Type
Text
Type
Dissertation
Advisor
Nganang, Patrice | Reich, Jacqueline | Guins, Raiford | Gabbard, Krin | Decherney, Peter.
Date
2014-12-01
Keywords
Communication | Hollywood, MPAA, Piracy, Piratebyran, Pirates, RIAA
Department
Department of Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies.
Language
en_US
Source
This work is sponsored by the Stony Brook University Graduate School in compliance with the requirements for completion of degree.
Identifier
http://hdl.handle.net/11401/77209
Publisher
The Graduate School, Stony Brook University: Stony Brook, NY.
Format
application/pdf
Abstract
This dissertation analyzes how designations and representations of piracy define, police, and challenge legitimate production and circulation. From antiquity through the present, the labeling of others as pirates has excluded the less powerful from the authorized distribution of tangible and intangible property. Such discursive exclusion not only defines piracy but also creates it, distinguishing it from other, sanctioned forms of appropriation. This exclusion generates political, legal, and cultural subjectivity, thereby allowing so-called pirates to affect the very discourses and processes from which they are excluded. The first chapter traces the term piracy from its linguistic origin in Ancient Greece to its extension to literary property in 17th century and its current use as a rhetorical weapon in the global information society. Isolating five necessary conditions, this chapter reads piracy across its maritime, intellectual, and digital manifestations, elucidating the success and failure of designations of piracy. The second chapter focuses on the destabilization of these conditions in Hollywood's representations of Caribbean piracy. Due to gaps in the historical record, historians have conflictingly interpreted Golden Age (1650-1720) pirates as criminals, rebels, and anarcho-libertarians. Following these interpretations, but adapting them to its own institutional and hegemonic needs, Hollywood has developed three types of pirates: an actively piratical villain, a reluctantly piratical hero, and a gender shifting temporary pirate. The third chapter develops a genealogy of the anti-piracy media and educational campaigns of the film and recording industries, locating in the 1980's " Home Taping is Killing Music" campaign the appeals that have dominated later campaigns. Recreating the reception of the campaigns of the early 2000's, this chapter combines humanities scholarship on copyright industry rhetoric with social science research on the efficacy of the campaigns to understand why these campaigns have failed to affect the copying norms and practices of millennials. The final chapter analyzes the history and interventions of the groups leading the Swedish Pirate Movement, examining how the Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay, the Missionerande Kopimistsamfundet, and the Piratpartiet humorously appropriate the labels and rhetoric of copyright industry representatives to define themselves and challenge anti-piracy campaigns and legislation. | This dissertation analyzes how designations and representations of piracy define, police, and challenge legitimate production and circulation. From antiquity through the present, the labeling of others as pirates has excluded the less powerful from the authorized distribution of tangible and intangible property. Such discursive exclusion not only defines piracy but also creates it, distinguishing it from other, sanctioned forms of appropriation. This exclusion generates political, legal, and cultural subjectivity, thereby allowing so-called pirates to affect the very discourses and processes from which they are excluded. The first chapter traces the term piracy from its linguistic origin in Ancient Greece to its extension to literary property in 17th century and its current use as a rhetorical weapon in the global information society. Isolating five necessary conditions, this chapter reads piracy across its maritime, intellectual, and digital manifestations, elucidating the success and failure of designations of piracy. The second chapter focuses on the destabilization of these conditions in Hollywood's representations of Caribbean piracy. Due to gaps in the historical record, historians have conflictingly interpreted Golden Age (1650-1720) pirates as criminals, rebels, and anarcho-libertarians. Following these interpretations, but adapting them to its own institutional and hegemonic needs, Hollywood has developed three types of pirates: an actively piratical villain, a reluctantly piratical hero, and a gender shifting temporary pirate. The third chapter develops a genealogy of the anti-piracy media and educational campaigns of the film and recording industries, locating in the 1980's " Home Taping is Killing Music" campaign the appeals that have dominated later campaigns. Recreating the reception of the campaigns of the early 2000's, this chapter combines humanities scholarship on copyright industry rhetoric with social science research on the efficacy of the campaigns to understand why these campaigns have failed to affect the copying norms and practices of millennials. The final chapter analyzes the history and interventions of the groups leading the Swedish Pirate Movement, examining how the PiratbyrÃ¥n, The Pirate Bay, the Missionerande Kopimistsamfundet, and the Piratpartiet humorously appropriate the labels and rhetoric of copyright industry representatives to define themselves and challenge anti-piracy campaigns and legislation. | 293 pages
Recommended Citation
High, Michael D., "Piratical Designations: Power and Possibility in Representations of Piracy" (2014). Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions). 3040.
https://commons.library.stonybrook.edu/stony-brook-theses-and-dissertations-collection/3040