I just finished watching a video of Matt Mason - author of "The Pirate's Dilemma" - giving a talk that more or less covered the topic of his book.

First of all, Matt really gets it. He really does. He is looking a piracy as reflective not of a failure in the legal structure, but failure in companies' approach in their own market. I hate to put too much of a commercial/free-market spin on this, for what I'm going to connect it with is at times orthogonal to that perspective, but he's right when he says that pirates:

• identify gaps within and outside the existing marketplace


• may do damage, but carry valuable information in their actions


• can often harness the collective consciousness of their audience and turn that into social change

He primarily draws on pirate radio in Europe, but connects it with the record industry, fashion, etc. The solution he proposes to combat piracy is to either (1) fight it when appropriate, or (2) compete with it and treating it as a real (if illegitimate) force. To compete, companies should learn from where pirates are adding value to their product, where they are increasing a products recognition or brand value, and identifying advantages in selling convenience and experience.

As with many things, I couldn't help but start comparing some of his talk to things I've read by Paolo Virno - specifically about opportunism an virtuosity. Firstly - and I've covered this in the blog before - competing with piracy in many sectors is a matter of recognizing that main players must begin to locate value in non-physical products, the product of immaterial labor. As Virno points out, McDonalds has this down with their "service with a smile." You aren't going there for the burgers, but for the service (quick, friendly, etc).

More interestingly, it seems that what Matt is pointing out is the opportunism of the pirates. Virno would probably say that this is a natural result of the shift to a post-fordist world. Opportunism is a virtue, if not necessity, rather than something to be frowned upon. In an interview with Archipelago in 2002 he said:

"...if it is certain that postfordist labor has at its center communication - culture in the most full sense of the term - then, it is necessary to commence analysis starting from certain emotions, but not emotions in the psychological sense, but rather emotions understood as forms of being, forms of being in the world, and we began to discuss the negative feelings: before all others, opportunism, later cynicism and finally fear. We believed that opportunism understood as mass emotion, signified that each individual worked in contact with many distinct opportunities, opportunites understood in a technical sense."

It seems very clear that contemporary labor's very core is communication. No need to look further than sales of the Blackberry to prove that. So it is a natural result that participants in this new era should take advantage of opportunities they see - this is what Matt calls "gaps".

So to blend these two sources, ultimately Matt Mason is suggesting that companies take a hint from the pirates and wake up to their post-fordist existence. It will not be an easy task to theorize the role of a company acting as a post-fordist subject, but perhaps that is where we are headed.

Posted by Nathan at 10:08 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

I finally got around to reading Nick Spencer's review of Hardt and Negri's Empire and Multitude, "The Machinic Multitude." Yes, it was published nearly two and a half years ago and I marked it as something to read about six months ago, but things don't always happen in time.

I was originally intrigued by the title, expecting the review to look at the formation of machine-based collective subjectivities. Instead, Spencer succinctly highlighted H&N's dual description of the general intellect. For them the term at once applies to the process of pushing machines toward subjectivity through autonomy, as well as the movement of the collective, socialized worker toward a machinic state. He draws this point as part of his larger purpose of calling for academics to defetishize the technological aspect of multitude and instead focus on the centrality of labor.

Where Spencer's analysis starts to rub me the wrong way is in his fixation on H&N's discussion of the cyborg. He argues that their use of the cyborg as a concept points to a failure to move beyond workerist sentiments that have since become irrelevant - and which the two texts are supposed to step beyond. Yet, at least in Multitude, I find that their discussion of the cyborg is used less to underscore the technological or machinc aspects, but to discuss the worker as an essentially network form.

And perhaps that point shows where my opinion differs from Spencer's. I do not see academics' focus on the role of the technological in the potentialities of the multitude as a distraction from its core. Rather, the subjectively-aware machine, or network enabling technology more broadly, should be seen as an influence that enables and catalyzes the formation of pre- and post-individual subject formation on the ontological level.

Posted by Nathan at 09:04 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)

There are a few things that can ensnare me in a passionate argument at a party. I generally try not to be the person yelling about subaltern network cultures in the middle of a room. This happened over the weekend, however, when I was speaking to someone who tried to convince me that "a rational form of discourse" should be imposed upon web-based communication.

I am no fan of the hundreds of spam comments this blog - and that's not much compared to blogs with better traffic. Nor am I a supporter of folks who use message boards as tools to degrade their fellow users. At the same time any sort of call for "a rational discourse" is very troubling.

The point I take most issue with is the singular nature of the clause. To imply that there should be one, or even several, accepted modes of discourse in online communication would serve to do nothing more than sterilize a large swath of activity. Message board trolls, spam blogs, and rickrollings may not be desirable, but they represent the relative fluidity of the medium that has also allowed the development of peer-to-peer networks, social network sites, and even the World Wide Web itself.

What makes online communication and development so wonderful is not simply the broad access to information, but also its ability to nurture subaltern communities and projects. It is in the holes of the facade that nearly every successful online venture we see today had their start. We are dealing with a medium whose cracks offer as much - if not more - potential than its surfaces. To ask for "a rational discourse" is to ask for the denial of this central appealing property.

Posted by Nathan at 10:20 PM | Permalink | Comments (1) | TrackBacks (0)

Last week was the beginning of the baseball season so my mind has tended to wander in that direction of late. Really, though, there are few organizations that put as much stock in the idea of a digitized, commodified, and remote subjectivity than Major League Baseball.

Say what you will about their new media practices - from denying teams the ability to create their own websites, to cracking down on unofficial highlight reels posted to video sites - MLB has usually been one step ahead of the game. They seem to understand what's coming down the new media road and effectively build up their defenses to prevent their government sanctioned monopoly from some imagined threat.

It's no surprise then, that this organization which pioneered DRM strategies with their online video (to add another to the list) has been active in attempting to lock down the subjective product of the game of baseball.

As the players go out into the field and make their way through the nine innings, they are not only in the process of producing fan-turnout, wins, and other such affective quantities, they are producing data points. And in baseball, data points are a huge business. Everything from base running and pitching to weather and streak length are measured by amateurs and professionals alike. These data points are then used on cards, in fantasy leagues, or in home-brewed prediction engines.

These data points are the result of an individual's actions within a particular context - so we might safely say that they are the result of subjective interaction in multiple. Batter A would never have had that .350 average if it weren't for Pitcher B, after all.

So when MLB goes into one of its fits over who owns the historical records of game data and statistics like averages and percentages, what they are really expressing is their desire to enact a great degree of control over these indices of subjectivity. They have seen for some time now that value in a networked environment stem from the affective and subjective production of an individual or collection of individuals. So, like with past keen insights like predicting that the Web would take off, MLB is doing everything they can to get a firm grip before their customers or teams are able to take notice.

Posted by Nathan at 12:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) | TrackBacks (0)