On piracy

February 3rd, 2005 | by aobaoill |

Paul at MediaGeek has an insightful piece about ‘podcast’-type production being characterised as analogous to pirate radio. His argument is summed up thusly:

Have we gone so far down the government-corporate-totalitarian path that we now believe anything that isn’t officially sanctioned by a government or corporation must somehow be really underground and pirate?

Online audio is more closely analogous to standing on a soapbox, or producing a ‘zine than to (illegally) appropriating a frequency. Paul is right to decry the de facto categorisation of amateur media of this sort as an illegal act.
However, there’s one interesting twist to MediaGeek’s analysis. I’ve come across people previously – more usually in Ireland I think – who object to the term ‘pirate’ in relation to radio. Piracy is the (high) crime of taking over a ship, and these people believe that to use the term ‘pirate’ is to acknowledge the legitimacy of a law that treats unlicensed, or unapproved, broadcasts as a crime.
This approach isn’t as far from that of MediaGeek as one might think, though there are some differences in emphasis. Paul believes that:

Pirate radio is a method of direct action. Pirate radio is an act of resistance. Pirate radio is conducted in direct contravention to existing laws, policies and corporate will.

So the question is whether in speaking of unlicensed stations we should try to naturalise their existence and bend reality to your approach – by avoiding the ‘pirate’ label – or highlight their challenge to the status quo. Lakoff would have fun here I think. Of course one’s view of the ‘high crime’ of piracy may also become a factor here too.
I should note that a similar issue comes into play when discussing intellectual property – is it IP piracy, illegal copying, or unlicensed copying? I’ve noticed that the terminology one uses here has important impacts on what listeners here and on how debate is framed.

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