“Life’s pretty good, and why wouldn’t it be? I’m a pirate, after all.”

B) Medosch argues that: “piracy, despite being an entirely commercially motivated activity carried out in black or grey markets, fulfills culturally important functions” (Reader, page 318)

Discuss ONE of these arguments while giving an example online.

In the article by Armin Medosch, Medosch puts forward the argument that there are valid reasons as to why piracy in the world is occurring, and particularly in the third world nations. However, piracy is for a large proportion of the time an activity used to benefit people and crime organisations financially, rather than allowing them to experience cultural videos. The significance of this is that, whilst there are reasons to accept piracy, in the long run as Hardin argues, the commons would eventually be ruined because pirates act as “rational, utilitarian profit-maximisers” and the self-interest “is of higher concern than the common cause”(Hardin, 1968).

Medosh has come from a time when the remixing of culture was a new concept and now has come to debate the popularity of such things as the Creative Commons license as well as the validity of piracy, piracy of videos and music. Madosch argues that piracy has some very important functions within certain societies, and China is such an example. The piracy market in China is considered to be used by many, as a way of creating an income, but for some it’s about being able to obtain a video or piece of music where there are no other means in which they can attain such a good. China is not the only example of this, in Bhurma, where there are heavy restrictions on American paraphernalia penetrating their culture, people are able to make use of pirated goods to view programs that they are unable to get because of the government restrictions. These are two prime examples of how the act of piracy through the distribution of goods has enabled people in these conservative countries the ability to experience these programs, music and movies.

From a remixing of culture point of view, Japanese television series are popularly distributed through China and Korea with subtitles having been placed on the video to allow a wider audience the opportunity to view and appreciate the video, whereas without this appropriation they would not have had the opportunity to do so. This is not always the case that the Japanese do not wish for their program to be watched in countries overseas, there are many factors as to why these programs never make it into international markets. Such reasons as it is not seen as financially beneficial to distributing companies to export the good with subtitles or voice overs, or the lack of awareness of the demand for the good can lead to the program never reaching overseas audiences. Where these distributing companies fall short, internet users are able to stream and share the program whilst adding subtitles and the like for international viewers, and whilst this is by definition piracy, it is the shortcomings of the distributing company that has lead to this event.

The idea of the Creative Commons license as argued was to allow for more freedom on the internet, however the idea of freedom has been misconstrued by many with the notion of ‘free’ as Richard Stallman says “free as in freedom, not free as in free beer” (2008, 82). So whilst piracy advocates this notion of freedom in countries where many goods aren’t available, many people assume this ability to appropriate goods is because they are free, which is not the case. So where there are people who use these goods as an opportunity to create fiscal gains, there are those who would use these goods for other cultural means.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

1. Hardin, G (1968) ‘The Tragedy of the Commons’, referenced in Medosch, A (2008).

2. Medosch, A. (2008) ‘Paid in Full: Copyright, Piracy and the Real Currency of Cultural Production’ in Deptforth. TV Diaries II: Pirate Strategies, London: Deptforth TV, 2008, pp.73-79