I'm not sorry

While reading Mattelart’s mostly pro-piracy article “Audio-visual piracy: towards a study of the underground networks of cultural globalization,” I couldn’t help but begin to think of my own concern when Piratebay.org is shutdown from time to time for (no more than) three days. Piratebay.org is a prime example of functioning, modern-day digital-piracy. It works through torrents, a file needing an external extracting software, such as Transmission. A huge file such as a movie or an artist’s new album can be downloaded in a torrent format to a computer, then extracted through such a software as Transmission, then opened and enjoyed. It works swimmingly.

After a recent three-day shut down, the Swedish operators of Piratebay began a new format of downloading in order to make tracking of its sources more difficult: magnet files. This arguably makes digital piracy easier. By clicking on a small magnet icon, the file skips the downloading phase and is immediately linked to any available extraction software on a user’s computer. The files function faster according to how many users “seed” (or share) the files online.

Maybe at one point I was a naively concerned consumer of media, worried that my favorite artists would lose so much money due to illegal downloading that they’d stop making music altogether. As I got older and progressively poorer, this fear seems to have almost completely dissipated. Any remains of it were effectively destroyed thanks to Manueal Castell’s affirmation that “online advertising accounts for almost $36 billion in revenue” (Castells, 80) and, “Major advertisers are also investing in scripted online branded content… Disney had one of its films written into an episode of KateModern,” (Castells, 81). Fortunately for artists and entertainers, product placement is all over the place and what those artists lose in sales of physical CD copies and paid digital downloads they make up for in increased online advertising, huge world tours more accessible as the years go on, and their ability to expand into other markets thanks to the “economic synergy” and expansion of multi-media conglomerates. Lady Gaga just created an eau de parfum called “Fame” that she has used her own personal media corporation, The Haus of Gaga, to promote across all sectors of media: her music, her videos, concert tours, public appearances aired on TV, etc.

The clear success of artists and the amount of money they make might even be a result of the dissemination of their art on the Internet and across the globe due to piracy. This also allows creative talents that have yet to be discovered spread their art cheaply, and those talents are thus given a chance to succeed due to illegal downloading.

Some artists, such as rapper Lil’ B, give their music out for free. Lil’ B’s satirically titled album, “IM GAY,” was made available for free legal download everywhere on the web. Mattelart notes at the beginning of his article that media conglomerates have a hard time proving the specific numbers they dish out in claims that the media has lost billions upon billions of dollars due to piracy, but even if that’s true, I’m not so sure I feel bad for them. I think the artists ranking in millions of dollars, such as Britney Spears’s $15 million dollar paycheck for appearing as a judge on X-Factor, are doing just fine.