The Pirate's Dilemma - Boundaries

We have all seen new forms of media come and go over the past century. One of those forms was the record disc and its uncanny ability to record sound for the first time in history. People came together from all over town and gathered in houses, dance halls, and disco lofts to socialize, party, and connect with one another while being able to escape their daily lives. Before the internet this is what people relied on for social interaction and open source entertainment.

In chapter five of Matt Mason's book, The Pirates Dilemma, Mason discusses the revolutionized movement of youth culture from the 1950's and 1960's and how their social ideas drove them to develop new forms of media to build social interaction. It is exactly like how youth culture from the 1960's had encouraged them to hold dance parties in lofts, collect records, and find new methods to get high or get together. For youth, the desire to be together with friends had driven them to become productive in order to create faster and easier ways to connect and have fun. Mason also argues that the computer had been invented by young adults whose views were shaped on hippie psychedelic social ideas were integrated into the PC's development.

"The PC, as we shall now see, also was designed to be a social machine like the Loft—a way of sharing information that offered new freedoms and possibilities while posing a serious threat to some oppressive systems of old. It has since birthed what is known as the open-source movement, which started out as a way to build computer operating systems but is fast becoming a design for life...The great transformative technology of our lifetime was more than just a triumph of engineering and finance. It was, just as compellingly, the result of a concerted effort by a group of visionaries—fuelled by progressive values, artistic sensibilities and the occasional mind altering drug—to define the idea of what a computer could be: a liberating tool to expand and enrich human potential." (Mason, 2008, 143)

During the later half of the 20th century, phonographic music industries feared the new emergence of the cassette tape and home recording would kill the record music business, yet, in fact, it was the opposite. This new form of media allowed music DJs and music listeners to share the experience of music with one another and almost instantly, the dance lofts were brought into the home. It was the first form of file sharing and like file sharing, it was despised by music industries from all over the world. Yet, there was little that could be done to stop the sharing of files and illegal downloading of software, music, and media. Web 2.0 is a mass media form used to collect and distribute information and other forms of media and was the perfect catalyst for the Pirate's Dilemma. With the help of Web 2.0, people are no longer restricted by boundaries or obstacles in the search for new media entertainment and social interaction. The personal computer and web freed people from the world restricted by boundaries and distances and people are now able to share media with each other now more than ever.