piracy

The holographic structure on the frisbee glistens colorfully. It is unique to this batch and makes the product forgery-proof. Explosives are used to emboss the original pattern into the injection moulding tool. This method can be used to give copy protection to industrial goods, and also mass-produced goods such as DVDs or medical pills and [...]

Pirates, like gangsters, highwayman, and other colorful outlaws, have always carried a certain romantic appeal with them upon the high seas. Thanks to a certain movie trilogy, they are the most appealing of the outlaws at this moment. And the language… y’arrgh! But exemplars of democracy? In a swashbuckling and daring [...]

A fascinating new paper from the Journal of Consumer Research investigates the seven-year war on music downloading that unfolded among corporate music executives and music downloaders. Markus Giesler (York University) uses a performance-ethnography approach, studying the music marketplace as a cultural stage on which consumers and producers interact as dramatic players to reach their conflicting [...]