Under the pirate flag: Study on identification based on filesharing

The present work is set to argue about the spreading of the term pirate, created by economically dominant groups to refer to the internet users that copy and share medias such as films or music illegally through filesharing software and how it became a formo f identity accepted by this group. What was at first created as stigma, now is a label thar establishes a form of virtual ativism of great ideological and political importance.

 The type of piracy I intend to describe is the one commonly refered as the illegal exchange and sharing of archives over the Internet, in special of the intellectual production, as music, films and even entire books. All this content is generated and managed by the own users, Who organize this activity without creator consent and, mosto f the time, looking for no profit of any kind.

Internet piracy became a problem to the cultural industry and governments worldwide as it became a spreading social movement based on a consumer habit. My aim is to clarify how this piracy concept became something positive. To subvert the vision of the pirate and to transform it into an ideal of free access to the information, in opposition to the copyright protected objects. At the same time one becomes necessary to investigate if the label of pirate in comparison with the image of the plunderers of century XVII has parallel with the concept applied to the users and if the Industry has to be able to create an identity on a group of people.