The Five Faces of Piracy and the One Mask

Ramon Lobato identifies the six faces of piracy in his book Shadow Economies of Cinema.  The most easily identified face of piracy is theft.  Lobato describes this face as “an act of social and economic deviance- that is, as theft” (72).  He goes on to describe the measures that the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) has taken to prevent piracy.  First, the MPAA tried to link piracy with prostitution rings and terrorism, which was not successful.  They then took a more proactive approach towards the youth in regards to piracy.  The MPAA sponsored an essay contest where submitting an essay would get you a free studio tour.  Lobato’s final point is that organizations like the MPAA way overestimate piracy losses because they assume that every pirated item would have been bought and sold in a retail venue.  Lobato does a good job calling out the industry out on this saying “the war on piracy also needs to be understood as a public relations exercise aimed at reinforcing a deferential relationship to copyright and showing the vulnerable side of a powerful industry” (74).  This short passage does a fantastic job showing that the fight against piracy, for a company like MPAA, is about more than just the revenue leakage.

Jason Koebler elaborates on what Lobato is hinting at towards the end of this passage.  Koebler describes that piracy actually helps musicians sell albums in his article Album Piracy May Help Musicians Sell.  Koebler describes a study done by Robert Hammond that shows sharing albums on file sharing sites prior to its release date do not hurt sales but may actually help them.  Hammond watched over 1,000 albums that were leaked on BitTorrent, the end results were positive for the album.  Albums that were shared 30 days in advanced averaged an extra 60 copy sold.  In the grand scheme of album sales this difference is practically nothing.  Hammond ends by saying that the results of his study are “good news for individual artists but not necessarily good for the industry”. 

Hammond’s result undermines the “Industries” excuse for taking a rigid stance on copyright infringement.  Lobato claims that the purpose of copyright as regulatory system is to ensure that levels of protection for IP rights-holders; thus in this instance the artists (the creators who own the IP rights) are capturing more profits from this copyright infringement, but the labels cannot collect on it.  While piracy will always be a form of theft Koebler’s article undermines the “industry” reasoning for such a rigid stance.  Koebler shows exactly what Lobato is hinting towards in the final part of his “Piracy As Theft” section and that is: Piracy is not about IP rights, artists losing money, or any of that but instead about major studios receiving a cut.  This new “Big Brother” is the only one losing money on piracy will lessen the sympathy of the public.  Piracy as theft may not be a face at all, but instead a mask major corporations have used for years.

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day but a Reputation Can Be

In Worship at the Alter of Convergence Henry Jenkins focus on the changing manner of media circulation.  In the new world, media goes through several different outlets; big media must now interact with the noble amateur to maximize exposure and profits.  He also comments on participatory culture.  Participatory culture is only possible if users make creative changes to already established big media products.  The example Jenkins uses is that of Bert is Evil, which involves a photo-shopped version of Bert from Sesame Street with Osama Bin Laden.  This image was eventually used in a protest and from there the Bert is Evil concept went viral.  Convergence is everywhere but the most prominent example is large broadcasting companies having YouTube channels (NBA & CNN).  This allows persons without televisions to access their content.

A fantastic example of this is the Rome Wasn’t Built in One Day (The Decision Remix) by dj steve porter.  This video chronicles a tumultuous 2010-2011 season for Lebron James.  It features several different press conferences, highlights, and events that encapsulate the narcissism he displayed throughout the season.  It gives the viewer a musical summary of that year for Lebron personally along with the Miami Heat’s “Big Three”.  This video quickly went viral and ESPN actually aired it on SportsCenter.  After airing the video ESPN hired dj steve porter; he now does a “month in review” video every month along with doing special videos for athletes, sporting events and sports commentators like Randy Moss, Skip Bayless and the NFL Draft to name a few.

This is a prime example of convergence.  All of these Lebron James moments were scattered through the year.  Dj steve porter brought them all together to paint a narcissist picture of LBJ.  This video has changed the way people look at Lebron all together.  While Lebron supports upwards of 10 charities and donates the most money in the NBA to charity, dj steve porter’s video demonized him to the point that charitable acts cannot change his image.  Lebron did not make the best public relation decisions in 2010, however it would not have been as condemning without Rome Wasn’t Built in One Day (The Decision Remix).  Also, this is a great example of participatory culture.  Dj steve porter went from a consumer to a producer with this hit.  Also, ESPN now hosts video remix contests among their viewers regularly.

