Last blog post I talked about copyright, now I’m going to talk about the other side of the coin, culture. Culture is important, it defines our society, our values, teaches our young and the older, and conveys messages about what is happening in the world. As I mentioned last blog, the existence of copyright was meant to eventually introduce stories into public domain, where they could be modified to eventually become a malleable part of our culture, one that we can change as our culture and values change. Of course the media industry doesn’t exactly want to let go of their copyrights, and they harm our culture in that, but there’s something else that they try to do, companies tend to control our culture.

Now that sounds bad, and it is, I don’t like it at all and I’m not going to defend it, but there is a sort of logic to it. If you control the culture, then you can control everything else, that means values and morals too. Like, say for example, if you control culture you can try and “educate” individuals in your values, making them seem right. You may have noticed this with all those lovely anti piracy ads I keep linking to. The industry is showing you their values, and through a medium that has become part of our culture, trying to have viewers see this as what is right, in this case, not pirating movies is right according to the industry.

But the thing is, people don’t exactly want to let go of culture, so there’s something of a war over culture. The industry is trying to make a consumer culture, where buying things and spending money on products that we probably don’t need is accepted as what people do. Of course they’re in competition with each other, every company wants a piece of that pie, and they’re also in competition with those that are part of a counter-culture, the pirates as you may know them, now with representation in the EU.  One thing is very clear, this war for culture is just getting started.

Now, this is the last blog for class I’m making, but I may keep posting my opinions up here as time goes on. I am a journalism student, and it would be good practice to keep a blog like this. But regardless, thank you Dr. Strangelove for the class, and to anyone else who reads this, keep an eye on the industry, it’s going to be getting interesting.

So I want to talk about copyrights, because its something that’s come up a lot as of late in these blogs, especially regarding piracy. See, a copyright means that an individual or organization owns an intellectual property, and no one else can use it without the licensing. Sounds good so far, you come up with it, you make it, no one else can make money off it without your permission. This is a good way to stop people from making unauthorized iterations of the particular intellectual property, essentially stealing the creator’s ideas, and making money off of it. Now the thing is, copyrights weren’t meant to be permanent things. 

The idea of culture is that the stories and fables we tell are part of our society’s collective mind-frame, as we discussed in media industries eventually the stories that taught our children must become part of society in order for culture to flourish and continue advancing. What that means is that eventually everything should become part of the public domain so that people can do what they want with it, change a story to suit the new morals and new laws of a new age. The original Brothers Grimm fairy tales are no longer acceptable in this day and age, but they have been adapted and changed for this generation’s values and remain iconic stories teaching values to the youth.

It is somewhat ironic then that the company that has created so many adaptations of these old, now public domain stories, Walt Disney, then refused to allow material to become public domain in return. I’ve talked about how much companies try to avoid changing their style of business to adapt to a changing market, and Disney is no different. After the death of Walt Disney, the company found itself in a bit of a tight spot. The way copyright laws worked back then, they had only 50 years until his work became public domain, this would leave many other groups with legal access to their iconic characters. So what did they do? They brought it to the courts, of course. 

Disney wanted copyright to last forever, instead they got 70 years. I’m sure that in a decade or so, they’ll be back in the legislative system trying to push past another Bono legislation or something similar to extend it to 90 years, then to 110 years, and so on and so on. But the thing is, this is hurting our culture. Culture needs our fables to change, needs them to be able to be molded as time goes on, by anyone, anywhere. Without that, it remains stagnant, and that, as an aspiring writer, is not something I want to see happen.

 I’ve talked before about how the industries are trying to condemn and demonize piracy as something that is immoral, illegal, and harmful to society as a whole. Industry analysts gave gone on to proclaim that piracy is killing the industry and causing massive loss of money, ignoring the fact that they seem  to be growing  through a time of economic hardship just fine, and pushing the government to be tougher on piracy to stop themselves from losing money.

The government of the United States wound up listening to the industry, and now is being a lot harder on piracy. I’m sure we’ve all seen the “You wouldn’t steal a car” ads trying to dissuade young individuals from pirating under the idea that it’s a horrible crime on par with breaking into someone’s house and stealing their tv (Here if you haven’t), but what I find insane is the decision to make piracy placed under criminal law like what was brought up in class a while back. Copyright infringement has always been under civil law, which is the place of lawsuits and cases that are not criminal offenses, or, cases that don’t go on your record for the rest of your life.

