Book Review: Warez - The Infrastructure and Aesthetics of Piracy by Martin Paul Eve
Book Review piracy the pirate bay · 4 comments · 400 words · read ~320 times.
Obviously, I've never downloaded "warez" in my life. And, for the avoidance of doubt, I was never a member of the so-called "Scene". But such shenanigans were almost unavoidable on the early web and - wow! - is it weird seeing snippets of your history presented in an academic study!
Why do people "pirate" software and other intellectual property? The answer isn't as simple as you may think. This isn't a book about noble thieves, or cheapskate freeloaders - rather it is an examination of the culture which thrived around a social object. It just so happened that the social object was piracy.
This is one of the clearest takes I've seen on subcultures as Alternative Reality Games. People are playing a game where the reward is fake Internet points, an elevated reputation among other players, and a sense of danger / excitement. It is incredibly similar to the hype around crypto today.
It has a brief look into ASCII art aesthetic and how the Demo Scene came to be intertwined with the Warez Scene. I think some of the analysis of "concrete poetry" is a little overblown - these aren't formally trained artists engaging in studied creation, they're bored kids mucking about trying to look cool.
And it is "cool" which is at the centre of this book. Reputation - no matter how fungible - is about being cool. The subculture develops to maintain that cool. And then the rules come in so that people can definitively say who is cool. Which then prompts a backlash, name-calling, and splintering. Thus the cycle begins again.
There are a few oddities. The author addresses the fact that it is hard to do a proper investigation where there are no interviews and where the participants are secret. The start of the book trying to tie the Scene to the stock market I found a bit unconvincing. But he does a terrific job explaining the technology, the terminology, and the slang of the era.
You also have to wade through a large amount of "padding". I'm not sure the book needs quite so many lists and tables - but that might just be me not understanding how academic studies work.
If you remember this song, you'll enjoy this book.
| Verdict |
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- Buy the eBook on Amazon Kindle
- Author's homepage
- Publisher's details
- Borrow from your local library
- ISBN: 978-1-68571-036-1
sp4m says:
"Dont copy that floppy" worst video ever released and did nothing to prevent copyright theft. As for the subject its nothing to do with being cool and in some areas its definatly about making money from advertising on the "scene" source websites.There is a modicum of rivaly between "gangs" the same as there is in real street gangs so nothing changes there.
Damn, I recognised the song in the first few seconds.... Takes me waay back. I wonder whatever happened to Mark Borle. I wonder if I've still got my copy of this song in my music library (along with quite a few of the "old skool" tracks which I had on my MP3 player back then).
Neil says:
Or, if you want to “try before you buy” (or simply not buy): https://eprints.bbk.ac.uk/id/eprint/30956/1/Eve%20-%20Warez.pdf
sp4m says:
If anything the recent Louise Rossman desire to have unfettered access to hardware purchased by the end user merely highlights another colour of the spectrum from the "scene".It clearly shows manufacturers are attempting to needlessly bleed customers dry on repairs and parts. In a recent video he even spoke about an attempt by the owner to change the battery of a certain device would brick it permanently. In another vein, people have been "illegally" modding game stations and their games to run on other systems for as long as they have been around. I remember years ago boot loads of copied CDs being quite redilly available at the weekly Manchester computer fayre ( Jurassic releases come to mind).All forms of music,software and games at a few pounds a pop. DRM and other encryption systemsdevices have been defeated many times over the years and will continue to do so. So its not as clear a reasoning behind all this as one might think.