Assignment #4: Interviewing Pirates?

Response due Tuesday (10/23) in class

The last week's readings have all revolved around the recording industry. One of the pressing issues facing the recording industry is piracy -- "the unauthorized duplication of copyrighted music" (Turow, 2011, p. 357). As our book explains, piracy costs the recording industry lots of money; however, there are a range of competing perspectives on the matter:

• According to some critics, worldwide music piracy is costing Americans jobs; others argue, though, that most pirated music was unlikely to be purchased in the first place. 
• Music industry executives say that you can't beat "free"; others say that people will pay for music if it's easily downloaded and available at a reasonable price.
• Some musicians see piracy as music consumers stealing their music and making them work for free; others see it as an opportunity to wrest power from the industry and gain a wider audience for their music (especially up-and-coming artists)

Our author says that when it comes to consumers, though, few care about the problems associated with piracy. This is especially so for teenagers (see p. 359-361). To get a sense of teenagers' perspectives on piracy, take a moment and listen to this four-minute podcast on the topic from 2009:


Also available here

Two interviews

For this assignment, you'll interview two people about music piracy. One of the interviews should be with someone (roughly) your age, and the other interview should be with someone from a different generation. You'll interview each person for about 20 minutes, taking notes throughout the process. Be transparent during the interview: explain to them that the interview is for a class assignment, and let them know that when you write up the report, you'll refer to them using a pseudonym (a fake name). This is important because some people are understandably uncomfortable about talking about piracy if their name is reported with any responses. Let them know that at any point in the interview if they'd like to not answer a question, they're welcome to.

During the interview sure to ask your participants the following questions:

• Do you or have you ever acquired pirated music? How did you go about that process?
• Do you think its okay to download pirated music? Why or why not?
• What do you think the impact of piracy is on the music industry?
• What do you think the impact of piracy is on musical artists?

These questions are unlikely to fill up the entire 20 minutes, though. To do so, you'll want to do two more things.

• First, you'll want to go into the interview with a few more questions that you develop (beyond the ones I've identified above). Re-read the textbook's discussion of piracy on pp. 357-361, or think about some of the things the teenagers said about piracy in the podcast above. Brainstorm your own questions from these resources and from your own experiences and discussions of piracy.
• Second, when one of your interviewees says something interesting, "follow up" on that interviewee's comments. For instance: "could you tell me more about that?" ... "could you explain what you mean by that" ... or something along those lines. Anything to get them talking more about the aspect of their response that you found particularly interesting.

The report

After your interviews, you'll type up a report based on your interview notes. Your report should be single-spaced, and no more than two pages in length. The first page should being by listing the questions you asked your interviewees. The remainder of the first and second pages should compare the responses from your two interviewees. Don't just repeat what your two interviewees said -- compare their responses. Were there disparities between your interviewees in terms of their use of pirated music? Did their views overlap or differ when it came to the ethics of pirated music? What impacts did each participant think pirated music had on the music industry and musicians? How did each interviewee's responses compare with respect to the questions you came up with and asked?

You'll turn in your typed report on Tuesday (10/23) in class.

Assessment

This assignment is worth 30 of the 270 points available for the media explorations course component. I will use the following rubric to grade your responses:

30 points -- Executed all assignment components. Demonstrates firm understanding of subject matter. Execution is excellent. No grammar or writing errors. Is well organized and very easy to follow.

22 points -- Executed assignment components mostly as asked. Demonstrates reasonable understanding of subject matter. Execution is generally good. A few grammar or writing errors. Is fairly well organized and generally easy to follow.

14 points -- Executed only some of the assignment's components. Demonstrates limited understanding of subject matter. Execution is fair, but with key problems. Several noteworthy grammar or writing errors. Poorly organized and difficult at times to follow.

6 points -- No evidence of having given the assignment real thought. Minimal or no understanding of subject matter. Execution is poor. Rampant grammar and writing errors make reading very challenging. No organization is evident. Reads like a last minute effort.

0 points -- No assignment submitted or submitted late.