A Discussion of media ownership, the subscription service, and an argument for piracy.
The rise of the online subscription services has had a profound effect on the relationships between us and the media we consume. It can also offered us a lens through which we can analyse the era of capitalism we currently find ourselves in. In the face of these changing times we must also ask ourselves: Is piracy okay actually?
We now live in a time where it’s becoming increasingly rare that we actually own the media we consume. Physical forms of media continue their slow painful decline, with streaming services rising in their place, drastically changing how we interact with the media we consume.
There is no perfect past that we can look back on to neatly contrast our current era. We never owned the programming shown on TV, and DVD rental stores were a staple until their demise at the hands of streaming services. Despite this, we can all feel the shift that’s taken place. Gone are DVD or CD collections, instead, we have curated Spotify playlists and the Netflix homepage. We have no control over the media that streaming services host. As a consequence, content that we enjoy can be removed from our libraries with no notice or consolation. This leaves us paying the same amount for less of what we want. Often we are left with no legitimate means of recourse in these situations.
At the heart of this change in media ownership is the subscription model, which forms the foundation of the platforms involved. The subscription model has wormed its way into almost every part of our lives. Not even home printers are safe, with the HP instant ink service offering multiple tiers starting from ~$3 NZD for the privilege of printing 10-15 pages a month.
The subscription service is often deployed under the guise of consumer convenience, though its true purpose is to extract as much revenue from a customer as possible without creating any new value. The fundamental class interest of the shareholder is to accumulate as much capital as possible out of a good or service while expending as little productive capacity as possible. The subscription model is incredibly alluring in this regard, allowing for continued revenue generation in return for the minimum necessary upkeep on the good or service being leveraged. This is why the subscription model has become so ubiquitous, it presents a perfect revenue model for corporate interest.
We have started to see examples of blatantly anti-consumer behaviour arise directly from subscription based services. In an effort to increase user base, platforms have started lashing out, introducing harsher restrictions on account sharing, and new price hiked subscription tiers allowing more people to use the account simultaneously. These types of restrictions on subscription based streaming services are not a natural result of the model. They are put in place as a means to artificially extract more profit.
The rise of the subscription model is indicative of our current late stage of capitalism. Prices continue to rise as wages stagnate, mass layoffs continue ad nauseam, social progress is moving backwards, and fascist movements are increasing in number. The parallel rise in use of the subscription model offers a novel vector through which to view these death throes of capitalism. It gives us a clear example of the class interests and dynamics at play in the current era through which we can frame our analysis.
We have identified the primary class interest of shareholders and capitalists as the constant accumulation of capital. Through this we can understand that the rise of the subscription model is inevitable. With only incremental gains from increased productivity in recent years, and increased global economic stagnation, capitalists must turn to rent seeking behaviours in order to maintain the same levels of growth. Rent seeking behaviour is the extraction of profit without expending any productive labour, à la landlordism – or the subscription model. Understanding these dynamics is one thing, but what can we do about it as consumers?
Piracy presents an inviting alternative to this current media hosting climate. Piracy offers an avenue through which we can actually own and control the media we consume. It also enables us to access media that is inaccessible through legitimate means. This is becoming increasingly important as older media starts to be lost to time. The paramount obstacle in the way of piracy as a solution is the law. IP and copyright are sacred ideas, deeply entrenched in the western world, and there is little we can hope to do to change this. The law does not, however, prescribe morality, and we can certainly argue that piracy is not a moral wrong.
The first thing we must identify when investigating the morality of piracy is the relationship between the creator and their creation. Contrary to popular belief the rights to media are usually owned not by its creators but instead the corporations that employ them. The creators often do not benefit materially through the purchase of the goods they create. Like me and you, these creatives make a salary or wage. The profits generated through these creations goes straight into the corporate coffers.
At the core of many arguments against piracy is the idea that you are effectively stealing a good or service, depriving the owners of the market price of the product. On the face of it, this is a correct statement, but we must ask: Why does this matter? To which I say: If the workers that have embodied their labour value in their creation are not benefiting from its purchase why should the corporations?
As part of this discussion we must return to the relationship between creator and creation, and investigate the case where a creator directly reaps the benefits of their creation. There are independent creators who rely directly on the product of their labour to make a living. It is important to make sure we recognise the difference between this case and that of the employed creator and to act accordingly. In pushing back against corporate interest we should take care that creators are not being unduly harmed by our actions. To this end, we must make a distinction between the creations owned by corporations and those owned by the creators themselves, and modulate our approach accordingly.
The landscape of media ownership will continue to change. The rise of the subscription model has shown us that the driving factors at the core of these shifts are basic capitalist class interests; as such class should continue to be at the heart of analysis into this subject as it continues to evolve. Further, as classical ideas of ownership are usurped we must ask: What is to be done? Piracy does indeed offer a compelling solution and is certainly justified in many cases given this analysis. It is critical to keep in mind though, the relationship between creator and creation when engaging in piracy, as to not cause any undue harm to workers.
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