The Pirate Mentality

Based on: Matt Mason, “The Tao of Pirates” (The Pirate’s Dilemma, Ch. 2 and Outro)

The concept of Pirates for the People presented in The Pirate's Dilemma relates to ‘pirates’ invading our media. Industries consider a pirate anyone who has burned a song without paying, photocopied a page from a book, downloaded a torrent or downloaded anything without paying.

Pirate mentality and pirate culture have helped shape our fashion, our music and our attitude by bringing audiences what they want, going against the norm and bringing an entire underground world and underground artists to the people.

An early example of the pirate mentality is the legend DJ Fezzy. DJ Fezzy was a talk radio host who did not have a licence. DJ Fezzy took advantage of radio and broadcasted music live for the first time in 1906 (Page 40).  Though radio was never intended for entertainment nor was it accepted as an entertainment medium at first;  Fezzy started a trend and was followed onto airwaves by radio nerds across the U.S. Pirates exist where demand is. Pirate mentality is everywhere. The case of DJ Fezzy is only one example of the pirate mentality.  We see the pirate mentality in people who take advantage Web 2.0 using it to become whatever they please be it a porn star or a journalist.

The concept of thinking like a pirate can take you places abiding by every rule, regulation and stipulation can't. As long as there is an audience for your concept, you have the power. That’s what makes the force of this new pirate culture challenging to go against.

Do big corporations and companies go against the pirates or join attempting to gain and compete? This is the pirate's dilemma. On one side of the argument you see the pirate culture as depleting profits for these big companies and damaging huge industries such as the film and music industry. On the other side pirates broadcast and pay attention to things often times ‘mainstream’ neglects such as unique music genres, art and fashion.
The pirate mentality is spreading with the advancement of the web offering users things like thepiratebay.org or surfthechannel.com; sites where users can access software, videos and entertainment for free with little to no inturuption. The spread of pirated material could potentially become so powerful that laws simply aren’t big enough to stop the rise of the pirates.

A side note... Web 2.0 inherits the pirate mentality in its way of breaking the mold and going against the norm, giving users the control rather the companies.