Name: The pirate's dilemma
ISBN: 9781416532187

The pirate's dilemma

Music journalist Mason, a former pirate radio and club DJ in London, explores how open source culture is changing the distribution and control of information and harnessing the old system of punk capitalism to new market conditions governing society. According to Mason, this movement's creators operate according to piratical tactics and are changing the very nature of our economy. He charts the rise of the ideas and social experiments behind these latter-day pirates, citing the work of academics, historians and innovators across a multitude of fields. He also explores contributions by visionaries like Andy Warhol, 50 Cent and Dr. Yuref Hamied, who was called a pirate and a thief after producing anti-HIV drugs for Third World countries that cost as little as $1 a day to produce. Pirates, Mason states, sail uncharted waters where traditional rules don't apply. As a result, they offer great ways to service the public's best interests. According to Mason, how people, corporations and governments react to these changes is one of the most important economic and cultural questions of the 21st century. Well-written, entertaining and highly original, Mason offers a fascinating view of the revolutionary forces shaping the world as we know it.

What Hacker News says

touristtamApr 2019

If you haven't read it, I would recommend Matt Mason's "The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism" (goodread link:https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2286633.The_Pirate_s_Dil...), which is arguably still very relevant.

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tombrossmanDec 2015

Definitely worth reading, but after the first 30 seconds I had to fix the 10.5px monospace font as it was not at all suitable for extended reading. Great content, but the 'style over substance' presentation means there is no chance I would buy a hard copy of the book because I couldn't override the CSS like I did with my browser.

If you like reading about this subject you should also try two earlier books "Darknet: Hollywood's War Against the Digital Generation" by J D Lasica and "The Pirate's Dilemma: How Youth Culture Is Reinventing Capitalism" by Matt Mason. Both cover similar subject matter in depth.

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icehawk219Mar 2014

Every time this topic comes up I'm reminded of The Pirate's Dilemma [0], which is a great read that I recommend. The way the author presents the problem, using history as a reference, is that when "pirates" come to play and achieve acceptance by the masses (basically everyone "pirates" sometime at this point because people like what they're offering) you basically have two options. You can compete with them and potentially win big like Netflix or iTunes. Or you can fight against the change to the bitter end. History would suggest that the first option is always the better one yet the second option seems to be what the incumbents almost always choose.

[0] http://www.amazon.com/Pirates-Dilemma-Culture-Reinventing-Ca...

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ryanholidayAug 2013

Hi everyone, I wish I was clever enough to have orchestrated all this, but in fact am not. Very nice of Chris to include me in his list.

Though I will say that this list is missing a few good books:

22 Immutable Laws of Marketing

48 Laws of Power

Antifragile

The Fish That Ate the Whale

Wikinomics

Contagious

The Pirate's Dilemma

and I think PG's book of essays is worth reading for any founder as well

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subsystemDec 2012

A good book on piracy from a cultural and business perspective is The Pirate's Dilemma. It used to be "pay what you want" but the payment system seems broken.

http://thepiratesdilemma.com/about-the-book

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stseJan 2010

In industries where copying is accepted, like with cooking and fashion, the level of creativity is very high. You could argue that a high fashion brand "loses money" when a low price retailer, like H&M or Zara, produces more or less the same design, but very few do.

I recommend reading "The Pirate's Dilemma" which is available from $0.00 upwards at http://thepiratesdilemma.com/download-the-book

Edit: The difference between the high fashion brand and the low price retailer clothes are quality, perceived quality, recognition/brand, legitimacy and cost. Which is more or less the same difference as between a pirated copy and an original one.

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