I enjoy Japanese anime and have stumbled upon a very good series which is not available in English translation. Searching the internet, I discovered a pirated Japanese version with English subtitles. Is it moral for me to buy it, considering that a legitimate English version will never be created?
Here’s a crude rule: it is not ethical to take someone’s work without consent and compensation, something generally expressed through the proffering of legitimate versions of the work. That you wish the work were available in other forms is a statement about desire, not morality.
Alas, that rule is too crude for the internet era. I’d amend it to this slippery guideline: purchase only a legitimate copy if you can, but if no legitimate version exists or is likely to exist in the near future, and there is no way to compensate the creators of the work or to seek their permission, you may buy bootlegs. This precept would apply similarly to, for example, long-out-of-print music by long-dead performers. No good would come of thwarting access to, say, bootleg Blind Willie Johnson recordings that would otherwise languish unheard. Property rights are not the only rights.
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In considering the consequences of such actions, scale matters. Little harm would be done if a few dozen anime fans aped your behaviour. However, if thousands were to act similarly, the Japanese producers would suffer a real financial loss, but they would simultaneously have a powerful incentive to release an English-language version, which you would then be ethically obliged to buy. Thus there is a comforting self-correcting mechanism inherent in such questionable practices.
The entire question of intellectual property is undergoing a reconsideration. Millions of otherwise law-abiding people have downloaded music illegally. Access to increasing amounts of information is being restricted as it moves into private hands. Copyright law was intended to add to the general store of knowledge by rewarding those who produce it; it was not meant to inhibit the free flow of ideas — even Japanese cartoon ideas.
Can you suggest solutions to this ethical dilemma? Or do you have dilemmas of your own? Write to: The Ethicist, Times Features, 1 Pennington Street, London E98 1TT. E-mail: ethicist@thetimes.co.uk. Readers’ solutions will be published on Friday.
The Ethicist originates from The New York Times Magazine.