What this is an example of is trying to demonize and criminalize mass behavior, to stop the masses from doing it. Piracy is big, I won’t try and deny that, a lot of people pirate forms of entertainment, whether they be movies, music or games, and while I personally do not, I’m not demonizing the guys who do, especially if it’s just an episode or two that they missed on tv. Whether or not it is harmful is another matter all together, there are adamant arguments on both sides, those saying that piracy is killing the industry and the economy in general, or those who are less dramatic and just call it stealing, and those who argue that it actually helps the industry. Companies certainly do lose out on some advertising revenue, as piracy does involve less people watching a particular channel at any given time. However, I’ve previously discussed instances in which companies legitimating, particularly Funimation, free channels for their productions on line.

But this trend of the industry demonizing and trying to change mass behavior is not something new. I believe I’ve talked about the various other times that the media industries have cried bloody murder and stated that a new invention will destroy their industry, like with the VHS, tv remote, and various other innovations. This won’t be the last time that something like this will happen either. In fact, it’s happening with something else right now. The video games industry is currently attempting to fight and demonize a long-accepted industry in its own right, the used game industry. If you play any games what so ever you might have noticed that games come with online passes that if you don’t buy new, you have to pay for to get. I won’t go too deep into it, but I will say that media industries seem more likely to force everyone else to change, than to adapt to a new business style that fits the current situation of the world.

            Today I’m going to talk about sports a bit. Yes, I know it seems a bit strange, especially regarding all the other things I’ve been discussing lately, but just stick with me here, I’m getting to something. The thing is, live sports broadcasting is a major thing in the television industry, here in Canada we have hockey, the United States has Football and baseball, and Europe has the original football, known here as soccer. But, these are all extremely large events that have massive fan bases outside of the regular television watching audience, with large audiences that watch live sports religiously.

            Now why am I discussing this when recently I’ve been going over piracy and digital distribution and so on and so forth? Well, what this has to do with the health of the television industry being measured through the health of the sports television, the logic being that sports, with its diehard fans that watch the live games, are not willing to settle for recorded games, they need to see the sports game as it turns out. Watching a recorded match will not cut it for these individuals, therefore they will not, under any circumstances, disconnect their cable. So, for this particular viewership, piracy will not be an option until the point where it is just as efficient and up to date as watching television.

            However, there’s an issue here with the cropping up with an emergence of pirate streaming websites. These are websites that stream live games through unmonitored, uncounted mediums, as they happen just like watching a live game on the television. But, the thing is, there’s also official websites that provide this feature, where you can watch live games as they unfold, so why not just watch it through the official channel? Well, the problem there is that those official websites don’t always transmit to where the user is.

            Honestly, this makes no sense at all to me. Why shouldn’t a viewer in Canada be able to receive footage from an American station? Wouldn’t the advertisements and ratings still be the same? Isn’t the entire point of the internet that information can be accessed anywhere, at any time, from anywhere in the world? That’s how the pirates offer it. So is this a service issue like I quoted Gabe Newell as saying all that time ago in my earlier blogs?

            Consider this for a moment, Funimation, a large anime distributor here in North America, freely offers the entire seasons of various shows that they own the license to, on youtube, for free. If you want to go watch a show? You can. For free. On their youtube channel. No matter where you are. I watched an entire season on that youtube channel, and I am very seriously considering buying the actual physical copy despite having seen the entire season already.

            Now, if Funimation can offer this kind of service, why don’t the sports channels? It would bring them out of competition with this sort of gift economy, where things are freely given from one individual to another that exists online, by entering into it themselves. The audience in this digital day and age, follows the path of least resistance like a river or lightning. The implementation of all these forms of control, like region-coding content or DRM, which I believe I have discussed before, and if I haven’t believe me I will in the future, makes it harder for only honest users to try and access content, while having no effect on pirates. The industry will have to eventually adapt, or face increasing hardships in these matters.

(I wasn’t even looking for a sale when I took this screenshot, this just happens every weekend) *

            This is a topic that doesn’t directly have to do with class and the topics that are discussed in it, but it does have some connection. I’ve talked about Steam twice before and thus revealed myself to be a rather large nerd and fan of video gaming (Don’t worry, I am not taking over this blog to discuss my opinions on the Mass Effect 3 ending, my opinion on the games are art concept, or how many games I own… well, not yet at least…. Mind you Tumblr does let you have more then one blog…) and discussed how Steam is an online distribution system that is actually profitable, having essentially helped make Gabe Newell rich.  

