Are Piracy Laws Working?

I this week’s post I will compare two different blog postings about piracy. I chose to use John Palfrey from the Harvard School of Law and the Digital Natives Blog which is a project of the Berkman Center. While both blogs are affiliated with Harvard’s Berkman center they use very different types of rhetoric to make their point to the reader.

John Palfrey mainly appeals to logos in his blog post: Cary Sherman, Lewis Hyde in Chat about RIAA’s AntiPiracy Campaign. He wants the entire regulation system for peer to peer networks to seem completely ridiculous. Palfrey uses logical facts to appeal to the reader. He also uses an irritated tone to make the audience feel that the system is crazy. He is appeal to the reader’s logic when he says: “The recording industry regularly asks colleges to police their students in regard to infringement. Why is it the task of colleges to do this police work, rather than the police?” Palfrey want the reader to realize how absurd the regulation system is.

The author of the Digital Natives Blog: Pirates, peers and intellectual property, appeals mainly to pathos. The use stories to communicate their views about piracy. The reference many other works in the blog and uses quotes that make the reader look differently a peer to peer networks. They tell the story of the history of copyright to give the audience a frame of reference. They want the reader to look at the laws original intentions and see that they no longer apply.

In conclusion both blogs used different rhetorical methods of getting the same point across. One blog used pathos and the other used logos, but they both made the reader feel that the piracy laws are not working. Next week I will look at the effect piracy is having on digital natives culture.