Customer Reviews

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

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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!

I read a lot. Non-fiction. This is one of the most important and inspiring books I have read in some time. It is especially meaningful to me because my oldest of three sons is a pirate who refuses to waste my money on college "credentialing" and has told me point blank there is nothing he cannot learn on his own.

While I have been totally "open" since I published E3i in the Whole Earth Review (Fall 1992) and was called a lunatic by the spy world, and I have given a Gnomedex keytone on "Open Everything," this book--I am shaking my head trying to find the right words--has been an inspiration to me.

Bottom line: the pyramidal structure, the Weberian bureaucracy model that characterizes all governments and corporations, is DEAD. The circule model, the open network model, is kicking serious butt.

This author has in my view demonstrated world-class scholarship, given us gifted writing, and developed a story line that I can only call DAZZELING. This is an important story we all need to understand.

Here are my flyleaf notes:

+ Pirates are rocking the boat.

+ Information Age has hit puberty."

+ Citing Mark Ecko, a graffiti artist whose brand is now worth $1 billion: "The pirate has become the producer."

+ Punk capitalism."

+ Punk Plus equals creative destruction at hurricane force.

+ Purpose is everything.

+ Citing Shane Smith: In America there is no anti-status quo media--it's all the same four big companies...there is no voice.

+ Punk and green are converging on substance and style.

+ Citing Richard Florida, "Rise of the creative class"

+ 3d printing is here now, 3d product download is on the horizon (I envision FedEx Kinko's as a "one of" production facility, but the dumb ass at FedEx CEO blew me off when I proposed that he print books to lower their carbon footprint).

+ USA was founded on the basis of piracy of European technologies.

+ Three core punk ideas are 1) do it yourself; 2) resist authority; 3) combine altruism with self-interest.

+ Canal Street moves faster than Wall Street."

+ Pirate radio as musical petri dishes creating new spaces.

+ "Today a new generation is demanding more choice."

+ Net neutrality matters (FYI, Google has a programmable search engine that will let you see only what others pay to let you see. Google is now totally EVIL.

+ Lawsuits are a sign of corporate wekaness.

+ Monsanto is totally evil, and these morons have filed patents claiming they own all the pigs on the planet. Hard to believe. Time to close them down.

+ INSIGHT HALFWAY THROUGH THE BOOK: Punk and integral consciousness, pirates and creative commons, are converging.

+ 3 pirate hyabits: 1) look outside the market; 2) create a vehicle; 3) harness your audience.

+ Remix is HUGE.

+ Graffiti is explained brilliantly by this author.

+ Open Source is going physical, e.g. open source beer.

+ File sharing boosts sales and extends range of for-sale music.

+ Free education online (and my own idea, one cell call at a time) is the ultimate positive sharing experience.

+ 1.5 billion youth around the world waiting to explode in creativity or destruction--I ask myself, what are we doing to help them go creative?

+ Four pillar s of community: 1) Altruism, 2) Reputation; 3) Experience; 4) Pay them (revenue sharing with customers).

+ Authenticity is huge.

+ Weaker boundaries = stronger foundations."

+ Hip hop as "sustainable sell-out," a "powerful form of collective action."

+UN Secretary Gen3eral Kofi Annan recognized hip hop as an international language.

+ Flash mobs

+ Create a virus and feed it: 1) Audeince makes the rules, 2) Avoid limelight, speak only to the audience; 3) Feed the virus; 4) Let it die.

Conclusion: our youth have a new world view, empowered by global information technology, and they are the pinnacle of incredibly efficient networks.

I am just totally blown away by this book. The author has written a manifesto of enormous import.

See also:

Smart Mobs: The Next Social Revolution
Global Brain: The Evolution of Mass Mind from the Big Bang to the 21st Century
The Tao of Democracy: Using Co-Intelligence to Create a World That Works for All
The World Cafe: Shaping Our Futures Through Conversations That Matter
Society's Breakthrough!: Releasing Essential Wisdom and Virtue in All the People
One from Many: VISA and the Rise of Chaordic Organization
Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations
Collective Intelligence: Creating a Prosperous World at Peace
The Big Switch: Rewiring the World, from Edison to Google
Access Denied: The Practice and Policy of Global Internet Filtering (Information Revolution and Global Politics)

I have a number of books on Amazon, should you wish to know more, I would be glad to have you examine them.

One the whole, this book offers an excellent snapshot into some of the issues currently driving the online world. While I thought it was an overall good read, this book is not without its flaws. Sometimes the author's opinion is concise and his criticism is well-aimed, such as when he addresses the music industry's decisions to punish its suppliers and its customers for its own mistakes. Especially noteworthy is how he takes what might be run of the mill criticism and offers alternative course of actions, elevating some of the book from the standard armchair quarterbacking into something that could be (gasp!) useful to the reader.

Unfortunately, this book also includes some filler. I am especially disappointed that he spent so much time extolling the virtues of hip-hop as both the original youth oriented remix-friendly music and `voice of the streets' (apostrophes for emphasis, not a quote) while totally ignoring, for example, Charlie Parker and Dizzie Gillespie (and others)deciding to remix their pop music at warp speeds, ignoring the dictum that music should be the background for swing dancers.

