526552

research-article2014

MCS0010.1177/0163443714526552Media, Culture & SocietyCvetkovski

Crosscurrents

The farcical side to the war

on media piracy: a popular
case of Divine Comedy?

Media, Culture & Society

2014, Vol. 36(2) 246257
The Author(s) 2014
Reprints and permissions:
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DOI: 10.1177/0163443714526552
mcs.sagepub.com

Trajce Cvetkovski

University of Queensland, Australia

Abstract
This article examines illegal consumption in popular media. Corporate citizens have
portrayed media piracy as an activity comprising several layers of illegal and morally
derelict behaviour. They have waged a most aggressive war against consumers and
technology pioneers. The need for deterrence, it appears, is obvious. However the
internet paints a different picture. It reminds us just how little people care about
breaking copyright laws. Online parodies concerning anti-piracy campaigns also affirm
this development. This article revisits the war on piracy and the strategies adopted. It
assesses the success of campaigns aimed at consumers. An argument that deterrence
has a paradoxical and somewhat comical effect is advanced. The final part explores
the nexus between parody and piracy. Social networking has created a potentially
subversive force by encouraging farcical representations of centralized copyright
governance models. The dramas are indeed sublime. It appears Dante was right about
the human condition.
Keywords
comedy, consumers, copyright, divine, culture, media, morality, parody, piracy,
popular

Justice incited my sublime Creator; Created me divine Omnipotence.

(Dante Alighieri, Inferno, Canto III, Lines 45, p. 11)

Corresponding author:
Trajce Cvetkovski, University of Queensland, St Lucia Campus, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
Email: t.cvetkovski@uq.edu.au

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Copyright infringement and subsequent illegal consumption of popular media are two
unresolved issues in popular culture. Such transgressions represent an omnipotent
mode of cultural exchange, and have dramatically come of age in a world of digitalization. Not surprisingly, media piracy has received ongoing political, economic and legal
attention.
Placed a wide circle of reflection, this complex cultural drama possesses all the elements of a modern-day socio-legal and moral version of Dantes Divine Comedy. The
hellishness experienced by corporate citizens who control film, music and gaming industries is obvious. Piracy is viewed by corporate copyright owners as an activity comprising several descending levels of illegal and morally derelict behaviour. Consumers with
flagrant piratical tendencies, receivers of pirated goods and other active participants in
unauthorized use are regarded as malevolent abusers of property. And those benign consumers who casually participate in illegal consumption but ambivalently ignore copyright laws are also frowned upon by copyright governors.
In Dantes surreal world, consumers with varying degrees of piratical interest would
be described as the indifferent, greedy, gluttonous and wasteful infringers worthy of
retribution, admonishment or at least reprimand. The pirates, as enablers in these circles
of Hell, spiral deeper into the illegal realm those who do violence against art. Finally,
one encounters in this Hell the real sinners the thieves, deceivers and falsifiers, and the
most treasonously wretched of all souls traffickers of pirated popular media. Here, I am
only interested in the former class; the little people as illegal consumers.
Poetic hyperbole aside, copyright governance exists because unauthorized or nonconsensual use of intellectual property is illegal, and prescribed uses of copyright use are
set out universally in statutes. The few corporate citizens who dominate and control
popular media industries and their alter egos (copyrights) have portrayed a world of
doom and gloom as a consequence of media piracy. Piracy, therefore, is no laughing matter to these citizens, and the need for deterrence, it appears, is obvious.
However the internet paints a different picture. Consumers remind the dominant few
just how many people care little about prima facie breaking copyright laws. Indeed, several online parodies concerning anti-piracy campaigns especially affirm this development. In a (virtual) Peer-to-Peer (P2P) community, citizens mock anti-piracy campaigns
as they freely exchange information and reviews about accessing illegal popular media
in this borderless, intangible realm. This article comments on the maddeningly farcical
side of the war against piracy.
The first part presents a brief overview of what Cvetkovski (2013) describes as a
three-pronged approach to the war on piracy. The second part reflects on the campaigns
aimed at consumers. If anything, education and awareness activities have been largely
ridiculed (a cursory Google search containing the phrase anti-piracy parody yields a
significant number of returns mocking these campaigns). For example, the writers of
Britains hugely successful TV show The IT Crowd (2007) see the legally unrealistic and
farcical side to copyright warnings as they devote an entire episode to satirising antipiracy warnings in the most ridiculous of circumstances.
The third part therefore explores the nexus between parody and piracy. Social networking especially has created a potentially subversive force in acting as the conduit for
the dissemination of farcical representations of copyright governance.