Andrew Keen's (Not So Keen) Outlook on Citizen Journalism

Andrew Keen’s book The Cult of the Amateur takes a very pessimistic look at the Web 2.0 and the effects on the real world.  In chapter 2, Keen outlines the “noble amateur” and what that means for society.  Specifically he uses the example of citizen journalism.  Keen warns against the citizen journalist culture.  First, he describes that these amateurs do not need to tell the truth.  They do not have the editor of the New York Times over there shoulder fact checking.  Keen uses the example of Hurricane Katrina where bloggers were the first “reporters” on the scene.  It turned out that “inflated body counts and erroneous reports of rapes and gang violence.” (48) were reported by said bloggers. While they do not need to tell the truth; Keen also shows that citizen journalists do not the resources to bring reliable news.  A CEO, political figure, or celebrity (usually) will not give an amateur blogger the time of day, thus they do not get the news straight from the source.  Instead they get their news from a source of a source or from the major news outlets.  This can lead to a watering down of factual information or misinformation all together.  Finally, Keen speaks to the seriousness of misreporting news with the comparison of a journalist and a blogger.  A journalist can go to jail for telling the truth, while a blogger cannot be prosecuted for lies.  All of this freedom can be used irresponsibly to mislead and betray the public.  Keen’s point of view that citizen journalism is a negative part of the Web 2.0 is clear throughout this chapter.

While Keen is not keen on the idea of citizen journalism, there have been instances where these amateurs have been crucial in breaking news.  In 2002, Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott made racist comments during Storm Thurmond’s birthday party.  Thurmond ran for President on a segregationist platform in 1948.  Lott claimed that “..if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over all these years” (Shirky, Everyone is a Media Outlet, 61).  The typical news outlets did not pick up these racist remarks; so then why did Lott resign fifteen days later?  How the Trent Lott-Storm Thurmond Story Grew Legs and Crushed a Political Career describes how Lott’s ignorance would have went unnoticed if not for citizen journalism.  All of the journalists at this event were considered ‘insiders’, thus they did not want to upset their patrons by reporting an unflattering story on one of the Republican Party’s leader.   A report like this would have led to an insider being out casted from the group and losing their professional edge. However, a blogger has no such commitment.  The blogger’s took this story and ran with it until the traditional big guns in the US journalism took notice.  Once that happened, Lott was doomed.  He lost his post later in the month, losing the backing from his own party. The “noble amateur” was crucial in breaking this damning story.

Keen is overly critical of the Web 2.0 culture, especially in reference to journalism.  While the checks and balances for the truth do not exist, this can be advantageous to noble amateurs.  The Lott story illustrates that the free reign of the blogosphere can lead to the bigger, more official, news outlets picking up a missed story.  Bloggers do not have alligences to groups, they just want their version of the story on the web.  This severely weakens Keen’s observations that citizen journalists are killing the profession and American culture.  Instead of weakening journalism, bloggers can be used as a support system that help journalists get a head start on a story.  

Trolls, Conventional Signals, and Aristocrats...OH MY!!

In Judith S. Donath’s article Identity and Deception in the Virtual Community she focuses on types of deception along with ways to weed out trolls and impersonators using every day signaling techniques.  The two types of signals are assessment and conventional.  An example of an assessment signal is large horns on a stag, signaling strength for the stag and is almost impossible to imitate.  An example of a conventional signal is a person wearing a power lifter shirt.  The general public then assumes they are a power lifter, but it is easy to imitate.  Donath goes on to explain that conventional signal are used rather than the assessment signal because they “are often less costly, for both the signaler and the receiver” (4).  Later she goes on to show how conventional signals are used in the signature of Usenet through the example of a programmer’s signature.  This is a conventional signal but still has relatively costs to learn.  There are four separate steps to the signature, each testing to make sure the signer has the proper knowledge to post on the forum.   It would take a troll several hours/days/weeks (pending on their knowledge of the code at hand) to imitate such a signature.  Thus, the group of programmer’s keeps transaction costs high, while still using a conventional signal, for trolls looking to inappropriately stir the pot or steal the programmer’s social capital.

Making conventional signal’s cheap to the proper audience but expensive to impersonators reminds me of an Economic Colloquium I attended this winter by Doug Allen.  The lecture focused on the English aristocracy and the transaction costs involved in being an aristocrat.  In this lecture Doug explained that there were upwards of ten conventional signals that needed mastering in order to be considered an aristocrat loyal to the crown in England.  These signals carried high transaction costs to copy; like learning how to dance in a certain style.  If another aristocrat thought you were not loyal to the crown, they could challenge you to a duel and a proper aristocrat would have to agree.  If they denied the duel then it was obvious you were not loyal to the crown and exiled from the community.  If you agreed, you may be killed, but at least everyone would know you were a loyal to the crown.  Thus, through conventional signals the English aristocracy made it highly expensive and difficult to fake an aristocratic persona.

While these two examples are separated by centuries Allen’s argument reinforces Donath’s argument that conventional signals are cheap for the proper signalers/receivers but can be expensive for imitators.  If a child was raised in an aristocratic family and grew up with all these special rules, it would be simple to live by them.  However, if an adult tried to learn all of these rules, it would be time consuming and difficult to copy all the idiosyncrasies.  This is just like the signature that Donath describes.  If you are a proper member of the group it is easy to know the code because you live by the code.  However, it would be very costly to a troll to learn the code and pass as a proper member of the community.  In this way Allen’s argument augments Donath’s claim that while conventional signals are not always reliable, a community can make them cost enough to keep intruders out.