            Now what I want to talk about in this topic is how, in video gaming at least, online distribution for pc games seems to be completely overtaking the classical system of going out and buying discs. There are of course the exceptions, some people prefer to buy their games on disc, or enjoy having the physical collector’s edition, or go out to a midnight launch for the atmosphere, prefer older games that aren’t available as digital downloads, are collectors, and so on. But, as someone that works in a department store that sells video games, I can say from personal experience that despite how much I try and sell PC games, I am consistently unable to sell many of them. The thing is, just like with Netflix threatening the TV industry, digital distribution is threatening retail stores specializing in games, in my not-really-all-that-humble opinion.

            The way I see it is that digital distribution is far more convenient than going to a retail store, especially for pc games. The same way that Netflix made it possible for you to watch dozens of tv show episodes and movies without leaving your couch, Steam has made it possible for you to purchase dozens of games at any minute without leaving your chair. Then there’s also the fact that there is no longer any threat of scarcity, something that has plagued gamers looking for some of the more popular titles around. I remember when Skyrim first came out, it was very difficult to find a copy of it on store shelves, in fact it was nigh-impossible to find a pc copy anywhere. But with Steam, you can buy a copy without any worries of it being sold out, because all you’re doing is downloading a file. This removes the task of hunting around, calling stores, and driving there and back, instead you pay for a game and then you install it, without all the excess tasks involved. This also applies to other products that can be sold via digital distribution, with iTunes and Netflix, there’s no threat of shortage, you can just pay for it and buy it.

            Then there’s the benefit of price, Steam offers things usually for lower prices than you’ll find them in any store, except for the used game catalog of stores such as EB games, Microplay, Futureshop and Bestbuy. But even in the cases of those four stores, that mostly applies to console games due to the now single-use nature of pc games requiring install keys that have to be linked to an online account (an annoyance for those individuals who happen to not have high-speed internet for sure), making it so that Steam is shortens that process as well. But the real nice thing about Steam is its sales, it marks games down massively for many occasions, their weekly weekend deals, their mid-week deals, Easter sales, summer sales, Christmas sales, they have a lot of sales, ok? The thing is though, the store I work at? We don’t mark games down as much as Steam does, we can’t, it’s not possible for us to keep up with Steam because we have to purchase a set number of actual stock, whereas Steam presumably either buys the license to distribute the digital copies, or shares a certain percentage of each sale with the creators themselves. I’ve found myself coming into work and commenting that games I’d consider buying, even with my discount, are far cheaper on Steam.

            I know that iTunes and Netflix also have this kind of price convenience, but in different ways. iTunes lets you purchase only the songs you want from an album for $0.99 each, instead of buying an album that can cost up to twenty or thirty dollars if it’s new. Meanwhile, Netflix has a monthly subscription fee that, for that price, you can watch all the movies they have available on their service, which depending on how many movies you watch, can be a major money save.

            So, what point am I trying to make here, aside from nerding out about Steam and video games? Well, basically the point I’m getting at here is that Steam is a good example of what digital distribution could be. iTunes isn’t profitable, we’ve discussed this in class, it basically breaks even and serves as a way for Apple to sell phones, maybe that’s just how digital distribution works in the music industry which has this far been reliant on selling over-priced cds, and now offers individual songs, allowing consumers to buy only what they want at low prices. But, Steam is profitable, it’s basically helped make Gabe Newell a billionaire, and it might be a sign of a transition into a new age of digital distribution in place of cds, not yet of course, the industry is still young. But if EA’s venture into digital distribution in the form of Origin works out, and the console offerings of Microsoft’s Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA for short), the Play Station Network Store, or Nintendo’s shopping channel work out, we might see digital distribution becoming more common, and then more things being sold through such a system.

*Also let me just say any service that has a game called “Space Pirates And Zombies (And Bounty Hunters)” deserves success in my opinion. Just saying.

         
(Image retrieved from Wikipedia)  

            I have already touched twice on the issue of piracy and how the industry, as opposed to adapting to newer forms of competition, seems to blame their issues on anything but their business practices. It is understandable that companies that have been in an industry for years would be entrenched in their methods of business, and therefore hesitant to adopting brand new business strategies. It only makes sense that the older businesses that cannot, or will not adapt to new technological trends tend to be brought down by them, and that they will blame new technologies for their problems, it’s something that’s been happening back since the remote control.

