Piracy_ The Intellectual Property Wars from Gutenberg to Gates - Adrian Johns [267]
Word of all this arrived in Washington as the fate of the Sony bid for Columbia had to be decided. Samizdat copies of a mysterious translation began to appear on Capitol Hill. Michigan Representative Sander Levin had the entire text inserted into the Congressional Record. Thousands of photocopies were soon available. The "pirated" text became "the rage of Washington." Like pornography, remarked Harvard's Lawrence Summers, the authors' reluctance to allow publication "only served to increase the demand for it." Scandalized politicians, savvy journalists, worried executives, anxious citizens - all who could get hold of a copy of "the bootleg," as it was called, did so.44
Like so many piracies, The Japan That Can Say No raised an issue of authenticity. In this case it was taken to expose a secret truth-a hidden national strategy behind Sony's appropriation ofAmerican cultural property It served to crystallize all the fears undergirding Japanophobia. The New York Times's science reporter Nicholas Wade took Morita and Ishihara to task over it. Summers weighed in too, publishing a remarkably explicit open letter warningAmerica to open its eyes and act to counter the threat it outlined. He called for a drive to secure supremacy in industries like semiconductors for national-security reasons. The fundamentals of economics should be abandoned, Summers urged, because "there is little to be said for a laissez-faire attitude toward industries upon which our future security depends." Suddenly aware of how damaging this might become, Morita swiftly withdrew from a planned English translationthus ensuring that the only version to circulate in Englishwas the bootleg. Ishihara flew to Washington in person to denounce it, determined to counter what he called "the vile, error-filled pirate translation." Once there he cannily presented himself as "one of the latest victims of intellectual property piracy"45
The incident encapsulated the continued potential of an act of piracy to shape the state of play at the most critical juncture since the end of World War II. As Ishihara prepared to fly back to Tokyo, the last mystery was solved: the source of the bootleg itself. A spokesman let slip at a press conference that it was the work of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)-a branch of the Pentagon charged, among other things, with bolstering technological projects related to national security. The Pentagon hastily announced that it had been intended for internal use and had therefore not violated copyright. Ishihara pounced, pointing out that anyone could photocopy it at a public library. It had become a"best non-seller." He demanded that his government file charges against the United States as a national pirate.
The DARPA "piracy" had focused debate at a potentially critical moment. It had seemed to reveal the motives actuating the buyers ofAmerica's soul. But after the revelation of its source-and Ishihara's defiant intervention-it was overtaken by the rush of events in that time of upheaval. Threats of Washington intervention receded. Sony's acquisition of Columbia proceeded, to enjoy distinctly mixed fortunes in the 199os. But there was a certain irony in the fact that the home piracy debates, having been elevated to the level of geopolitical scandal, had culminated here. As the old order disintegrated and the world changed course, the institution responsible for defending the nation itselfwas reduced to publicly denying it was a pirate.46
TAPE WORLDS
Home piracy was the