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Nelson Guillen

Dr. Erin Dietel-Mclaughlin

FYC 13100: First-Year Composition

27 September 2010

c c c Piracy, Illegal or Not

From the dawn of mankind, we have desired to develop every new technology

possible. We have searched for any technology that might make our lives easier such a

phone that allows us to send messages, record video, make calls, and connect to the

internet. One would think that the development of new technologies would continue to

please us indefinitely, but today we are faced with a dilemma that does not please us. As

Andrew Keen explains to us in his article, ³Web 2.0,´ the Web 2.0 movement has arrived

and provided the technology that allows every citizen to become an artist or writer with

an opinion. As a result, a dilemma has arisen between what should be done about piracy,

file sharing, and whether Web 2.0 is dangerous to the preservation of our culture and arts.

Lawrence Lessig¶s article ³In Defense of Piracy´, serves to justify that piracy and file

sharing are not as malignant as the entertainment industry make them seem and that there

is no reason that new forms of creativity have to be discouraged, especially when they

could actually strengthen our culture. Even though Keen makes a convincing case using

informal dialect, pathos and ethos, and irony to support the belief that the new generation

of Internet is harmful to our culture, Lessig presents a indisputable argument employing

formal dialogue, logos, ethos, and pathos to convince his audience that amateur creativity

is why technological culture has flourished. After rhetorically analyzing both articles, it is

apparent that ³In Defense of Piracy´ should be incorporated in the next edition of ³They
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Say/I Say´, as Lessig offers a more reasonable and effective solution to the problem of

technology than Keen does.

Through the article ³Web 2.0´ posted on the h
 

 Andrew Keen

reveals that while advancements in technology have allowed the second generation of the

Internet to develop, it¶s not necessarily a good thing. Keen presumes that we ³moderns´

have not been very good at resisting great seductions like that of the Web 2.0 movement.

Keen is concerned with protecting citizens from seductive opinions of artists and writers.

More so, Keen¶s comparison of ³Marx¶s seductive promise about individual self-

realization´ to the ³creative amateur´ empowered by Web 2.0, highlights his audience¶s

interests. Keen¶s audience is for the most part the capitalist American public because they

are the individuals who regard Marxism as detrimental to society. Keen makes the

reference to Marxist beliefs to persuade his capitalist audience to realize that the Web 2.0

movement is seductive. Keen contradicts the common belief that we have an obligation to

develop technology by saying that we should question the development of technology if

we care about preserving the vitality of culture and the arts. Andrew Keen discusses how

digital piracy has been enabled by Web 2.0 and justified by ³communists like Larry

Lessig´ to appeal to the values of his elite, capitalist audience (Keen). Through his claims

and support, Keen succeeds in portraying Web 2.0 as nightmare about the over-

abundance of authors. His convincing statement that ³without an elite mainstream media,

we will lose our memory for things learnt, read, experienced, or heard´ surely means that

something should be changed in the Web 2.0 movement (Keen).

Keen begins his article by employing the use of pathos to establish a connection

with his audience by saying that the ³[Web 2.0 movement¶s] great seduction is actually a
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fusion of two historical movements: the counter-cultural utopianism of the '60s and the

techno-economic utopianism of the '90s.´ In this statement Keen presumes that to his

audience had reservations about the µ60s and µ90s movement. By presuming this, Keen

evokes emotions in his audience to find the Web 2.0 movement to be objectionable and to

abhor it. He argues that they should not support the Web 2.0 movement, unless they

would like the worst of both movements. The use of the word seductive to describe the

Web 2.0 movement and its repetition throughout the article has a negative connotation.

Keen successfully develops pathos through the repetition of the word seductive, as his

audience would not want to agree with a movement that was seductive. More so, the

word seductive suggests that the Web 2.0 movement is immoral and sinful because it is

like when ³Marx seduced a generation of European idealists with his fantasy of self-

realization in a communist utopia´ (Keen). The allusion of the ³Web 2.0 dream [to]

Socrates¶ nightmare [that] technology arms every citizen with the means to be an

opinionated artist or writer´ reveals that Keen is concerned with protecting citizens from

seductive opinions of amateur artists and writers (Keen). This allusion is an example of

the effective use of pathos because it persuades Keen¶s audience to agree with him

because he is concerned with protecting citizens. This is important in Keen¶s argument

because his audience could feel insecure about there being seductive amateur artists and

writers, yet Keen offers them emotional support with his allusion. Towards the end of his

argument, Keen poses the question, ³is [digital piracy] draining revenue from established

artists, movie studios, newspapers, record labels, and song writers [a bad thing]?´ By

posing this question, Keen uses pathos to arise emotion in the reader by answering that
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the democratization of media will create media into ³[j]ust the flat noise of opinion´

(Keen).

