Copyright and Popular Media

Media piracy in music, film and gaming is as much about the future of formal copyright governance as it is about morality and freedom of expression. An illegal consumer is not a bad or immoral person because copyright laws state the act of copyright infringement is against the law. History reveals what social networking in the world of digitalization now tells us b6s consumers have always engaged in legal and illegal popular media consumption. Convergent consumption patterns are not new b6s file sharing is the latest development. However the dominant few which have established the status quo over several decades strongly resist external technological challenges. The corporate elite which control the bulk of popular media and their copyrights strictly preserve the formal legal structures in which copyrights exist. But the legal reality is that the faade of copyright governance has been seriously challenged in the 21st Century. This book explores the unresolved issues concerned with media piracy and consumption.