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What flows from this is a short discussion on a bizarre recent development in the antipiracy farce where the industry itself has been accused of allegedly relying on unauthorized copyright material contained in arguably the most famous anti-piracy commercial.
The early stages of this legal-political drama are quite Kafkaesque, and so curious.
Indeed, Dantes, All hope abandon ye who enter here in! (Inferno, Canto III, Line 9, p. 9)
comes to mind.
The argument raised is that anti-piracy parodies symbolize resistance to centralized
and corporate control of popular culture. Artificial citizens should at least acknowledge
the potential omnipotence of these symbols in a world of digitalization and perhaps
take note.
Free and upright and sound is thy free-will, And error were it not to do its bidding. (Purgatorio,
Canto XXVII, Lines 140141, p. 135).

Tensions between copyright, piracy and free will

Infringement of copyright is flagrant if it is knowing and deliberate. But it is conceptually difficult for consumers to construe popular media consumption as theft. Gibson
(2011) best illustrates this, pointing to the fact that millions of people commit copyright
infringement on a routine basis. This observation is statistically corroborated by the
IFPIs (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) most recent report (2011:
18), where it is claimed nearly a quarter of global internet traffic constitutes
infringements.
The justification for the war on piracy by corporate copyright industry controllers is
self-evident. In addition to concerns about global loss of revenue, issues about employment and future investment are regularly raised by industry representatives (IFPI, 2011:
1722). Piracy (and especially downloading) is also depicted as being anti-social
(Gillespie, 2011: 2235) as people who rely on P2P technologies are engaging in criminal activity.
It is difficult, however, to accept these propositions at face value, most relevantly
because objective and impartial data about the human cost and actual loss (not theoretical
economic loss) does not exist. Take the following mind-boggling example:
Frontier Economics estimates the global economic value of counterfeiting and piracy to be US$
650 billion, based on 2008 estimates. This figure is expected to escalate to US$ 1.8 trillion by
2015. (BASCAP, 2011)

There is no doubt that the music, film and game industries are worth billions of dollars.
The retail recorded music market alone was worth $23.4 billion in 2010 (IFPI, 2011: 7)
(excluding publishing and performance revenue), and Mi2N (2011) estimated that packaged videos alone generated $42 billion globally, and video games contributed nearly $5
billion dollars to the US Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in 2009, while software publishing revenue as a whole exceeds $144 billion (Siwek, 2010: 3, 7). These figures are presented by powerful industry groups that maintain that the scale of media piracy is so
great that the entire community hurts (IFPI, 2011: .21). But no one accurately knows how

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much loss has been sustained. Profit and loss estimates peddled by industry associations
should be subjected to critical scrutiny.
It should be accepted, however, that the popular media industry represents significant
corporate interests, and any form of illegal consumption, no matter how trivial, must be
recognized as harmful because of the potential for loss of profits and opportunity to
copyright owners. Unlicensed dealing of copyright works (namely trading in illegal popular media, providing the tools to engage in illegal consumption, uploading, downloading and any combination of these illegal acts) is therefore tantamount to piracy.
Symbiotically, illegal consumers are pirates; whether they are holiday makers who
haggle in the markets for counterfeited music and film discs or P2Pers. Piracy is theft,
according to Gillespie (2011: 218). But just how accurate is it to regard piracy simply as
theft given the immense popularity of illegal consumption? Large numbers of people in
any civilized society do not pilfer, thieve, steal, rob, burgle, filch or embezzle, but the
attitude to media piracy by citizens is somewhat lackadaisical or indifferent.1 In other
words, would the classification of copyright infringement as a form of theft by consumers pass the reasonable person test? If so, then it would follow that there has been a
breakdown in societal norms and values, given that billions of people access popular
media illegally.
This proposition is indeed preposterous, but the law of copyright is quite specific. For
this reason corporations have implemented various anti-piracy strategies, including technological control and protection, education and awareness, and legal action.

Technological control
The first line of defence is based on anti-piracy and anti-circumvention technologies. But
corporate attempts to prevent CD and DVD copying have, generally speaking, failed
over the past two decades. One reason for this is because consumers seem to naturally
gravitate to the challenge of reverse engineering anti-piracy technologies. Online forums
pre-date the current generation of social networking. Members of social networks
actively promote loopholes or provide programs freely to assist in copying DVDs and
CDs (DVD Shrink), downloading media (BitTorrent) or anti-spying software (Peer
Block). Are these liberal villains actively engaged in commercial treason or promoting
free speech? The distinction between encouragement and dissemination has become
increasingly blurred as consumers rise to the challenge of circumventing anti-piracy
technology. Goldman (2003: 4068) notes the significance of ego, bravado and a sense
of online community. In this environment, it is suggested that copyright protection
through technological means is becoming increasingly futile, or at least problematic,
because people seem to view these hurdles as challenges which must be overcome.

