the farcical side to the war on media piracy

8/12/2019 The Farcical Side to the War on Media Piracy

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The farcical side to the waron media piracy: a popularcase of Divine Comedy?Media, Culture & Sociery20 I 4, Vol. 36(1) 246-2s7

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Trajce CvetkovskiUniversity of Queensland, Australia

AbstractThis article examines illegal consumption in popular media. Corporate citizens haveportrayed media piracy as an activity comprising several layers of illegal and morallyderelict behaviour. They have waged a rn65f aggressive war against consumers andtechnology pioneers. The need for deterrence, it appears, is obvious. However theinternet paints a different picture. lt reminds us .iust how little people care aboutbreaking copyright laws. Online parodies concerning anti-piracy campaigns also affirmthis development. This article revisits the war on piracy and the strategies adopted. ltassesses the success of campaigns aimed at consumers. An argument that deterrencehas a paradoxical and somewhat comical effect is advanced. The final part exploresthe nexus between parody and piracy. Social networking has created a potentiallysubversive force by encouraging farcical representations of centralized copyrighttovernance models. The dramas are indeed sublime. lt appears Dante was right aboutthe human condition.Keywordscomedy, consumers, copyright, divine, culture, media, morality, parody, piracy,popular

Justice incited my sublime Creator; Created me divine Omnipotence.(Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto III, Lines 4-5, p. 11)

Corresponding author:Trajce Cvetkovski, University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.Email: [email protected]

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Cvetkovski 247Copyright infringement and subsequent illegal consumption of popular media are twounresolved issues in popular culture. Such transgressions represent an omnipotentmode of cultural exchange, and have dramatically come of age in a world of digitaliza-tion. Not surprisingly, media piracy has received ongoing political, economic and legalattention.

Placed a wide circle of reflection, this complex culfural drama possesses all the ele-ments of a modem-day socio-legal and moral version of Dante's Divine Comedy. Thehellishness experienced by corporate citizens who control film, music and gaming indus-tries is obvious. Piracy is viewed by corporate copyright owners as an activity compris-ing several descending levels of illegal and morally derelict behaviour. Consumers withflagrant piratical tendencies, receivers ofpirated goods and other active participants inunauthorized use are regarded as malevolent abusers ofproperty. And those benign con-sumers who casually participate in illegal consumption but ambivalently ignore copy-right laws are also frowned upon by copyright goverrors.In Dante's sureal world, consumers with varying degrees of piratical interest wouldbe described as the indifferent, greedy, gluttonous and wasteful infringers worthy ofretribution, admonishment or at least reprimand. The pirates, as enablers in these circlesof Hell, spiral deeper into the illegal realm - those who do violence 'against art'. Finally,one encounters in this Hell the real sinners - the thieves, deceivers and falsifiers, and themost treasonously wretched of all souls - trffickers of pirated popular media. Here, I amonly interested in the former class; the 'little people'as illegal consumers.Poetic hyperbole aside, coplright governance exists because unauthorized or non-consensual use of intellectual property is illegal, and prescribed uses of copyright use areset out universally in stafutes. The few corporate citizens who dominate and controlpopuiar media industries and their alter egos (copyrights) have portrayed a world ofdoom and gloom as a consequence of media piracy. Piracy, therefore, is no laughing mat-ter to these citizens, and the need for deterrence, it appears, is obvious.However the interlet paints a different picture. Consumers remind the dominant fewjust how many people care little about prima facie breaking copyright laws. Indeed, sev-eral online parodies conceming anti-piracy campaigns especially affirm this develop-ment. In a (virtual) Peer-to-Peer (P2P) community, citizens mock anti-piracy campaignsas they freely exchange information and reviews about accessing illegal popular mediain this borderless, intangible realm. This article comments on the maddeningly farcicalside of the war against piracy.The first paft presents a brief overview of what Cvetkovski (2013) describes as a'three-pronged approach'to the war on piracy. The second parl reflects on the campaignsaimed at consumers. If anything, education and awareness activities have been largelyridiculed (a cursory Google search containing the phrase 'anti-piracy parody'yields asignificant number of returns mocking these campaigns). For example, the writers ofBritain's hugely successful TV show The IT Crowd (2007) see the lega1ly unreaiistic andfarcical side to copyright warnings as they devote an entire episode to satirising anti-piracy warnings in the most ridiculous of circumstances.The third part therefore explores the nexus between parody and piracy. Social net-working especially has created a potentially subversive force in acting as the conduit forthe dissemination of farcical representations of copyright govemance.

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248 Medio, Culture & Society 36(2)What flows from this is a short discussion on abizarre recent development in the anti-piracy farce where the industry itselfhas been accused ofallegedly relying on unauthor-ized copyright material contained in arguably the most famous anti-piracy commercial.The early stages of this legai-political drama are quite Kafkaesque, and so curious.

Indeed, Dante's, 'All hope abandon ye who enter here rn ' (Inferno, Canto III, Line 9, p. 9)comes to mind.The argument raised is that anti-piracy parodies symbolize resistance to centralizedand corporate control of popular culture. Afiificial citizens should at least acknowledgethe potential omnipotence of these symbols in a world of digitalization - and perhapstake note.

Free and upright and sound is thy free-will, And error were it not to do its bidding. (Purgatorio,Canto XXV[, Lines 140 141, p. 135).

Tensions between copyright, piracy and free willInfringement of copyright is flagrant if it is knowing and deliberate. But it is conceptu-ally difficult for consumers to construe popular media consumption as theft. Gibson(2011) best illustrates this, pointing to the fact that millions of people commit copyrightinfringement on a routine basis. This observation is statisticaily corroborated by theIFPI's (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) most recent report (2011;18), where it is claimed nearly a quafter of global internet traffic constitutesinfringements.

The justification for the war on piracy by corporate copyright industry controllers isself-evident. In addition to concems about global loss of revenue, issues about employ-ment and future investment are regularly raised by industry representatives (IFPI, 2011:17-22). Piracy (and especially downloading) is also depicted as being anti-social(Gi1lespie, 2011: 223-5) as peopie who rely on P2P technologies are engaging in crimi-nal activity.It is difficult, however, to accept these propositions at face value, most relevantlybecause objective and impaftial data about the human cost and actual loss (not theoreticaleconomic loss) does not exist. Take the following mind-boggling example:

Frontier Economics estimates the 91oba1 economic value of counterfeiting and piracy to be US$650 bi11ion, based on 2008 estimates. This figure is expected to escalate to US$ 1.8 trillion by2015. (BASCAP,2011)There is no doubt that the music, film and game industries are worlh billions of doilars.The retail recorded music market alone was worth $23.4 billion in 2010 (IFPI, 2011: 7)(excluding publishing and performance revenue), and Mi2N (2011) estimated that pack-aged videos alone generated $42 billion globally, and video games contributed nearly $5billion dollars to the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) ir2009,while software publish-ing revenue as a whole exceeds $144 billion (Siwek, 2010 3,7). These figures are pre-sented by powerful industry groups that maintain that the scale of media piracy is sogreat that the entire community hurts (IFPI, 201 l: .21). But no one accurately knows how

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Media. Culture & Societv'http://mcs.sagepub.com/ rThe farcical side to the war on media piracy: a popular case of DivineComedy?Trajce CvetkovskiMedia Culture Society 2014 36:246DOI : 1 0.1 177 101 634437 1 4526552

The online version of this article can be found at:http ://m cs. sa ge pu b. comicontenU36 I 21 246

the farcical side to the war on media piracy

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