Ethan Liem
Jeana Burton
CO 300
16 April 2013
Exploratory Essay
The question I began with asked what the best way to deal with Internet piracy and
whether it could be done without getting rid of the basic rights we have on Internet. This
question is controversial because of how relatively new the Internet is in today’s society and how
it is slowly changing the ways we interact with everything. The problem is that Internet piracy
has become a rather big issue and Hollywood has done its best to lobby for laws that tread on the
basic Internet rights of citizens. SOPA and PIPA are two recent examples of laws that were
turned down that tried to stop piracy. The major reason was that they infringed on the freedom of
speech given to each person. Other laws like the “3 strike” law in France have also proven to be
unsuccessful in preventing piracy and because of many laws doing poorly more stricter laws are
starting to appear. There are 3 groups that can be seen in this issue. The first being various
activist groups who are against Hollywood lobbying and want freedom of the Internet, the next is
Hollywood who are against piracy and because of that have tried their best to lobby for strict
laws to prevent such acts and the government who are stuck in between the lobbyist and the
general people, which means they have to find the best way to meet both parties expectations. It
is important for innovation to present in the Internet and most legislation will prevent that. Most
of the sides are both economically minded, like with Hollywood, Politically minded like with the
government and certain groups of activists and sociologically connected with Piracy and the
Internet like with most consumers who do in fact choose to pirate.
The three sources I used try to go into the economic, political and sociological aspects of
Piracy and what that can tell us about how the best way to go about preventing as much piracy as
possible. The first article, “Innovate or Legislate: How the Hollywood establishment used SOPA
to try to regulate its competition away”, talks about the economic and political sides of the issue
and claims that legislation prevents the necessary innovation that is needed for a better economy.
The article supports this by first showing how the Internet has paved the economic landscape
with various studies, “A McKinsey Global Institute study published last spring found that,
worldwide, 2 billion were connected to the Internet and almost $8 trillion exchanged via ecommerce” (Salam and Ruffini 36). This is then contrasted with the history of copyright as a tool
for Hollywood to get money and how that has essentially stopped a lot of innovation. The article
even calls Hollywood as, “fighting desperate rearguard actions to force people to consume media
in the ways it finds most congenial” (Salam and Ruffini 37). They try to push the fact that
legislation should not be used to continue old ways that are not as effective.
The next article, “Net Neutrality for Dummies”, goes in depth into the Net Neutrality
issue that is seen as a heated topic amongst the government and more specifically between liberal
and conservative mindsets. It goes into what Net Neutrality is and then claims that Net Neutrality
negatively affects consumers and businesses. Limited bandwidth becomes an important part in
the rhetors claim and sees that the biggest threat as regulations that would, “force Internet service
providers to treat all web traffic as equal, instead of selling precious bandwidth at varying price
and performance levels” (Hayward 14). This is expanded on when he starts to talk about how
poor user experience is directly related to not having a tier-based service. A user who has a
relatively low bandwidth use should not have to pay the same as someone who uses lots of
bandwidth. The article then ends off with how businesses are also affected because Internet
Service Providers are the ones creating the infrastructure for the web but are not getting the
money that is being taken up by big sites, which have terabytes of data being transferred through
the providers system. If providers cannot ask for more money from websites and consumers
included for their higher use of bandwidth then they will start to lose money.
The last article, “Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger: a Study of On-Line Pirates”, goes into
the sociological side of pirating content. This also goes more into the activist position on piracy
and how they see the issue. The study educates and claims that there are various reasons for
people to illegally download content. The article goes into the motivations of piracy where they,
“identified four motivations for engaging in piracy, namely, to share culture/content, to sample,
the inability to afford content and to undermine the current copyright regime” (Steinmetz and
Tunnel 56). This shows how copyright is connected to piracy and relates this article to the first
one. The article then talks about the various Techniques of Neutralization processes, “by which
tensions between two potentially conflicting value systems are negated” (Steinmetz and Tunnel
60). This is followed up by the various contradictions in beliefs that the participants have and
how they ignored or unconsciously accepted them.
Of the three articles used in this exploratory essay the one that best appealed to logos was
“Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger: A Study of On-Line Pirates” the article had research to back it
up in multiple areas, like how people rationalized pirating, but also explained the methods it used
and the potential faults that could come with the way they did the study. Overall after reading the
article you get a strong sense of how they came to their conclusion and because of that are more
likely to believe their findings. The next article that appealed to logos the most was “Innovate or
Legislate” this article used a lot of historical facts about the United States to drive home most of
their points on piracy. The article also properly cited all of the sources it used and even more so
had sources that were credible and had good understanding of the subject. Furthermore, the
rhetor did a good job meshing together all of their main points and painted an intricate picture
that was easy to understand. The way they used three different stories to drive home the fact that
innovation cannot happen with legislation was good for logos appeal. The last article appealed to
logos the least; mainly because it hardly cited any of its sources and you just did not get the
sense that you could believe certain facts that are given. The article still held true to most of its
facts, but its important for the rhetor to add citation so that there is more credibility to what they
are saying.