Education
Another line of protection is concerned with education and promotion of the concept that
copying, and especially downloading popular media productions, is morally reprehensible. The warnings about copyright infringement through illegal consumption are very
clear. The introduction of so-called Robot or Education Notices for consumers suspected

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of piracy to cease and desist or face excommunication suggests that re-orientation of

consumer behaviour is factored in to the anti-piracy campaign. Persistent abusers are
monitored and enforcement is graduated so as to ensure compliance and deterrence
through legal action. Education programs represent the good cop approach while simultaneously reminding the illegal consumer that the bad cop is in the next room waiting
to be invited into the action. Regardless of the strategies, warning symbols, signs, tags,
instructions, advertisements and campaigns generally seem to fall on deaf ears.

Legal action
Court action is nothing new to a most litigious industry, but in 2003 in the US consumers
were specifically targeted. Some 261 American music fans were sued for piracy (EFF
[Electronic Frontier Foundation], 2003: 2). Groennings best describes the purge as a
desperate move to address the P2P epidemic; the recording industry filed a first round
of lawsuits against its own fans (2005a: 389). The end-user push was promoted by
industry associations and continued against popular media consumers for the next five
years. Defendants ranging from children (12-year-old Brianna Lahara, whose mother
Sylvia Torress settled for $2000) to the elderly (Durwood Pickle, a 71-year-old whose
computer had been used by his grandsons for illegal downloading) were condemned
(Mook, 2003). As factually comical as these actions sound, the industry meant to strike
fear into consumers with legal fire and brimstone.
In 2004, action increased to over 6200 file sharers (see Groennings, 2005b: 571). In
2007, numbers reached 18,000 (EFF, 2007: 6). The battle fronts against individuals, ISPs
and site owners were unprecedented. The war on consumers raged on, with civil libertarians joining in to protect the little people until, suddenly, actions against end users
abruptly ceased in December 2008 (McBride and Smith, 2008). Why, given the endless
legal firepower, were the guns now silent on this front? One obvious reason is cost, but
other reasons might include negative publicity in an infinitely futile dispute, given that
more consumers were downloading illegally than ever before.
Drawing on legal realism, the main reason why individuals have not generally been
targeted in court is that, while specific deterrence against an occasional and random consumer may have some effect, general deterrence in the face of millions of downloads
appears to be spectacularly ineffective. This is the fallacy of such legal action and fits
neatly into what Woods describes as collapsing taboos (2000: 911).
If copyright laws generally shape consumers perceptions about what is right and
wrong, just and unjust, then they must also shape attitudes (Moohr, 2003). For example,
by designating downloading as outside the realm of law, the law constructs this activity
as not-normal (or anti-social or deviant). In declaring piracy to be outside the boundaries of statute and common law, the law declares piracy anti-cultural, immoral and criminal (see Edgely, 2010). These laws can be seen as an instrument of social construction
because they attempt to influence the way in which members of a society see themselves and others, and they influence peoples views about what is right and wrong,
good and bad, normal and not-normal (Kahan, 1997). Yet for many it seems illegal
consumption is morally permissible as one descends down a slippery slope of collapsing taboos (Woods, 2000: 9). P2P consumers and pirates are symbiotically united

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in their ambivalence with regard to copyright laws and piratical conduct. The parodies
in popular culture reflect this development.
As a form of compliance regulation in copyright governance, policing policies, anticircumvention technologies, education and regulation of the laws have not been remarkably successful in deterring criminal behaviour. Compliance as a mode of copyright
governance attempts to directly impact consumer behaviour by prescribing how popular
culture must be consumed, for example, by threatening consumers with legal action and
appealing to their moral values (Gusfield, 1981: 183).
But corporate citizens have not adequately taken into account that their consumers, as
technologically enlightened citizens, do not necessarily share the same attitudes about
how popular culture products might be shaped in the future. The current enforcement
framework rests on the fact that the major players envisage deterrence and moral modification will converge to create a compliant consumer. In the world of digitalization,
consider Woods argument: Some taboos prohibit what people in any event have little
interest in or stomach for. Others prohibit what lots and lots of people are keen to do
and would do but for the prohibition (2000: 12). It is contended that illegal consumers
expand the category of the latter class of people.
Lost are we, and are only so far punished, That without hope we live on in desire. (Inferno,
Canto IV, Lines 4142, p. 17)