On the whole, the book is worthwhile and is significantly better when paired with the companion website (and maybe that's the point).

I found this book to be poorly researched, and clumsily written. The opening chapter on punk rock misspells Johnny Rotten's name throughout as "Jonny." The New York Dolls are lumped in with the Velvets as "another band that hung out at (Andy Warhol's) Factory." They had, in fact, no association with the Factory or Warhol. The author describes the reaction in England to the Pistols' appearance on the Bill Grundy show as mass hysteria, which is rather over the top - yes, the headlines expressed shock, no, it did not cause a national strike. The author also manages to use every cliche he could think of, from "too fast to live, too young to die" to describing Sid Vicious (at least he spelled it right!) as a punk martyr. I'll bet he thinks the Ramones were actually brothers.

I think, if it had stuck to the brief it claimed to have on the front cover, I would have loved this book. But it didn't at all. This book has it's interesting moments, but it is effectively a chance for a former pirate DJ to try to convince you of three things. (I) Pirate radio is awesome. (II) DJ's are gods of the modern era. (III) Any and all significant cultural advances accomplished since the 60s are solely the result of music's influence.
Now, your mileage may vary on how useful any of those statements are, but I can't stand radio in any form, and DJ's typically make me want to punch someone, which means that the 3rd statement is the only one that could have any truck with me. Sadly, the book very much puts the cart before the horse. It is probable there's interchange, but for the author's purposes we're to consider EVERYTHING in terms of music. Then there's the way he uses Pirate in the book, it becomes a generalist term that applies to almost all innovators, which kind of misses the point of WHY piracy is an issue.
The books real gift is in teaching music trivia, and providing some form of introduction to Hip-hop as big business, but here he hardly does anything new, and he mostly hides behind pretentious words to make out that everything has meaning. Fashion is even glorified as emblematic of what our culture should be like. For someone who is on the surface offering a counter-culture account of the changes going on in the world and what the future will be, he doesn't actually attack much of the mainstream.
His only other really interesting assertion is that new youth-cultures can't form presently due to the instant spotlight effect that corporates give to anything with any promise in the constant quest for marketing. I'd just like to say, this is one of the weakest arguments I've ever heard. It seems fairly evident to me that the reason we aren't getting new large scale youth movements is that the Internet has made most movements small and decentralized, and because WOW is just so awesomesauce that most people don't bother anymore.

We live in the best time in history to act on your big ideas. Most of you were born digital, with production tools a few clicks away. When you get an idea, you can Google it and see what was done before, how your ideas compare and steps to make it real.

Building on others' ideas is a part of the contemporary creative process. It could be said that there are no new ideas, but there are infinite new ways to do old things. Our culture is built on a combination of all our ideas, mixed and remixed, recut and served through mass media. Using other people's ideas is accepted, but is it right?

This is the Pirate's dilemma, a book on how youth culture is reinventing capitalism by Matt Mason. Piracy is less a word about a thieving enemy to guard against, but is now how business gets done, by individuals getting access to music and entrepreneurs remixing ideas to better serve customers.

The Pirate's Dilemma is a great read to examine how we got here, where here is and what is on the horizon of a remix culture. Entrepreneurial pirates create solutions to problems unanswered by existing businesses. Mainstream gives up market share with stubborn decisions to sell the status quo. Pirates are serving the consumers what they want, even when the intellectual property is not theirs. The book helps us understand the costs and benefits of this evolving culture shift to our society.

The Pirate's Dilemma forces us to question the basic assumptions underlying capitalism and classical economic theory. In a world with an ever-growing disparity between the rich and the poor, it is undeniably clear that western property and intellectual property laws are often out of touch with the way people use (or should use, if only they were permitted access) information and products. Rather than encouraging people to steal, Mason asks his readers to take a hard look at the status quo and query whether there is a better, more beneficial (in many cases, that also means more profitable) and equitable solution.

I'm surprised that the Free Press would publish a book as thin as this one in content. Let me save you a lot of time and some money by summarizing the key messages of the book:

1. If people can get something for nothing, they'll take the choice. This should be encouraged by society.
2. Sometimes taking things without paying provides opportunities for creativity and new learning.
3. Those who are being ripped off under the current rules would do well to change their business models to make money in new ways while expanding the market.
4. Innovation is so important that you should be willing to put up with antisocial behavior of any kind that's associated with the innovation.
5. All changes in business models are being driven by youth culture which is ultimately all about being unique, getting attention, authentic rebellion, and making lots of money.

Clearly, such points and a book built around them could only be created by someone who doesn't know very much about business models and how they are usually improved. The Pirate's Dilemma is primarily an apology for innovations that involve violating copyrights, using spectrum without a license, promoting antisocial behavior, and defacing public property. I agree that there are redeeming qualities involved in many of the examples, but I didn't need to read a book to get the point. An article would have been more than sufficient.

Mr. Mason also over argues his case. Any collective activity that ever occurred is connected to every other collective activity through tenuous coincidences and surface similarities.

Unless you don't know what downloading music, pirate radio, remixes, disco, raves, hip-hop, and wikinomics are, you can skip this book. It's primarily a history of those phenomena written in terms of a few key figures.

Anyone who thinks that business model innovation mainly comes from youthful pirates needs to read up on the subject.