But is piracy as criminal as it sounds? After reading Tristan Mattelart, I realized that once again, not all issues are black and white, good and bad, but have many shades of gray. Mattelart proposes that we set aside the "criminal" connotation of piracy, and look at the implications that piracy has had on the supply and development of media products in many countries. He says, "One of the main attractions of pirate video networks was that they offered, at reduced cost, easy access to the images of this transnational entertainment culture." With just a video recorder, people in the South and East could watch mainstream media.
The most significant aspect of the piracy of media in the East, to me, is the access to media deemed forbidden by the government. Mattelart says that the spread of video allowed people to ignore political control of the media, "Pirate video defied frontiers rendered porous by people the networks of the informal economy and in some contexts meant that people were no longer subject to the official monopolies on new and entertainment." His examples of Saudi Arabia and the Iranian revolution show the power of media that can be easily disseminated like video.
Mattelart mentions the case of China, where an increase in pirated American movies has decreased the profits of major Hollywood studios, but simultaneously created a demand for more Hollywood products. It seems, in a way, that the piracy acted as a form of marketing campaign, albeit an expensive one, with Hollywood studios now having a larger market in China.
After reading Mattelart and understanding the developmental implications of media access, I think we need to understand the issue of piracy in context. When reading this article, it seemed to me like piracy was a call for help in the South and East. A call to be included in the phenomenon of the globalization of media technologies.
I agree wholeheartedly with your assessment. The morality of piracy is entirely subjective. For example, in North Korea, the official computer network is entirely self-contained, filtered, and controlled by the government. However, there is a rising black market in internet-enable mobile phones filtering in through China. While the effects of this illegal access are hard to quantify, it could be argued that any access to a wider information network is good for the development of democratic, cosmopolitan, and liberal ideology. Of course, the internet being accessed is Chinese, so users are still subject to a different, albeit slightly looser, set of filters
ReplyDeleteI thoroughly enjoyed the Mattleart article because it brought up the “gray areas” of piracy. I have always thought of this issue from an American perspective: in the age of Napster, we have come to expect that much of the media we consume can be found for free or quite cheap online through various web sources. Yet this is just one aspect of the argument; the debate around piracy goes much deeper than that, to include access is regions that may not otherwise be able to, for reasons of cost or governmental control. As you mention, Melissa, this piracy can also be viewed as a desire from the South and East to be included in new media technology. How else can people get another opinion of the news, or even enjoy entertainment they would not otherwise be able to access? Should we really limit media access as a luxury item? Definitely not, but there does need to be a balance between how much Hollywood wants to charge and how much the smaller economies can afford.
ReplyDeleteI also think that this exemplifies our discussion of the “Americanization” of media. Consider how much of our content is being exported, be it legally or otherwise. Now think about the last time you went and illegally downloaded music or a film that was a global artist, not produced in the US. Notice how most of the pirated materials are US content. Its not as often the piracy flow this other direction. Yes, it is true that Hollywood is a huge player in the movie industry. But there are plenty of other films produced around the globe, especially with Bollywood and the new emergence of Nollywood in Nigeria, often forgotten by all those surrounded by American media.