Discipline and punish

General and specific deterrence value acts as the best measure of success in terms of
legal transgressions. Legal action could make the crooked way seem straight
(Purgatorio, Canto X, Line 3, p. 45) but it has not.
Regardless, the industries associations often proffer the unsubstantiated assertion
that illegal downloading and swapping of files are serious crimes. Despite this legal position, flagrant user prosecutions are reserved for exceptional cases and especially where a
commercial benefit was derived.
The paradox of specific and general deterrence in popular media piracy seems relatively speaking, obvious. Individuals remain indifferent (or at least ambivalent) about
accessing popular media illegally (Madden and Lenhart, 2003).
Why are elements of legal, social and moral deterrence missing in media piracy?
Perhaps consumers may not perceive they are hurting corporations, notwithstanding that
the act of downloading is illegal, because they might regard corporations as soulless
(profit-driven), exploitative and devoid of human feeling. Consumers appear to rank or
rather weigh the probability of various sanctions against the actual act of illegal consumption. They are aware of sanctions but the sheer volume of traffic indicates that
people nevertheless persist in rather that desist from illegal activity.
Media piracy is a unique taboo. It is formally recognized as an offence capable of
attracting significant penalties but, quite paradoxically, its deterrent level is low (if
there is any level of general deterrence at all). It seems to intersect separate codes of
conduct, where the formal legal realm is but one universe. Woods argues: Taboos
come in degrees, though not exactly on a scale of one to ten. At the high end we could
expect to find the cannibalism taboo; slightly lower down, perhaps, the incest taboo;

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and almost another thing entirely the prohibition in 1949, say, of homosexuality
(2000: 117). Just deserts for heinous crimes against humanity have remained high on
the moral agenda. But the difference here of course is that, unlike the gradual dismantling of human rights violations such as formal sanctions on homosexuality, copyright
laws have increasingly become more Draconian as a consequence of fierce corporate
lobbying. The irony is that while corporate citizens see the copyright piracy taboo as
ranked high, piracy is so culturally pervasive that anti-piracy wars have become
farcical.
Comic provocateurs from The IT Crowd certainly take this point to the extreme. In
season 2, episode 3 of this British TV series, Moss and the German (The IT Crowd,
2007a), Moss and Roy find themselves as guests (and potential menu items) at a cannibals residence. Moss and Roy are at the cannibals house because Roy consents to being
eaten in exchange for being able to watch the latest Quentin Tarantino movie.
Indeed copyright infringement, cannibalism and police raids converge in this episode
with the most farcical twist. The police raid the cannibals residence but, much to Moss
and Roys astonishment, the enforcement agencies are not interested in any alleged
offence relating to the consumption of human flesh. Rather the single illegal copy of the
film in their possession is the specific item of interest. The farce ends at the police station
where Moss and Roy mistakenly presume they are being interviewed in relation to cannibalism. Despite offering information about the cannibal, they are instead interrogated
about the pirated DVD.
Parodies usually reserved for politicians, oppressive institutions and those peddlers
of propaganda who attempt to shape attitudes and opinions (for example, extreme groups
in society) now extend to copyright governance. This suggests that corporations are
culturally at cross-purposes with consumers of popular culture, because to poke so much
fun at piracy campaigns is indeed a curious development.
A little spark is followed by great flame. (Paradiso, Canto 1, Line 34, p. 2)

The nexus between parody and wilful disobedience

That parody in popular culture (especially audio-visual media) might be described as a
form of resistance against formal conceptions of governance is well recognized (Bakhtin,
1981). Baym and Jones (2012) note the omnipotent capacity of parody to permeate
boundaries in a transnational, politico-economic and technological sense. Convergent
consumption patterns in the world of digitalization might also be categorized in the same
transcendental sense.
Copyright governance is fundamentally premised on what Bakhtin describes as centripetal forces of officialdom. However, its antithesis centrifugal force, aptly describes
anti-piracy copyright parodies, which might also be described as a reflection of forces
capable of destabilizing a centrally organized transglobal industry. These demonstrations
symbolize an emerging democratized technological class of persons making their own
informed decisions about the seriousness of piracy as a moral or legal wrong.
As education campaigns largely promote awareness, they are designed to appeal to
the public at large (and specific age groups) in order to modify purported inappropriate
behaviour. The reality is that not only do these advertisements (especially copyright