            But, the issue I want to talk about today isn’t regarding the reaction of companies to piracy, I think I’ve done a decent job at covering that so far. No, the issue I want to talk about today is the reaction of individuals to the demonization of piracy. Now there is of course the reaction by some to continue piracy, becoming criminals because it is just an average way of life, or to spite the systems being put in place secretly through trade agreements and other legislation, but there’s also another movement that seems to be growing. This other movement is a group that is trying to legitimize piracy, and seems to be gaining some ground in the form of Pirate parties, which are present within the parliament of some political organizations, including the EU.

            Due to the fact that there seems to be an extreme crackdown on the idea of pirating, with groups labelling it as supporting organized crime and terrorism, it is surprising that there isn’t more pressure or crackdowns on these political parties. But, they do only exist in Europe, right? Well, they are most prominent in Europe having actually gained seats, but they also exist in North America, like our very own Pirate Party of Canada. This is a very interesting trend, one I’m going to keep my eye on. I might not be the biggest fan of piracy, but I certainly don’t believe that downloading a movie is on the same level as terrorism, and besides, this is an interesting political development. It signals the attempt of individuals who have found themselves being misrepresented and being frustrated with the current management of issues, particularly that of piracy, trying to change the system from within and gain political power. I’ll be interested to see how successful they’ll be.

            WE have previously talked about the tendency of the industry to blame woes that they are experiencing on factors that are not the direct cause of a damage of their market control. AS I previously mentioned, the factor that have previously been blamed or accused of being the cause of a death of the mass industry turned out to be nothing of the such, instead the market was simply blaming new technologies for damaging them instead of adapting their business strategy to deal with the new market. Now, it may have become clear I’m something of a nerd from my existing blogs, and the fact that I’m doing this will make it more so, I’m going to talk about video games in this example.

            Now, it was brought up during the class that I write this very blog for, that the reason the music industry is not doing well isn’t because of rampant piracy, I’m sure it has an effect, but it’s not the direct causal link. No, the reason is that people aren’t buying cds anymore. Now that may sound like it’s the same thing, but it’s not. No, see, people are still paying for music, just their doing it in a way that leaves out the record industries. Ticket sales for concerts are up, and I’m willing to bet that sales for particular songs are up as well, despite the fact that apple doesn’t actually make money off iTunes. The thing is, there are now alternatives to purchasing an overpriced album that has more songs than anyone wants to listen to, cheaper alternatives at that too. People don’t want to buy the big package anymore, and opt to do something else, and the market just isn’t catching on.

            Now, where digital distribution is apparently VERY profitable is in the videogame market. We’ve seen how Blockbuster lost out to Netflix (Which ironically isn’t doing that well these days ) and how the record industries aren’t doing that well, but video games? They’re doing well. In fact Steam is reportedly HUGELY profitable, capturing 70% of the market. Not only this, but while the games industry is blaming pirates for losing money, Gabe Newell, the man in charge of Steam, has stated that piracy is a service issue. So what exactly is the issue in the industry? Perhaps it’s the fact that excuses seem to be coming up, excuses that wind up giving the industry and government more and more control than they had before through the legislation they move to put in place to ensure piracy doesn’t affect them anymore, except for the small detail that I’ve mentioned before in that it doesn’t really seem to work. Piracy isn’t something that goes away, the more you try to root it out, the more it seems to dig in. However, what can be done is treating the consumer less like they’re just going to pirate a product anyways, there are legitimate customers, we do exist, and we’re not planning on copying your disks, we swear, so can you stop putting draconian DRM on the things we’d like to use, and maybe even mod to add content to it? I think that’s what drives people to pirate, the fact that they’re being seen as criminals before they even do anything, so heck, if they can get a better deal from the criminals, why not?

            Something very interesting in industries in general is how the larger companies/corporations in the industry, the ones that tend to form the oligopolies, continue to expand after becoming a main faction within the industry that they began in and have become part of the ruling elite of it. This is tied in to the idea of how technology, despite the efforts of those looking to make devices into single-function appliances, is becoming more and more versatile with devices and media becoming more and more interconnected. This is in particular interesting in the social media industry that exists one the internet at the moment, most interestingly between Apple, Google and Facebook. The three companies are very much in competition over the market of acquiring and selling user data to third parties as a means of making profit.

