Consumption is a Choice

Larry Lessig’s video was reminiscent of my post from module 4 about culturally common content and remixing. He acknowledges the difference between piracy and “read-write” and this encapsulates perfectly what I was stating in my discussion. If you’re using a cultural product for a “read-write” creation, then it is not piracy, it is “re-creating” to say something differently. Piracy is the “wholesale” distribution of a product “without the permission of the owner.”

This re-creation of cultural products is key to the evolution of culture. Lessig speaks about the literacy of our generation through these recreations of cultural products - it is how our generation speaks. And what the corporations are doing is criminalizing the way we speak. What the corporations are trying to do is criminalize the products and the producers of these products, but as Bradley (2006) states, “it is the formation of participatory communities rather than any particular cultural artefact that is paramount” – which designates that it is impossible to criminalize [all] producers. You can perhaps take down a few YouTube videos and a record company will sue someone in the working class for everything they own, but you cannot stop the re-creation and production of new cultural material – there’s too many people who not only agree with it; they also support and embrace it, promoting its growth. McCourt (2003) makes an interesting statement that supports my point. He says, “Consumers will find innumerable choices at low cost as the Internet becomes a ‘vast intellectual commons’ in which ‘nothing will ever again be out of print or impossible to find; every scrap of human culture transcribed, no matter how obscure or commercially unsuccessful, will be available to all’”. 

So instead of criminalizing something that is fleeting, why not embrace its use? A flourishing creative commons could lead to less copyright infringement and more production of free cultural products. Let people choose what they want to pay for! Isn’t consumption a choice in the first place?

References:

Bradley, D. (2006) Scenes of Transmission: Youth Culture, MP3 File Sharing, and Transferable Strategies of Cultural Practice. M/C Journal. 9(1). 

McCourt, T., P. Burkart. (2003). When Creators, Corporations and Consumers Collide: Napster and the Development of On-line Music Distribution. Media, Culture & Society. 25 (3), pg. 333-350 

Larry Lessig: Laws that choke creativity. TED Talks (2007). Filmed March 2007, posted November 2007.