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infringement notices) appear not to be taken seriously, they are ridiculed on forums,
blogs and other cyber-commentary avenues of discontent. Actors from popular comedy
series even parody piracy (see The IT Crowd, 2007b: Piracy warning on YouTube), and
the hilarious Adam and Joes Mind of a pirate song, which samples the music from the
most famous piracy advertisement. Replete with witty commentary and firmly embedded in social networking culture, these developments epitomize the casual attitudes
towards campaigns. Parody in this arena appears to be a form of political expression.
Challenging the status quo subversively through satire is well recognized.
Warner (2007: 18) refers to cultural jammers; a loose collection of media activists
who are rebelling against the hegemony of the messages promoting global capitalism.
When one compares the absolute seriousness of the message in the following industry
advertisement to the absurdly humorous spoofs, it becomes patently clear the message
that is being portrayed by parodies is that these industry campaigns are either out of place
in the world of digitalization or simply do not work. Of particular interest is the sheer
popularity of the parodied anti-piracy advertisements as they attract spectacular volumes
of traffic online.

The most famous anti-piracy advertisement in the world

The script for the MPAA ([Motion Picture Association of America], 2004)2 advertisement reads:3
You wouldnt steal a car,
You wouldnt steal a handbag,
You wouldnt steal a television,
You wouldnt steal a movie,
Downloading pirated movies is stealing, stealing is against the law.
Piracy. Its a crime.

In the advertisement, no voice-overs are used as persons are depicted enacting the above
crimes. (A relatively catchy theme the subject of discussion earlier in this article drives
the anti-piracy message home.) Against this backdrop of evil behaviour, a young (faceless)
girl is secretly downloading a movie in her room. At some point, however, she chooses the
path of righteousness, cancels the illegal download, grabs her bag and leaves the room.
Presumably she decides to do something else rather than remain in her den of iniquity.

The most (in)famous anti-piracy parody in the world

In the IT Crowd spoof4 of the above advertisement (which actually preceded the Moss
and the German episode), a narrator makes the following (tongue-in-cheek) appeal to
his audience:
You wouldnt steal a handbag.
You wouldnt steal a car.
You wouldnt steal a baby!
You wouldnt shoot a policeman, then steal his helmet!

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You wouldnt go to the toilet in his helmet, and then send it to the policemans grieving widow,
and then steal it again!
Downloading films is stealing.
If you do it, you will face the consequences!

In this vignette, all the above crimes are ridiculously played out, but the young girl can
be identified. As she is performing an illegal download, an FBI agent enters her room and
presumably shoots her in the back as she slumps onto her keyboard in a pool of blood. At
the end of the advertisement, one of the IT Crowd actors (Roy) remarks, These antipiracy ads are getting really mean. Crimes of the most aggravated form are compared to
illegal consumption, as if copyright infringement was comparable to the crimes listed.

That piracy song

The hilarious Mind of a pirate song is even more satirically poignant and stylistically
resembles something comedian Weird Al Yankovic would record. British comedian
provocateurs and BBC radio hosts and pranksters Adam Buxton and Joe Cornish released
this parody as part of their Song Wars, Volume 1 (2008). It traverses several issues,
including consumers making informed decisions about movie aesthetics and subsequent
consumer discontent (having a look first to see if a movie is crap), and not feeling
guilty about such conduct. It also attacks data presented by anti-piracy associations
(cooked statistics, phantom profit and questions the assertion that every illegal
download represents a purchase you would have made (possibly)).
It complements the liberties I have taken with Dantes Divine Comedy as it descends
into perceptions of good and bad, morality, persecution, prosecution: Cause were evil,
were scum and no one at the partys gonna pay. After further questioning industry
practices, the song (which, incidentally, uses the music from the official MPAA advertisement described above) breaks into: I dont care Im mental, Im evil, and I deserve
to be locked up I want to go to Hell cause Satans got free Wi-Fi everywhere. The
parody is also useful in illustrating how the enlightened consumer rationalizes whether a
movie is worth downloading or whether it should be bought given it is taking too long to
download (which would be ironic).
Parodies such as these present a multifaceted picture of the issue of piracy not least
because they support the observation that consumers are quite well informed in a digitalized world. Piracy spoofs invariably attract much attention on the internet because they
reflect just how consumers resist having their attitudes shaped or influenced by corporate
citizens. They are indeed powerful reactions to anti-piracy campaigns, but when art imitates reality, and the industry itself becomes accused of piracy, another quote from
Dantes Inferno comes to mind, That this your art as far as possible/ Follows, as the
disciple doth the master; So that your art is, as it were, Gods grandchild (Canto XI,
Lines 103105, p. 52).