Another rhetorical strategy that Keen uses successfully is that of ethos to establish

his credibility. The fact that Keen employs ethos effectively contributes a great deal to his

article because ethos enables the writer to establish his intelligence and respect by using

their values and education to project the impression that they are worth listening to. Keen

informs us that he is a ³Silicon Valley veteran´ to strengthen his argument because he is

talking about the Web 2.0 movement from experience. This establishes his credibility

coming from the roots of the environment in which the Web 2.0 movement started. Keen

compares his friend, a Silicon Valley entrepreneur, to a ³cultural Marxist´ for developing

³a technology platform that creates easy-to-use software tools for online communities to

publish weblogs, digital movies, and music.´ This analogy serves to establish Keen¶s

values as a capitalist and elitist. Keen further appeals to his values and audience¶s values

by stating that the Web 2.0 movement suggests that ³even the most poorly educated and

inarticulate amongst us²can and should use digital media to express and realize

themselves.´ Through this statement Keen uses ethos to develop his views that only the

educated, like his audience, should be authors and writers. Keen further strengthens his

capitalistic values by saying that digital piracy, one of the outcomes of Web 2.0, is

³enabled by Silicon Valley hardware and justified by Sillicon Valley intellectual property

communists such as Larry Lessig´ (Keen).

The last rhetorical technique Keen employs in his article is that of logos, which

offers a different side to Keen¶s argument by persuading his readers through the use of

effective, logical reasoning. With the use of logos, Keen provides us with the information
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of the most important ³laws´ in Silicon Valley, ³Moore¶s Law, [which] states that the

number of transistors on a chip doubles every two years, thus doubling the memory

capacity of the personal computer every two years (Keen). Keen uses this statistic to

reason that while Moore¶s Law has continually improved the Silicon Valley economy, it

has equally improved the condition of man. The use of logos in Keen¶s argument is

important because he uses it to appeal to the intellectualness of his audience by

acknowledging the several different sides and viewpoints of his argument that his

audience may have.

While Keen¶s article ³Web 2.0´ does exhibit strong rhetorical techniques,

Lawrence Lessig¶s article ³In Defense of Piracy´ offers a contending interpretation for

what piracy really means. Lessig¶s article, which was posted on the Wall Street Journal,

makes it evident that there are many reasons why piracy is a lot more beneficial than

copyright laws make it appear. Lessig suggests that lawyers of the entertainment industry

do not always make fair demands. He gives the example of the innocent mom that

captured a clip of her 13-month-old child dancing to a song by Prince and put it on

YouTube. The video soon became very popular and couple months later, the mom, Ms.

Lenz, was accused of making an unauthorized performance of the song ³Let¶s Go Crazy´

(Lessig). Lessig argues that while there are a lot of violations against copyrights that

occur, this one was not justified. Her reasoning is that neither Prince nor Universal was

being harmed by this video as it had poor audio quality. Nevertheless, Universal¶s

lawyers believe that people like Ms. Lenz who make such videos are liable to a fine up to

$150,000 (Lessig). Such drastic measures and penalties imposed by lawyers do not make

much sense. There have been a series of cases like the one mentioned above, yet we still
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have not made any changes to current copyright laws. Lessig agrees that there could be a

copyright law that would allow for such creativity to be legal that would not take away

from the artists¶ or recording label¶s profits. These ³copyright wars´, are largely aimed at

teens and kids sharing files or illegally downloading files through a computer (Lessig).

While this is understandable, there is no reason that new forms of creativity have to be

discouraged, especially when this could actually strengthen our culture.

Lessig effectively employs the use of pathos to explain the story of the 13-month-

old son of Stephanie Lenz who she recorded dancing to the song ³Lets Go Crazy.´ This is

a great example of pathos on behalf of Lessig because almost anyone can recall an

adorable moments when a baby did something for the first time. Through this example,

Lessig makes his audience to feel connected to the story and evokes their love and care

for Stephanie Lenz¶s son. Lessig goes on to say how Ms. Lenz ³did what any citizen of

the 21st century would do: She uploaded the file to YouTube and sent her relatives and

friends the link´ (Lessig). With this statement, Lessig makes this situation seem harmless

and joyous, contrary to the thought of Universal Music Group. Universal, who manages

the copyrights of Prince, demanded that the YouTube remove the ³unauthorized

performance of Prince¶s music´ (Lessig). Lessig uses pathos to appeal to his audience¶s

emotions and make this action by Universal seems completely absurd and heartless on

their behalf.

Even though Lessig made a convincing argument with a logical solution for the

problem of piracy, he could have offered more rhetorical arguments employing pathos.

