Book Review: The Pirate’s Dilemma
Mason, Matt. The pirate’s dilemma : how youth culture is reinventing capitalism.. Free Press, 2008.
We are living in a time when music and art can be infinitely reproduced and instantaneously distributed all over the planet without cost. This book is about a new set of market conditions that are emerging, where piracy is just another business model and where remixing is a tool used to create change. Boundaries are coming down. Technology has removed old restrictions on new ideas. The Pirates Dilemma is essentially about sharing and using information in new ways.
Author Matt Mason is unconcerned with file sharing and downloading. File sharing sites make an abundance of music available from aspiring musicians and niche artists. He cites a study that shows downloading has boosted CD sales, and claims that file sharing has attracted a new type of music fan. And iTunes made the music industry more democratic.
This book is an interesting read, but it should not be attempted by readers who don’t know P. Diddy from 50-Cent, or Sex Pistols from the Ramones. Author Matt Mason makes his points through dozens of stories involving cultural icons, most of them from the music industry.
© Reviewer: Meg Trauner & Ford Library – Fuqua School of Business.
All rights reserved.
May 12th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Sounds like a good read for an exercise in “thinking out of the box”.