An Open Letter to Copyright Trolls
I would like to state that I am
penning this letter to achieve something different from other
articles and websites that seek to combat Copyright Trolls. My goal
is simple, and yet meaningful in a very spiritual sense. The law of
the United States Constitution is paramount, but the one law that
binds all men is the Law of Nature, or the Law of God. The New
Catholic Encyclopedia summarizes St. Thomas Aquinas definition of
natural law thusly “Founded in our nature and revealed to us by
our reason, the moral law is known to us in the measure that reason
brings a knowledge
of it home to our understanding. The question arises: How far can man
be ignorant
of the natural law, which, as St.
Paul says, is written in the human heart (Romans
2:14)? The general teaching of theologians
is that the supreme and primary principles are necessarily known to
every one having the actual use of reason. These principles are
really reducible to the primary principle which is expressed by St.
Thomas in the form: "Do good and avoid evil".
Wherever we find man we find him with a moral
code, which is founded on the first principle that good is to be done
and evil
avoided.” Mr. Steele, Mr. Gibbs, Mr. Lesko and others seek to
undermine a tradition dating to Plato and Aristotle, who sought a
universal grounding to the arbitrary whims of the pagan Gods. Their
loyalty lies to Odin, not the watch maker God of the deists, Moses,
Jesus Christ, Buddha or even a moral philosopher such as
Wittgenstein.
I will elaborate on this farther, but let me also state that my mission here is to assert the moral high ground on behalf of their many victims. By aligning with pornographers, they seek to use that stigma to their advantage. First, they extort money from those who are in good societal standing, threatening to level accusations at their friends and family. Second, they assert that any who seek to defend the innocent are guilty of lying with pornography addicts, though they themselves lie with the purveyors of pornography. Preying upon immigrants and the elderly, they seem not to care that their software is estimated by experts to have a 30% rate of error. They do not have the moral high ground; the addict is guilty of sin, but is his sin different from that of the pusher? And if the pusher himself attempts extortion of his customers, that is a sin of a lower sort. But, to extort the most vulnerable, the most innocent, perhaps we should consider the words of one more qualified to answer than myself. “And the King will answer them, 'Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.'"
(Matthew 25.35-40 ESV)
Copyright Trolls, or perhaps Copyright Demons is a more accurate term, are not content to walk the path to Hell alone. They brag about hiring new lawyers to join their cause. Their financial rewards are tremendous; Mr. Lesko saw a 1000% return on his investment in pornography, after all. Yet, do they possess that inner moral compass as St. Paul maintained? Consider "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.
(Mark 8.34-36 ESV). Though the young lawyer who struggles to make his student loan payment and is lucky to clear $40,000 in his best year working as a public defender or for a nonprofit like the Southern Poverty Law Center battles hardship, he is defending that definition of natural law that is so key to our existence as humans. The actions of these Copyright Trolls pains me so much, because the law can be a glorious, shining example of the goodness humans are capable of. Our legal codes are ultimately the soul writ large, and the way that we seek to exult their righteousness or alternatively pervert their true meaning is the best arbiter of any one man, or lawyers', inner substance. Each and every one of us is accountable to our own will; should we allow and condone our most base desire to store up treasure on earth, all while exhausting the capital of the soul?
To the innocent victims of these Copyright Demons, I assert this above all else: do not rob Peter to pay Paul. Your funds are far better spent hiring a defense lawyer than feeding the beast, and if you do so you are culpable as well. And if you fear financial difficulty as a result, I beg you to consider the words of Jesus, who said
"Therefore do not be anxious, saying, 'What shall we eat?' or 'What shall we drink?' or 'What shall we wear?' For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.
Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow, for tomorrow will be anxious for itself. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble."
(Matthew 6.31-34 ESV)
The trouble of your day, and all of our days, is fighting this Crusade. It is a battle that can and will be won, though the path may be arduous. We all have crosses to bear; use this one as a means to do something good, to truly give your life purpose and meaning. Our lives are often mundane and pass by like flowing water, but we now find ourselves in a torrent. Face the deluge with calm, and remember that the salvation lies in the struggling.
To the Copyright Demons, and those who may join their ranks, I beg you to reconsider. Redemption is never out of reach, but the darker the stain of the soul, the longer a cleansing process we must endure. Man is capable of infinite good and infinite evil, we are never doomed to follow the same path. There are many various religious and secular groups desperate for attorneys to volunteer their time. As an alumnus of a Jesuit university and fellow Catholic, I can safely say that Mr. Lesko would go a long way to atoning for his sins were he to devote some of his time to helping Catholic charities that are so in need of legal assistance. Life isn't just about avoiding hell when you're dead, it's about being saved from the darkness within yourself while you are still alive.
Finally, to any judges who may stumble upon this, I beg you to consider the true intent of our laws. There is a reason that the major film studios and the recording industry are not using these low rent, bottom feeding attorneys. They are fighting their own crusade, to stop theft, not to engage in predatory legal practices. As the often divided supreme court decisions show us, the law can be split two ways, and that inner moral compass so often shows us the manner in which it is to be cleft.
To anyone who reads this and personally knows a Copyright Demon, I beg of you to extol the error of their ways. The fact that several of the more notable attorneys are practicing Christians is disturbing. If you are a member of their congregation, this is your chance for a true conversion of the biblical sense. There is no Copyright Demon who could possibly be in a state of grace.
To all who bothered reading, I thank you for your time and consideration from the bottom of my heart.
Love and Peace
