Matt Mason, The Pirate’s Dilemma
In the video above, Matt Mason explains the value of piracy to a bunch of trad media suits. He credits pirate radio as a crucible for new music trends and as breaking grounds for new music DJs – an important counterpoint to commercial radio stations like Kiss 100 and Capital FM (in London). I don’t disagree with Matt about the importance of pirate radio. Kiss was once a pirate radio station. But he misses the point – innovation isn’t an inherent property of music piracy. Case in point – new bands aspire for airplay on (BBC) Radio 1, not your local pirate radio – because Radio 1 launches talent, not piracy.
Matt gives piracy too much credit, missing the broader force that piracy is a part of – nonmarket production. Like pirate radio, BBC Radio 1 isn’t market-motivated. THAT’S why it can take risks on underground talent, new music forms (future trends, or not – they don’t care). Publicly-owned services, the pirate underground, nonprofits and transient crowd ‘flashmob’ initiatives are not driven by the same motivations as Kiss and Capital – and that’s where the benefit to society lies. Matt’s defence of piracy is flawed in that it speaks of piracy as a unique mode of creativity and innovation; it isn’t, he’s just chosen to ignore the wider context it lies in. I think he does realise this, lumping Linux etc in with piracy. In which case, it’s disingenuous to fly the Skull & Crossbones; it’s only going to tarnish the reputation of legit nonmarket forms of production.
But he’s spot on with his other points – piracy creates value in society by highlighting that something’s not right with your business model. Piracy keeps you on your toes (forcing you to seek out increased efficiency).
I think Matt’s first argument needs to be adjusted. Piracy supplies you with new ideas BUT only moreso than other forms of nonmarket production when the raw materials HAVE to be ripped off, usually because they’re commercial goods that are overpriced & unaffordable for the public sector, mobs or nonprofit orgs. Hence mp3 blogs operated illegally (before their marketing value was realised by capitalism) because only label (copyrightedO) music was available and in demand by Googlers. Now, mp3 blogs are a major new media marketing channel for labels. Piracy is only unique in creating this type of (innovative) value when walls have been put up around resources by capitalism that other nonmarket production can’t get around.
I’ll have to buy Matt’s book, it’s possible he skips over this for the talk, but goes into it in the book. He does make a very, very good argument for the necessity of piracy – every day, just by forwarding emails we haven’t written, etc, etc, just going about our daily lives, we (apparently) infringe intellectual property to the tune of $12million. A day. If that’s the average, I’m probably way, way over. The copyright laws we have today are completely inadequate for the information age. Creative Commons should be STANDARD. I’ve also been closely following TipJoy (and other innovative forms of micropayment) for some time now.
Related:
- Nine Inch Nails: distribution by pirate
- The music world is abuzz with chatter about the latest Nine Inch Nails LP being released (in part – Volume 1 of 4) on a Creative Commons license! Reznor and co. put it on filesharing sites and are encouraging people to email it to friends, post it on blogs, spread it around far and wide, [...]...
- EXTEND music copyright?? What is the European Commission smoking?
- News comes via ArsTechnica that the EU may be prepping a move to shift copyright protection up from the standard 50 years to a whopping 95 years. Why 95? Psychologically easier to stomach than a nice, round HUGE number like 100? We’re seeing an incredible rebirth of the creative commons in society, an explosion in [...]...
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