it shouldn’t have been. A sign would always come rolling by on the screen “Free subs! Not for sale or rent. If you paid for this, you’ve been duped!” or something along those lines. Clearly, these were free and I’ve definitely been duped. The problem is there was no other way to get them for free at that time. Most of these ever zealous and amazingly generous people, who subtitled these shows out of sheer love for them, were an ocean away and I had no idea how to get them. Nothing comes for free after all. At least, in those days. Now, anyone who has internet access can download just about anything. For free (but yes, of course you have to pay for an internet connection).

It started with Napster, and I remember just how much happiness that program brought me. The idea of “sharing” music files with virtual strangers through the net was perfect for audiophiles like me. But with copyright problems that forced Napster to change its policy, I thought I’d never get to download music again for free. Then came Kazaa, Limewire and other similar programs, which created an even broader range of files to download – from music to movies to programs. How cool was that? Now, there are torrents, which have made downloading multiple files much faster, especially if there are many users downloading the same file/s simultaneously. The more peers downloading, the merrier. Hoorah for sharing!

Yes, some would call it illegal, again with issues of copyright involved. But then one could also look at it from another perspective – that is, programs like these are just a channel for people to share their files across the globe. Admittedly, this is a simplistic view, but it works fine for people who would like think of this as fair use. Aren’t we just spreading our joy of the things we love? Altruism breeds true in us. Or so we tell ourselves, to erase any guilty feelings (if any) when downloading.