However, in this market there has been the recent development of the smartphone, which are far more versatile than any old cellphones. We are seeing a day and age when internet is no longer only available at home or at work, but instead now is at the fingertips of anyone owning a smartphone. This is even more so now with access such as 3G, which allows access to the World Wide Web anywhere where there is 3g service. So, what are these companies to do now that there is a brand new horizon in which access to service is possible, especially seeing as Apple’s iPhone, one of the most well-known smartphones, is owned by Apple and gathers great deals of information about its users. The only option to remain competitive and adapt to new technology as opposed to resisting it and inevitably losing to the unstoppable tide of new developments that will slowly eat at their market, is to enter into the market themselves.

But, in-house development of brand new hardware is time consuming, and expensive, and is especially risking when entering into a new industry altogether. The issue here is breaking into the industry however, especially in this example as Apple is firmly entrenched in the smartphone market. So, what is a company to do? In Google’s case, and in the case of many other companies that are looking to break into an industry that they have no presence in at the moment, the answer is very simple: Buy an existing company to enter into the market. Google was somewhat better off than most companies in this kind of situation, they already have an existing Operating System for the smartphone in their Android platform, so all they need is the hardware to aid in their official entrance in the market. But, how exactly will Google get this new hardware to enter into the market with? Well, their purchase of Motorola, which has just recently been ok’d by both the US and the EU, is the method (article found here from Yahoo News  ). The question that is now in the minds of some is whether or not Facebook will be following behind Google now that the social media battle seems to moving into the market of smartphones.

There’s another annoying trend in the media industry that has been seen before though. If a company survives, unlike Kodak whose evident death throes were mentioned in my previous blog, and becomes one of the major elites, these existing industry giants seem to consume the newer upstart companies. So, despite all their growth there is a curiosity as to whether or not as to whether or not this is the eventually fate of companies such as Google and Facebook.

                Recently in class we’ve been discussing the topic of business in the media industry and how fickle the market can be in regards to the products that are on top of the market and which companies dominate the technologies emerging into the public eye. One of the most notable companies that was on top of the entire market, and in fact invented the digital camera, Kodak has fallen on very hard times as of lately, largely due to its own invention. Indeed, Kodak was killed by the digital camera, an ironic death if there ever was one. But, like the death of Nortel, and the slow crumbling of RIM and the blackberry (which personally I hope makes a recovery, Canada being a major player in terms of the cellphone market is nice, and I personally like the products that RIM offers), the destruction of Kodak’s seat of power leaves questions as to who exactly will be next.

                Another spot that the market is fickle in is in how it can also undermine parts of the media industry, or so these parts claim, from invention that are extremely ground breaking and possibly lucrative inventions that have allowed for the creation of many other companies. The biggest example is probably the internet, as it has allowed new industry giants such as Google and Facebook to enter into the market, but on the flip side has allowed for piracy. Piracy, so the content producers claim, has damaged them by allowing individuals to freely share content they would either have to buy on dvd, or watch on a channel at a specific time (or record). But these cries of the death of an industry are not new, they came with the invention of the VCR and prior to that with the creation of television.

                Anytime a new form of media arrives that the companies at the top of the market using an old media form feel threatens them, they inevitably try and take control of it and push regulations and policies on the new form of media. One of the best examples of this would be the radio. When the radio first came out, it offered unprecedented accessibility to the news, whereas before one would have to wait for a daily newspaper, now interested citizens could just turn on the radio and receive breaking news at any time during the day. Due to a fear that this sort of updated news would kill print newspaper, the newspaper companies managed to get restrictions put on when and how the news could be broadcast on the radio through the Associated Press and Canadian Press, the organizations that gave information to the newspapers.

                These restrictions have a long history of failing in the long run however. One of the first media inventions that allowed the spread of information far and wide with mass production of a work was Gutenberg’s Printing Press, which was initially used for the production of indulgences, a way to fund the ambitious works the Catholic Church was working on at the time. However, despite the church’s attempt and maintaining control over the printed work and excommunicating those that they deemed to be heretical, the printing press also allowed for the works of Martin Luther to be widely distributed, thus changing the face of Europe and aiding the reformation of the church.

                So we come now to the attempts at restriction of the day, SOPA and ACTA being shining examples of them. The companies at the top of the media industry feel threatened by the emergence of a new form of media, one that they believe is threatening their way of doing business. Instead of adapting to this new form of media, like so many organizations before, they lobby the government to place restrictions upon the new media, through acts like SOPA, and through agreements like ACTA, forced down the throat of other countries in trade agreements. But can they really expect to control it? Can the restrictions they place on the internet really stop it from continuing along as a new, powerful media? History would seem to say “Not a chance”.