For example, Lessig could have gone into more detail about how the copyright owners of

Bob Marley, Michael Jackson and Madonna felt about Candice Breitz carrying on
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exhibitions with their music. By doing this, Lessig would have been able to use the

reactions of these copyright owners to support his argument of why piracy in this form is

not as damaging as copyright lawyers make it seem. Nevertheless, Lessig¶s article is

worthy of being included in the next edition of ³They Say/I Say´ because his overall

article is constructed with sound arguments and effective rhetorical style.

Another great example of how Lessig attempts to persuade his audience is

through his use of logos to successfully argue that Universal¶s demand was not justified

as ³the quality of the recording was terrible´ and ³no one would download Ms. Lenz¶s

video to avoid paying for Prince for the music´ (Lessig). His reasoning makes perfect

sense because Universal¶s lawyers believe ³she is liable to a fine of up to $150,000 for

sharing 29 seconds of Holden dancing´ (Lessig). Through this situation it becomes

obvious that copyright laws concerning piracy are not very reasonable and right. Not only

does Lessig offer a strong argument, but he also offers a reasonable solution and

approach to the piracy problem. Lessig offers his opinion saying ³it doesn¶t have to be

like this«we could craft copyright law to encourage a wide range of both professional

and amateur creativity, without threatening Prince¶s profits´ (Lessig). This approach to

craft copyright law would not threaten the profits of artists or unreasonably hold amateur

media creators accountable for copyright infringement.

Lawrence Lessig employs ethos to establish his credibility in defending piracy

from unreasonable copyright laws by citing a series of situations in which artists have

merged media sources from other artists to successfully create something meaningful.

Lessig gives the example of how Candice Breitz has ³done similar exhibits of fans

singing the music of Bob Marley, Michael Jackson and Madonna´ (Lessig). Lessig also
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offers the occasion ³in 2004, [when] Danger Mouse put together ³The Grey Album,

which combined vocals from Jay-Z¶s The Black Album and samples from The Beatles´

(Lessig). Through ethos, Lessig reveals his kind-hearted values by stating, ³Peer-to-peer

file sharing is the enemy in the copyright wars«kids stealing stuff with a computer is the

target´ (Lessig). Finally Lessig presents us with a dilemma about whether criminalizing

creativity and piracy is any good for society. Lessig states ³our kids live in an age of

prohibition, where more and more of what seems to them to be ordinary behavior is

against the law«they see themselves as criminals [and] begin to get used to the idea

(Lessig).´ Lessig believes that such a dilemma can only be solved by crafting copyright

laws that will not characterize kids as criminals.

Both Lawrence Lessig and Andrew Keen make compelling arguments regarding

the development of new technologies and piracy by using effective rhetorical strategies

like pathos, ethos, and logos. However, Lessig offers a much stronger solution based on

logic than does Keen. Keen believes that we have ³a moral obligation to question the

development of technology´ or Web 2.0 and piracy could destroy our culture and arts

(Keen). This argument fails to address how the development of new technologies has

only made it possible for economies to grow. Lessig on the other hand, reveals that we

have a prominent problem concerning copyright laws, and that they need to be crafted to

stop framing creative kids as criminals. Lessig¶s argument offers a solution based on

logic that would neither be harmful to one side or the other.

Andrew Keen¶s article, however, did not provide a logical solution based on the

information he provided yet, his rhetorical arguments were very persuasive. Throughout

his article, Keen showed himself to be a well informed digital media critic and provided
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many examples employing rhetorical strategies to successfully inform the reader.

Nevertheless, Keen¶s article would not be a great example to include in the next edition

of ³They Say/I Say´ because it does not formulate a compelling solution to the argument

he presents.

About the time these articles were written, author Thomas Friedman made the

statement that ³the world is flat´ and that the ³playing field has been leveled´ (208). This

is exactly what Keen¶s and Lessig¶s arguments about technology have shown us.

Together, Keen¶s and Lessig¶s articles have shown us that technology is rapidly changing

the world around us and the way we interact with it. The dispute about copyright laws

and creative media enabled by new technologies has many varying viewpoints, yet Lessig

and Keen were able to employ rhetorical strategies to make successful arguments.

Overall, both of these articles make valuable arguments, but Lessig¶s article, ³In Defense

of Piracy´, is the best choice for inclusion in the next edition of ³They Say/I Say´ as it

provides a very insightful dilemma and solution.

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Works Cited

Friedman, Thomas L. ± h
   Farrar, Straus and Giroux. New York, New

York. 2005. Print.

Keen, Andrew. ³Web 2.0.´ h
 

. The Weekly Standard LLC. 15 Feb.

2006. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.

Lessig, Lawrence. ³In Defense of Piracy.´ Dow Jones & Company, Inc. h



 11 Oct. 2008. Web. 27 Sept. 2010.