Transferring Subcultural Knowledge On-Line: Practices and Beliefs of Persistent Digital Pirates

Abstract

Criminal subcultures form around deviant behaviors as a consequence of persistent interactions with like-minded others who facilitate the transmission of norms, values, and belief. Although researchers have explored social interactions in the real world, few have considered how learning occurs through virtual interactions. We address the role of on-line interactions in spreading subcultural knowledge by interviewing 34 persistent digital pirates and performing a non-participant ethnography of an on-line forum devoted to piracy. Our results show that through on-line interactions, pirates learn the norms and values of digital piracy, including how to recognize and avoid risks associated with pirating and how to make sense of and justify their actions. They did not see themselves as members of a piracy subculture, however. These findings show that subcultural knowledge can be transmitted through on-line interactions, even when participants do not fully invest in the group.

Notes

¹Although a small number of individuals make a profit from the sale of pirated goods (see Taylor et al. 2006), the larger piracy subculture appears to be driven by sharing materials freely. Thus, this study focuses on this portion of the culture, and explores the perception of them in the context of piracy subculture.

²See pages 10–11 for description of the use and functionality of torrent technology.

³Peer-to-peer file sharing involves the use of software that enables any networked computer using the same software to access and share data. This sort of program is popular among pirates, as are torrent programs, which are described earlier in the article. Key-code cracking involves hacking or otherwise subverting the protective program on a piece of digital media that is meant to hamper theft and piracy. These practices are generally common and ensure that pirated materials continue to flow through a piracy subculture (Cooper and Harrison 2001).

⁴It is common among those who interact through computer platforms to abbreviate and ignore rules of grammar. To aid readability we cleaned the participants' responses while trying to maintain the flow and rhythm of the conversation.

⁵Forum members can create profiles that state from which they are posting. We include the location of the poster as stated in their profile to show the international nature of pirating.

⁶Several of the pirates claimed that they downloaded for the thrill of collecting and admitted that they did not listen to or watch all that they downloaded.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Thomas J. Holt

THOMAS J. HOLT is an Assistant Professor in the School of Criminal Justice at Michigan State University. His research focuses on computer crime, cybercrime, and Internet-based deviance. He has published in a variety of journals including the Journal of Criminal Justice and Criminal Justice Studies, and is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Cyber Criminology.

Heith Copes

HEITH COPES is an Associate Professor in the Department of Justice Sciences at the University of Alabama at Birmingham. His primary research interest is understanding the criminal decision-making process. His recent publications appear in Social Problems, British Journal of Criminology, and Crime and Justice: A Review of Research.