            It seems to be market nature for the majority of power in a certain industry, be it television, music, games, hardware, or even miniatures, to be consolidated within a handful, usually around five, of corporations. Oligopolies seem to be the common development in any form of industry, especially noticeable here in Canada with our forced oligopolies in an attempt to ensure that control over the Canadian market remains, well, Canadian. Corporations are also very important in western countries, such as the one we live in, due our capitalist economic system and our strong belief in the market and Adam Smith’s invisible hand to pull up those businesses that are efficient and productive, and push down those less successful businesses. There is also a tendency, under more conservatives right wing governments, to try and remove the government from the market, allowing the market to act on its own.

            With the prominence of the market, corporations are extremely important in society, we depend on them for the goods and services we use every day, as we develop preferences in those products and brand names we use, and through experimentation develop a list of those that we avoid. In Canada we have a bit of a different situation, in that a lot of our market is overseen by the government who decide what markets to open up to foreign investors. In terms of banks, we have the options of Scotia bank, RBC, TD, Bank of Montreal, and CIBC with a few smaller ones that are mostly related to investment corporations like ING. However, this is a stark contrast to the banking situation in the United States with its many smaller banks that pop up all over their country. While this in itself does not have much to do with media industries, I’m more just using it as an example of the situation in Canada. You want television and home phone here? You’ll be going through probably either Rogers, Bell, Shaw, Teletron or Cogeco. Want a cellphone? It’s probably going to be through Rogers, Bell, Koodo, Telus, or Fido. There’s not a lot of competition.

            But even with this oligopoly, or maybe because of it, the fact is that we’re allowing these businesses to become part of our daily lives, and become part of who we are. For example, I personally hate Bell, I can’t stand them, and I have no interest in doing business with them, but I have found that I (despite their atrocious hold times) like Rogers and am developing something of a brand loyalty to them, if only because they’re not Bell. I know that there are major debates over which is better, the Xbox or the Playstation, and people do get very serious over the debates. Apple has a major audience that is very loyal to it because of  their branding, and I know there are very heated debates over why the iPhone is better than the blackberry. We are starting to make corporations part of our lives, part of our society and culture. WE have parties based around products, like release parties for movies, video games, songs, or in Nike’s case, collector shoes. Media produced on television and on the internet is starting to affect our reality, changing what we view as reality and making us perceive our reality differently.

            The positions of power that these businesses find themselves in is not set in stone however. There is a constant and continuous branding war that businesses in the media must pour funding into ensuring that their products and services have an edge to them. As new forms of media, the internet for example, open up the manner in which these businesses, these ruling elite of the oligopoly, operate changes. For example, Myspace, once the most well-known social media site is now a thing of the past, having given way to Facebook, which in turn seems to be giving way to Google and its Google+, in addition to the other companies eating away at Facebook’s user base in other countries where their services are more popular. There is a certain audience that these industries must battle over, with smartphones for example, where the iOS and Android are currently battling for smartphone users, with RIM looking like a casualty of this competition.

            This is also tied in to piracy, with there now being a free or cheaper alternative to the products and programming that are offered by major businesses in the media industries. It is not just digital piracy that’s an issue, but also things such as counterfeiting, a rampant issue with cheap knock-off versions of products being sold. As I mentioned in my previous blog, I believe, like Gabe Newell, that online piracy is largely a service issue, with there being better ways of dealing with piracy then trying to crack down on it, which in my opinion just moves legitimate users towards piracy with cracked programs that are otherwise difficult for legitimate paying customers to access. Counterfeiting on the other hand is a rampant issue in countries such as China, where there are even counterfeit stores selling products.

            As a major part of the economy, the businesses that are up in the top market shares of their respective industries, have a fairly large amount of political clout, and can move their weight even more in the political world through lobbyists and campaign payments. This allows these oligopolies to influence not only our society and culture through their branding, which through reification (the act of making things real, in this sense making products more real) has come to become part of our culture, but also our political reality. This allows them to push forward political acts to harm counterfeiters and pirates, who are a major source of illegal competition, such as SOPA, PIPA and the now being discussed ACTA. These kinds of acts to harm pirates, as I previously discussed, don’t seem to harm them at all though, merely coming back to bite legitimate businesses and users and pushing them further towards pirate action.

            -Stephen Sedgwick-Williams