The article that made the strongest ethos appeal was “Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger”
the main reason being that it was an academic article and did a good job of not only presenting
who the authors are but also what profession they come from and what education they have. This
added on to the fact that the study was well written and used language that helped convey their
understanding of the subject while still remaining subjective to the question at hand. The other
two articles I think tie for the same place when it comes to ethos appeal. The biggest reason for
this would be that both of the rhetors for the article are more so journalist then anything else and
their specialties lean towards more general subject matters then specifically on piracy. That being
said “Innovate and Legislate” was more credible simply because it at least tells the audience who
the authors are in the article, which is helpful in discerning what biases and where their
knowledge come from. The article was also well written and tries its best to be objective. “Net
Neutrality for Dummies” does not give an author biography, but some sleuthing around does
show that he is a credible journalist. Both of these articles do a good job of writing their articles
as news pieces and do a better job then the study to actually convey an exigence.
The article to make the strongest appeal for pathos was all three of the articles. “Innovate
or Legislate” and “Net Neutrality for Dummies” were printed in news sites and because of that
tend to use a lot more emotional appeal. The study on the other hand because of its sociological
implications creates a strong emotional appeal for the audience when they can relate to how the
participants answered many of the questions. “Innovate or legislate” for example does a good job
in using the American economy as a way to emotionally connect its audience to the article. The
audience gets a sense that the Internet affects America, which in turn affects them directly. The
article also uses many recent events to make the issue seem like its very current and has a wide
range of effect on different areas of the landscape. “Net Neutrality for Dummies” does a similar
job of directly saying that Net Neutrality will affect the audience and how they use the Internet.
This can definitely persuade people towards one side of the issue and was the strongest appeal to
pathos between the three articles. Lastly the study “Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger” creates
strong ties between the audience and the study group used to find the information by showcasing
how the study group answered many of the questions. These questions say a lot about someone
and it builds up a stronger connection with the audience when they can answer the questions to
find that their answers are similar to the participants. That being said it was more an academic
study than an article so the pathos was not intentional.
My main interest with this question has come strongly for my love for the web and the
overall intrigue that goes with issue. It is not something that can be easily solved either but I do
think that there is a definite right and wrong way to fix the problem. My main motivation as a
scholar comes from my interests in wanting to learn more about the things I use everyday and
how I can protect them. This is an issue that is very current and has the potential to affect
everyone depending on its outcome and because of that I think it is important that this rhetoric
gets as much attention as possible.
My position on the question-at-issue at the beginning of the inquiry was very antiHollywood, because I am just not a big fan of how they run their business, and I was for the most
part all for Net Neutrality because of the equality it brought with it and how it in certain ways
protected the Internet. This was my position because like with the study on pirates most of those
categories of why people pirated is where I would have fit. I was all for the freedom of the
Internet and the downfall of the Hollywood juggernaut. Now I think my position has changed to
being more or less for freedom of the web but not so much to the point that it would halt the
Internet from growing and being a business, like with what Net Neutrality would do. I think the
Internet needs to be seen as a tool that all people have the right to use and that it should also be
seen as a way of doing business. Business needs to be fair and innovation should be allowed,
which means that legislation like copyright laws should not be used so much. It makes people
pirate more and it stops others from being able to use the web how they want.
I first became aware of this issue freshman year of college and since then have done
multiple essays on the various sides of the subject, although recently I have not been up to date
with all the new legislation and talk about the issue this essay did a good job of keeping me up to
date with everything. The issue of net neutrality does not really get talked about and I never have
actually conversed about it with family or friends, but have learned a little bit about through
certain media classes. I think that the general representation of the issue is very anti-Hollywood
and it tries to glorify piracy as a horrible curse without fully looking at the issue. Most media
outlets look at piracy and Net Neutrality and are completely for the freedom of the Internet. Even
so the issue is very one sided and you never get to see the other side of it. The media flocks to
the story because it makes a good headline but rarely ever goes into why things would be the
way they are if certain legislation happened.
All three of the articles helped me create my own view on the issue. “Innovate or
Legislate” helped show me how important innovation is for the Internet to thrive and that if
legislation is created it should be used to help make the Internet thrive and not be used to restrict
its growth. The other article on Net Neutrality also convinced me that the inequality towards
customers is necessary to help grow the Internet and for companies to be able to profit they
should be able to ask for different amounts of money from people who use more bandwidth.
Therefore Net Neutrality is not the answer all movement needed to fix the web. Lastly the study
helped me see how the web can be changed to better fix the reasons people pirate, such as
making content cheaper and easier to get too. These all helped synthesize my view on the issue
and I think it is important for the Internet to be a place not only for communication but also for
business and exchange.
Work Cited
Hayward, John. “Net Neutrality for Dummies.” Human Events. Human Events, 30 April 2012.
Web. 9 April 2013.
Ruffini, Patrick and Reihan Salam. “Innovate or Legislate: How the Hollywood establishment
used SOPA to try to regulate its competition away.” National Review. National Review, 5
March 2012. Web. 4 April 2013
Steinmetz, Kevin and Kenneth Tunnell. “Under the Pixelated Jolly Roger: A Study of On-Line
Pirates.” Taylor and Francis Group. An Interdisciplinary Journal: Deviant Behavior,
34:1, 2 Nov 2013. Web. 9 April 2013.