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Politicising Piracy topic has a doulbe goal: to understand cultural piracy as a form of politics and to look at various practices of piracy from their specific socio-economic context of emergence, their technological underpinnings and their specific forms of political intervention. Politicising Piracy topic has a doulbe goal: to understand cultural piracy as a form of politics and to look at various practices of piracy from their specific socio-economic context of emergence, their technological underpinnings and their specific forms of political intervention.
## Piracy in the technological context ## Piracy in technological context
There is a tendency to conceive of cultural and knowledge piracy as a phenomenon of recent date, largely in connection with the pirating of popular cultural or scholarly works, where such copying is done by means of an industrial-grade, home or personal copying device. However, the material practice of copying is of older date and is co-originary with the techniques and technologies of writing. A cultural expression is created from collective meaning-making, and thus writing and recording always has a pre-requisite reproduction and dissemination. There is a tendency to conceive of cultural and knowledge piracy as a phenomenon of recent date, largely in connection with the pirating of popular cultural or scholarly works, where such copying is done by means of an industrial-grade, home or personal copying device. However, the material practice of copying is of older date and is co-originary with the techniques and technologies of writing. A cultural expression is created from collective meaning-making, and thus writing and recording always has a pre-requisite reproduction and dissemination.
Before the introduction of the printing press, the manuscripts were hand-copied, copying was laborious, and dissemination limited to precious few copies. With the introduction of movable type print, the books could be mass-produced, and copying and dissemination became easier. However, it was reserved only for the few who had access to a printing press. Tape and optical media democratised that ability to copy, but dissemination remained difficult and costly. In the age of digital networks, the act of copying exploded as every action - downloading and opening a file, visiting a web page, editing a text - now entails copying from one part of computer environment to another. And dissemination to a global network is always only a click away. The gist of this technological change is that before very few actors had access to a copying device, nowadays copying devices are ubiquitous and networked, so the boundaries between writing, reading, copying and sharing are more permeable. Before the introduction of the printing press, the manuscripts were hand-copied, copying was laborious, and dissemination limited to precious few copies. With the introduction of movable type print, the books could be mass-produced, and copying and dissemination became easier. However, it was reserved only for the few who had access to a printing press. Tape and optical media democratised that ability to copy, but dissemination remained difficult and costly. In the age of digital networks, the act of copying exploded as every action - downloading and opening a file, visiting a web page, editing a text - now entails copying from one part of computer environment to another. And dissemination to a global network is always only a click away. The gist of this technological change is that before very few actors had access to a copying device, nowadays copying devices are ubiquitous and networked, so the boundaries between writing, reading, copying and sharing are more permeable.
## Piracy in the legal context ## Piracy in legal context
However, the context of piracy is only partly defined by technologies. It is equally defined by law that nowadays treats cultural works as a form of property and protects them by means of copyright. Copyright essentially regulates who and under what terms has a right to copy, distribute and access cultural works. It parcels out collective meaning-making into individualised acts in order to create property titles and enable commodification of culture. Digitisation has both expanded the accessibility of cultural works beyond the limitations of physical items, allowing for an item can be copied and disseminated almost at zero marginal cost. But it has also allowed for various forms of control of access and enforcement of copyright by technological means, including through copy-protection measures and centralised streaming platforms. The attempts to stop sharing have largely proven inefficient unless there is a high level of control over communication channels and draconian fines. However, the context of piracy is only partly defined by technologies. It is equally defined by law that nowadays treats cultural works as a form of property and protects them by means of copyright. Copyright essentially regulates who and under what terms has a right to copy, distribute and access cultural works. It parcels out collective meaning-making into individualised acts in order to create property titles and enable commodification of culture. Digitisation has both expanded the accessibility of cultural works beyond the limitations of physical items, allowing for an item can be copied and disseminated almost at zero marginal cost. But it has also allowed for various forms of control of access and enforcement of copyright by technological means, including through copy-protection measures and centralised streaming platforms. The attempts to stop sharing have largely proven inefficient unless there is a high level of control over communication channels and draconian fines.
In a telling example, in the 1984 Betamax case, the Universal Studios and the Walt Disney Company sued Sony for aiding copyright infringement with their Betamax video recorders. Sony won. The court decision in favour of fair use rather than copyright infringement laid the legal ground for home recording technology as the foundation of future analogue, and subsequently digital, content sharing. Five years later, Sony bought its first major Hollywood studio: Columbia Pictures. In 2004 Sony Music Entertainment merged with Bertelsmann Music Group to create Sony BMG. However, things changed as Sony became the content producer, and we entered the age of the discrete and the digital. Another five years later, in 2009, Sony BMG sued Joel Tenenbaum for downloading and then sharing 31 songs. The jury awarded US$675,000 to the music companies (US$22,000 per song). In a telling example, in the 1984 Betamax case, the Universal Studios and the Walt Disney Company sued Sony for aiding copyright infringement with their Betamax video recorders. Sony won. The court decision in favour of fair use rather than copyright infringement laid the legal ground for home recording technology as the foundation of future analogue, and subsequently digital, content sharing. Five years later, Sony bought its first major Hollywood studio: Columbia Pictures. In 2004 Sony Music Entertainment merged with Bertelsmann Music Group to create Sony BMG. However, things changed as Sony became the content producer, and we entered the age of the discrete and the digital. Another five years later, in 2009, Sony BMG sued Joel Tenenbaum for downloading and then sharing 31 songs. The jury awarded US$675,000 to the music companies (US$22,000 per song).
## Piracy in the economic context ## Piracy in economic context
More fundamentally still, piracy is a consequence of the social regulation of access to culture that is primarily rooted in the commodity-based system of cultural and knowledge production. The central instrument in that regulation over the last two centuries is the intellectual property. Copyright has a fundamentally economic function – to unambiguously establish individualised property in the products of creative labour. Once a legal title is unambiguously assigned, there is a person holding the property right with whose consent the contracting, commodification, and marketing of the work can proceed (Bently 1994). By the beginning of the 20th century, copyright expanded to a number of other forms of creativity, transcending its primarily literary and scientific ambit and becoming part of the broader set of intellectual property rights that are fundamental to the functioning and positioning of capitalist enterprise. The industrialisation and corporatisation of the production of culture and knowledge thus brought about a decisive break from the Romantic model that singularized the authorship in the person of the author. The production of cultural commodities nowadays involves a number of creative inputs from both credited (but mostly unwaged) and uncredited (but mostly waged) contributors. More fundamentally still, piracy is a consequence of the social regulation of access to culture that is primarily rooted in the commodity-based system of cultural and knowledge production. The central instrument in that regulation over the last two centuries is the intellectual property. Copyright has a fundamentally economic function – to unambiguously establish individualised property in the products of creative labour. Once a legal title is unambiguously assigned, there is a person holding the property right with whose consent the contracting, commodification, and marketing of the work can proceed (Bently 1994). By the beginning of the 20th century, copyright expanded to a number of other forms of creativity, transcending its primarily literary and scientific ambit and becoming part of the broader set of intellectual property rights that are fundamental to the functioning and positioning of capitalist enterprise. The industrialisation and corporatisation of the production of culture and knowledge thus brought about a decisive break from the Romantic model that singularized the authorship in the person of the author. The production of cultural commodities nowadays involves a number of creative inputs from both credited (but mostly unwaged) and uncredited (but mostly waged) contributors.