The global ‘epidemic’ of movie ‘piracy’: crime-wave or social construction?

Abstract

The growth of film ‘piracy’ has become an increasingly high-profile issue. Business groups, national governments, international organizations and law enforcement agencies have claimed that ‘piracy’ has undergone near-exponential growth, doing untold damage to the movie industry. This article attempts to critically examine this apparent ‘epidemic’. Two contrasting types of explanation are explored. The first treats the rise in film ‘piracy’ as the real effect of a range of social, economic and technological changes. However, the second perspective takes a more critical stance towards ‘official’ discourse, and suggests that the ‘epidemic’ in fact ought to be seen as the product of shifting legal regimes, lobbying activities, rhetorical manoeuvres, criminal justice agendas, and ‘interested’ or ‘partial’ processes of statistical inference. I suggest that this latter reading of ‘piracy’ as a ‘social construction’ is a necessary and valuable counter to an industry-led discourse that tends to obscure rather than illuminate the complex array of processes at work.