In the book, The Pirate's Dilemma, Matt Mason opens my eyes to the reality of piracy and how dependant society and the industry is upon piracy.

Piracy, over the years, has helped distribute and develope technology. From pirate DJs started the first radio station ever to people who take pictures of artwork, this book leaves nothing to bedesired in terms of the definition of piracy.

In the book, the main example of piracy, that i thought was interesting, was the pirate DJ, Paddy Roy Bates, who descovered an off-shore abandoned seabase, which was just out of the UK's legal jurisdiction, or any country for that matter. Bates started an independant pirate radio station that broadcasted rock and roll music to the UK and, eventually, declared his private comendeered radio base, n independant nation called Sealand. With a population of 3, which was made up of Bates' family, few people had Sealandish passports or had even been to Sealand. Yet Sealand was eventually invaded but was defended in a fight the size of a large bar fight.

Other excellent examples of how piracy has helped the world have been used in this book. For example, how hackers and information pirates are helping spread information and increase freedom of information. Other's are using piracy for personal means such as radio broadcasters that block out all other stations and people who illegally download files. But even people using piracy for personal means still have an impact. They force the rules to be changed. Even the rough looking asian man standing on a corner in china town selling pirated DvDs has a huge impact on society. Pirating things at low prices or even free of cost forces big companies and government to continually bend and change their rules of intelectual and digital property in order to meet the demands of the public.

Overall, without piracy, companies and governments would have kept harsh rules in place, such as only allowed films to be viewed in theaters and have primitive slowly developing audio recording technology. So, in conclusion, piracy has essentially shaped the world of technology and industry as we know it today