Panel Statement
Panel: How dare you? Acts of Deviance and Strategies of Discreditation
The term ‘Piracy’ has been used by copyright holders to declare different forms of copyright infringement and simple nonprofit peer-to-peer file sharing techniques as criminal and destructive antisocial acts. However, the use of this devaluating denomination has developed its own dynamics. What was meant to discredit a set of cultural practices has backfired, as the so called pirates gradually co-opted the name by activating the inherent heroic and rebellious connotations. Piracy as a label has become a ubiquitous symbol in the online- and offline world. Sailing under the flag of piracy as a form of deviance is now even understood as a radically liberal political action.
- Anna Lena Seiser studied Mediaculture and Social Communication at Bauhaus University Weimar and Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil. In 2009/2010 she was part of the programme team of transmediale.10 FUTURITY NOW! – festival for art and digital culture Berlin. Her research interests include data piracy, aesthetics and the value of disturbance, social implications of software architecture and tactics of cultural cannibalism à la Oswald de Andrade.