The ironic absurdity of copyright governors as cannibals

In a bizarre, subliminal twist, anti-piracy agencies are now the subject of potential litigation for copyright infringement. In particular, the Dutch copyright lobby group BREIN

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(equivalent to MPAA) is now under attack itself. It has been alleged the theme tune for
the above widely and virally disseminated anti-piracy commercial was composed by
Dutch musician Melchior Rietveldt, who was approached by anti-piracy lobbyists to
provide some backing music in 2006. This is not in dispute, but the purpose of the recording and the licence to synchronize the music are in dispute. It is further alleged that Mr
Rieveldt accidentally stumbled across his music synchronized to the now famous (and
infamously parodied) anti-piracy anthem-like advertisement as he was about to enjoy a
copy of a Harry Potter film on DVD in 2007.
Discussions to resolve the dispute have commenced. But the issues have only been
partially determined given the royalties paid to the composer since the complaint are well
below the inital amount claimed (which exceeded in excess of $US1 million in damages).
However, the interest group representing Rietveldts copyright has already been disciplined and punished. In the absence of evidentiary material, the facts cannot be objectively
assessed, and while it has not been not widely reported through commercial channels, this
latest piracy kerfuffle is the subject of immense newsworthy social networking interest and
commentary (see: concreteplayground.com, torrentfreak.com, pedestrian.tv and several
other sites and threads accessible via the internet). Is this most recent development more
ridiculous or sublime? The aesthetic of piracy parody as a form of artistic reality has
become quite maddening for those involved in copyright governance. (Perhaps there is a
close nexus between cannibalism and copyright of divine comic proportions after all.)
But tell me, if thou knowest, to what shall come/ The citizens of the divided city (Inferno, Canto
VI, Lines 6061, p. 28)

Conclusion: ongoing convergence

The committing of offences does not exist in a legal vacuum. Moral conviction, social
norms and the legal consequences of actions are all at play in a given community (Kahan,
1997). Consumers perhaps with varying degrees of moral and legal conscience evaluate
the costs and benefits of illegal consumption based on fear, threats of legal sanction and
non-legal outcomes (for example, shaming or being branded a file swapper or downloader). In the traditional criminological sense, individuals may possess varying degrees
of fear based on the prospect of being caught. In a sociological sense, consumers seem to
perceive the likelihood of punitive action as relatively low and appear to be less worried
about such action. The parodies certainly reflect the latter.
Anti-piracy parodies support this observation. It appears that a combination of low
legal deterrence and low moral deterrence are the primary factors for explaining illegal
consumption. Void of moral conscience in relation to corporate citizens, and thumbing
their virtual noses, Adam and Joes line best describes this attitude: stick the law up your
bum (in Mind of a pirate).
Moral attitudes and beliefs are very subjective issues. Media piracy is as much a
social activity as it is copyright infringement. There appears to be little shame or stigma
attached to illegal consumption. This article argues that it is difficult to conceive how the
bulk of home and curious users knowingly participating in illegal consumption can be
deemed anti-social and thereby anti-cultural, immoral or criminal given the sheer volume of illegal traffic.

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Perhaps a new onus should rest on corporate citizens who might internalize and
engage in some soul-searching about pricing and more democratized access to popular
culture generally because, after all, Envy and Arrogance and Avarice are the three sparks
that have all hearts enkindled (Inferno, Canto VI, Lines 7475, p. 28).
Funding
This research received no specific grant from any funding agency in the public, commercial, or
not-for-profit sectors.

Notes
1.

In a conversation recently, a medical specialist quipped that there was no point in researching
piracy because it was a given that everyone does it. I also recall another medical practitioner refusing to pay a licence fee for music being played in his surgery. What do corporate
citizens do about modifying the behaviour of such learned and influential persons in the
community?
2. The advertisements have been published locally using the same format through domestic
and regional counterpart associations and agencies pursuant to international obligations and
treaties.
3. When accessed in May 2012, some 117,000 people had watched this clip however, 180
liked it while 860 disliked it. This statistic, alone, combined with the sarcasm in the comments, is indeed farcical.
4. For this clip, of the 1 million plus views, nearly 7000 gave it the thumbs up compared to 100
who disliked it (May 2012).

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