Presentation to MassCommunications department at K U Leuven.

1. Downloading as
Deviance
MassComm Seminar: 15th Oct 2010
Jason.Rutter@soc.kuleuven.be

2. Discourses of piracy
Problems for researchers
Methodological issues
Ask about ways forward

3. Piracy is
Making digital content for which the user
does not have the legal permission to
distribute available on the internet
Downloading of copying those files by
another person who does not have legal
permission

4. Piracy is a Crime campaign

5. Piracy is a Crime campaign

6. “There is no
difference with
going into a store
and stealing
Pringles or a
handbag and
taking this stuff”
James Murdoch

7. Consumption without
Purchase
•Downloader as thief
•Stealing physical goods = copying
digital ones
•Downloading is like crime against
the person
Piracy does not remove goods but he control
over the selling of those goods

8. Knock Off Nigel campaign

9. Knock Off Nigel campaign

10. Downloaders as Bad People
•‘a grubby little man’
•‘a real creep’
•‘steals money from whip ‘rounds’
•‘does things on the cheap’
•‘scrounges his drinks’
•‘He’d rob his own gran’

11. Knock Off Nigel campaign

12. Knock Off Nigel campaign

13. But this is just good
business...

14. ...surely academic
researchers don’t
see it the same
way.
They are clever and critical...

15. Piracy is:
‘unethical’
(Mitchell et al., 2009; Cohn & Vaccaro, 2006; Hinduja, 2003)
‘misbehaviour’
(Albers-Miller, 1999; Harris & Dumas, 2009)
‘questionable’
(Freestone & Mitchell, 2004; Hinduja, 2008)
‘corruption’ (Coyle et al., 2009)
‘aberrant’
(Freestone & Mitchell, 2004)

16. Lacking in moral substance
or self-control
(Morris and Higgins, 2009; Malin and Fowers, 2009)

17. Money
Morality
Harm

18. Downloading
Loss in Sales
Loss in Revenue
Economic Harm
A wilfully harmful act is an unethical act

19. Physical Digital Total Sales
160
128
96
Million
64
32
0
2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
UK Singles Sales
Source BPI

20. Physical Units Digital Units Total Units
2000
1500
Million
1000
500
0
1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009
USA Music Sales
Source RIAA

21. Economics is:
‘free from any
ideological,
theological, or
moral philosophy’
(Alvey, 1999, p.53)

22. Downloading
illegal
content is a
rational
action rather
than an
ethical one

23. “Both motives and actions very
often originate not from within
but from the situation in which
individuals finds themselves.”
(Mannheim quoted in Mills, 1940)

24. “A satisfactory or adequate motive is one
that satisfies the questioners of an act or
program” (Mills, 1940)

25. ‘The differing
reasons men [sic]
give for their
actions are not
themselves
without reasons’
(Mills, 1940)

26. ‘If power is about ownership of
products (the means and
meanings of production),
authority is about the right to
claim ownership of a product
and its meanings.’
(Laughley, 2010)

27. Techniques of
Neutralization

28. Techniques of
Neutralization
•Denial of responsibility

29. Techniques of
Neutralization
•Denial of responsibility
•Denial of injury

30. Techniques of
Neutralization
•Denial of responsibility
•Denial of injury
•Denial of the victim

31. Techniques of
Neutralization
•Denial of responsibility
•Denial of injury
•Denial of the victim
•Condemnation of the condemners

32. Techniques of
Neutralization
•Denial of responsibility
•Denial of injury
•Denial of the victim
•Condemnation of the condemners
•Appeal to higher loyalties

33. Techniques of
Neutralization
•Denial of responsibility
•Denial of injury
•Denial of the victim
•Condemnation of the condemners
•Appeal to higher loyalties
(Sykes and Matza,1957)

34. Are techniques of
neutralization a
view into
personal
motivations or a
response to a
dominant
ideology?

35. What abo
ut the
context o
f
consumpt
ion?
The socia
l
backgrou
nd to
items
download
ed?
The role o
f digital
media?

36. What happens when:
Ethics, morality, deviance
and misbehaviour merge into
‘dysfunctional consumer
behaviour’?

37. Slides available at:
http://www.slideshare.net/Jasieboy
Paper available at:
http://www.scribd.com/jason_rutter

38. IT Crowd’s Piracy is a Crime campaign

39. IT Crowd’s Piracy is a Crime campaign