Crystal Ball: Piracy and Memes

While we’ve covered a great deal in Comm/Info 245, I thought that there was a lot that we could have still covered. First of all, music, game, software, and movie piracy has become ubiquitous today, and it has a lot to offer as a psychological subject. While it’s common to see a community help each other, as inter-group interactions would predict, Internet pirates spend countless hours obtaining RAWs of movies, cracking the increasingly sophisticated games and software, and ripping music from CDs – and then they share it with everyone. These select knowledgeable few spend their efforts to benefit everyone (assuming said “everyone” has an internet connection), often without any sort of benefit to themselves. It may be the “information should be free” mantra that ruled the early days of the hackerdom, or it may be individuals or groups looking for fame and attention, but without a “real world” equivalent of this phenomenon, the reason for their actions may be more complex than this.

And the public reaction to the pirates’ efforts has been mostly positive (excluding the corporations that produce the goods being pirated). Many eagerly download the latest version of Windows Vista or the new releases like American Gangster, and think nothing of it despite not having paid a cent for it. It isn’t like paying for DVDs or music is a novel idea; people have been used to it for years now. Yet, it becomes very easy to justify what is essentially stealing. Downloading off the internet has made many goods into public goods. Is it simple greed and selfishness? Is it because corporations are easier to steal from, being that they are large, faceless institutions? The reaction of many companies, namely blame and punish the people, certainly doesn’t endear them to the public. It would be interesting to explore psychological aspects of internet piracy and how they have influence public consciousnesses and conscience.

Another phenomenon that I would like to see addressed is the Internet memes that get circulated so quickly. Although we briefly covered activities such as Youtubing as problematic internet use, the way that internet memes, particularly phrases and videos, influence culture is particularly fascinating. Fads are one thing, but Internet memes are on an entirely different level. I’ve once seen an entire thread where the only reply for 2 pages was “Cool story, Hansel”, a la Zoolander. Are they only a passing wave in the sea of the Interweb, or are there memes that have a more lasting effect on the thinking and actions of the users? The “shock factor” videos that have been passed around have done a remarkably thorough job about desensitizing the public. What effects might that have in the long term?

It’s been good blogging with all of you. Good luck to everyone on their finals!