Spontaneous reactions to an anti-piracy initiative: A Youtube clip micro analysis

Abstract

In this case study we analyzed the traces of spontaneous reactions of Youtube users when confronted with the short clip ’You wouldn’t Steal a Car’, that was used by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) to influence people not to download copyrighted material from the Internet. This film has become an important cultural icon, which to a certain degree has shaped a whole generation of film viewers. The aim of this study was to provide an example of how anti piracy initiatives are received and understood by the receivers of the message. This was performed by collecting and analyzing the users spontaneous reactions as entered as comments on the Youtube page for the clip by qualitatively categorizing the contents using a bottom up approach. The results suggest that people practicing Internet-based culture consumption (IBCC) do this in more nuanced ways than is assumed in the film, where they are polarized as either “common thieves” or “good citizens”.