The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism [Paperback]

This book is slightly maddening. The intention is valid: to steer people towards thinking about piracy in a new light. The "pirate's dilemma" is whether to persecute and shut down piracy, or to recognize it as a kind of creative competition. If you can't beat them, join them. The thrust of Mason's argument can be summarized by the two models of music industry approaches to P2P file sharing: either go the route of Apple and create a cheap, viable option for consumers, or the RIAA route and sue its customers.

As a former DJ, Mason cuts and pastes his way through the book with anecdotes. At first I found the approach a little obnoxious-- a kind of overly cheerful airline-style of magazine writing. As a former punk, I found the whole chapter on punk capitalism a little superficial, which lacked a discussion of a really important DIY capitalist, Discord Records. The section of the "Tao of Pirates" was also missing an important discussion of pirate culture, i.e. the black beard types that are so discussed so interestingly in Wilson's Pirate Utopias. I think the word pirate is used too general. Basically, anyone under 50 is a pirate these days, and I don't thing that's true. Also, the remix section failed to credit Dada.

But as I read on, I warmed up to the book and found the discussion of guerrilla marketing and hip hop pretty good. There was some history and anecdotes that I wasn't aware of, so I was pleasantly surprised here and there. Still, if you want a more in-depth analysis of the economic situation of open source, read Benkler's The Wealth of Networks: How Social Production Transforms Markets and Freedom.

Ultimately I think Mason's intentions are good. I'm not sure celebrating the cooptation of underground culture by capitalism is something that is to be happy about, but I suppose as the pirates become more mainstream, maybe our society will be better for it, and that to me, is the ultimate Pirate's Dilemma.

Earlier this year Matt (the author) sent me a message and said that he was writing a book about how corporations have trouble adapting to the changing times and needs of people in the Information Age. Just recently he started his blog The Pirate's Dilemma (http://thepiratesdilemma.com/) that explains this phenomenon further every day. I couldn't wait for the book to drop so I asked him to shoot me one...one was already forthcoming and it appeared in the mail the very next day via his publicist. Let me break it down for y'all:

As we all know, youth culture has helped to change and reshape the world over and over again throughout history. Ever since World War 2 ended and the world at large became aware that teenagers even existed, the world hasn't been the same since. The old saying is that necessity is the mother of invention, whenever there has been an overlooked or under represented segment in society they have made their presence felt by creating their own culture. This culture usually comes with it's own brand of music, dancing or a style of dress. Once this culture hits the public consciousness then corporations develop the need/want to turn this audience into consumers of their product and convey a message to them that they "get" you and support your lifestyle. The thing is that since the advent of cool hunting and mass advertising has oversaturated the marketplace people can just tune out all those advertisments. Furthermore, with so many advances in technology today the knowledgeable consumer can pretty much create their own products and cut out the big corporations.

Since these same corporations are trying to jump on that new niche culture to gain a cache of cool, these new niche markets/cultures have adapted to the climate and become harder and harder to nail downby ad agencies. The same 40 songs being played over and over again on the radio that all sound exactly the same have driven many listeners away and res. The same old stories about Britney Spears, Lindsay Lohan, Paris Hilton and whoever's been kicked off the reality show du jour getting reported on your daily news rather than real journalism has driven people away from the news media. Where do these people go? Well, since we have the technology at our disposal we begin to bridge those gaps ourselves, pooling our collective resources, sharing information and creating that we we can't find in existance currently.

This in turn pisses of these big businesses and corporations. They are usually slow to adapt to change and they want to stay in power. This struggle for leverage and ownership goes on between big businesses and the consumer. The consumer wants more leeway, looser boundaries, more input and better service from the provider and big business tries to tighten the reins and throw lawsuits at these pirates threatening the status quo. The way they see it, these pirates are causing them to lose money. The way the consumer sees it, we weren't going to spend the money because the product doesn't fit our needs anymore.

In this quickly changing world where computer technology improves the speed of the transmission of data every three to six months they'll become a time where information can be passed instaneously. If you put up the wrong information on a messageboard, several messages will correct it within seconds. Any mistakes on Wikipedia acan be fixed almost immediately as opposed to a closed source website that would have the erroneous information posted there for only God knows how long. We are in the Information Age and technology has given us the tools to modify, create, and innovate the world around us. Corporations and big businesses don't know how to handle this new age where all of the power is in the hands of the consumer. No longer do they dictate to us what we want, need or what is valid...now we do it to THEM.

The music industry and film/television industry realize are in flux as music and films are being streamed and downloaded either before or the same time as the premiere dates. The news media is being outdone by bloggers and independent journalists that want serious and unbiased news coverage. In this book, Matt Mason brilliantly tells the history of the phenomenon of youth culture and how it has reinvented capitalism and the world as a whole. The whole D.I.Y. ethic that existed in Punk, Disco and Hip Hop has slowly branched out over the years into fields that you normally think weren't even related. They in turn snowballed and have all in effect given birth to The Pirate's Dilemma.

This book is completely fascinating and it grabs your attention from the beginning to the end. I read it straight through in one sitting and I read it over again the day after I got it. You will be so sucked in that you really don't want to put it down. Matt Mason seamlessly tied together how the youth culture of the 60's, the advent of Punk Capitalism, the birth of Disco and subsequently Hip Hop lead into the creation of the personal computer. He then takes us from the ealrly years of the Computer Age to the present day and touches on several subjects all at once without once making you feel like your being beat over the heads with useless information. Who knew that a nun from Dorchester, MA was indirectly responsible for the creation of Disco, House and Garage?Who would've thunk that a bunch of college dropouts who dropped LSD were responsible for the Mac, iPod and iPhone (I did)? I even got my first mention in ever print to make it that much better.

If you're looking for a new book to get get some wrinkles in your brain then this one comes highly recommended from me. Cop this joint mos def!

Dart Adams
http://poisonousparagraphs.blogspot.com/

One.

Certainly the ideas expressed in The Pirate's Dilemma are controversial and provocative - and clearly intended to be so. Idiotic? Hardly. The author does not advocate piracy for its own sake, nor does he glorify graffiti as an art form per se, but in each case he posits the potential for positive social good that is perhaps an unintended consequence of these self interested practices. For instance, piracy can force companies to do more than run to its lawyers - by forcing the companies to compete with the pirates, economic advantage accrue to society at large as well as to the company itself. In essence, the author makes a case not for theft, but rather, for economic efficiency (making at least one person better off and nobody worse off), achieved perhaps by one's (the pirate's) own self interest which translates ultimately into a larger social good. Does this sound familiar?

If this is idiocy, I'm all for it!