10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17289
Pirate copied objects are fiery artifacts that have caused much anxiety and debate. This article explores the cultural biographies of one particular type of such objects; digital pirate copied films. More specifically, it traces two neglected aspects of such object’s life histories: their entanglement in systems of standardization and quality control, and the ways in which new types of aesthetics and narratives are inscribed (or added to) pirated audiovisual content. Paying close attention to the layered and multifaceted dimensions of digital pirate copied film, the paper approaches the act of pirate copying as a form of transfiguration, and suggests that pirated objects are much more than plain replications. By housing a multiplicity of material identities and by carrying (and being surrounded by) alternative narratives of production, the article argues that these objects intervene, disorient, and disrupt the power dynamics of cinematic circulation and ultimately serve to queer commodity spheres.
application/pdf
2038-3460
17289
1
en
Maria Eriksson
https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.5/
Tecnoscienza – Italian Journal of Science & Technology Studies
inscription
A Different Kind of Story. Tracing the Histories and Cultural Marks of Pirate Copied Film
Text.Serial.Journal
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/
7
Essays
2016-07-08
2023-06-20
2016-07-08
2023-08-07
87-108
TS
Maria Eriksson
2016/07/08
10.6092/issn.2038-3460/17289
87
HUMlab, Umeå University
2038-3460
1
inscription
en
108
A Different Kind of Story. Tracing the Histories and Cultural Marks of Pirate Copied Film
https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/download/17289/16151
7
                                                                                 Essay
                                                                                         87




A Different Kind of Story
Tracing the Histories and Cultural Marks of Pirate
Copied Film

Maria Eriksson
HUMlab, Umeå University (SE)


     Abstract: Pirate copied objects are fiery artifacts that have caused much
     anxiety and debate. This article explores the cultural biographies of one
     particular type of such objects; digital pirate copied films. More specifically,
     it traces two neglected aspects of such object’s life histories: their entan-
     glement in systems of standardization and quality control, and the ways in
     which new types of aesthetics and narratives are inscribed (or added to) pi-
     rated audiovisual content. Paying close attention to the layered and multi-
     faceted dimensions of digital pirate copied film, the paper approaches the
     act of pirate copying as a form of transfiguration, and suggests that pirated
     objects are much more than plain replications. By housing a multiplicity of
     material identities and by carrying (and being surrounded by) alternative
     narratives of production, the article argues that these objects intervene,
     disorient, and disrupt the power dynamics of cinematic circulation and ul-
     timately serve to queer commodity spheres.

     Keywords: piracy; queer theory; transfiguration; copying; inscription.

     Corresponding author: Maria Eriksson, Department of Culture and Me-
     dia Studies, HUMlab, Umeå University, Humanisthuset, Biblioteksgränd 3,
     90187 Umeå, Sweden. Email: maria.c.eriksson@umu.se




1. Introduction

   Digital pirate copied films present themselves as artifacts that contain
a dizzying array of matter, politics, and meaning. Equally despised, cele-
brated, and ubiquitous, such objects have been placed in the middle of
crossfires between consumers, activists, politicians, and corporations dur-
ing much of the twenty-first century. From a market perspective, illicitly
copied objects are essentially “matter out of place” (Douglas 1986); they
are artifacts having been removed from their planned trajectory paths
within the market economy, and later re-inserted into alternative (or par-

TECNOSCIENZA
Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies
7 (1) pp. 87-108 - ISSN 2038-3460
www.tecnoscienza.net                                2016
88                                                                 Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)

allel) routes of artifact circulation. Through this process of dislocation,
pirate copies testify to the disruption of orders of commodity circulation
(Dent 2012), and appear as objects that stretch, challenge and reinforce
the boundaries of markets and authenticity.
    This article ventures into the different layers of meaning that are in-
scribed into pirate copied digital films, and explores attempts to create
systems of quality control around them. It aims to move beyond discus-
sions regarding piracy’s virtues and flaws, and instead explore piracy’s in-
ternal aesthetics and relations to “new textual or paratextual subjects,
new political sensibilities, and different standpoints taken with respect to
cultural reproduction” (Burkart and Andersson Schwarz 2015; see also
Larkin 2004). This is therefore not a text that focuses on digital piracy
and issues of law and copyright (Coombe 1998; Gillespie 2007), piracy’s
relation to economics and market profitability (Barker and Maloney
2015), or piracy’s links to nation politics, democracy, or notions of the
commons (Coombe and Herman 2004; Burkart 2014; High 2015). Nei-
ther is it a text that focuses on the reception and consumption of pirate
copied film, nor its statistical frequency within the contemporary media
landscape (Cardoso et al. 2012; Cardoso and Castells 2012). Instead, I
use pirate copied film as a lens through which to explore how marks of
use and circulation may be inscribed into digital objects.
    As a starting point, I take copies and reproductions seriously as cul-
tural artifacts, and build on classic anthropological accounts of the fruit-
fulness of tracing the life histories, and biographies of things (Kopytoff
1986; Appadurai 1986; Marcus 1995). The pirated incarnations of one
randomly selected film, Captain America: The Winters Soldier, will be
used as a gateway to explore the material transformations and alterations
that result in pirated films1. What goes into the making of digital pirate
copied films, so that they take form as pirated content? How are films
transfigured in order to arrive as pirated material? And what can a closer
scrutiny of the materialities and histories of illicit digital things tell us
about the ways in which the status and value of divergent artifacts is re-
negotiated?
    In order to explore these questions I draw from queer and feminist
theory (Ahmed 2006; Philip 2005), scholars that have explored humani-
ty’s broader relationships with copies (Schwartz 2014), and research that
traces the aesthetic and political affordances of forgeries and fakes (Ben-
zon 2013; Larkin 2004; Bubandt 2009). Furthermore, I lean on the work
of scholars who stress that different kinds of “remix practices” (Lessig
2008; Manovich 2005, 2007) and “participatory cultures” (Jenkins 1993)
are fundamental to the use of new media, and effectively blur the bound-

    1
      This implies that explorations of the fictional character of Captain America
are left to the side in this text (readers who are interested in such scholarly work,
can for example look up Mcdonald and Mcdonald 1976; Jewett and Lawrence
2003; Dittmer 2012).
Eriksson                                                                       89
aries between production/consumption, and original/copy.
    Importantly, I understand efforts to standardize and add new messag-
es to digital pirate copied films as interventions in the cultural biog-
raphies and social lives of things. The result of such interventions, I ar-
gue, are a special type of digital objects that carry both disorienting and
normatively reinforcing aesthetic qualities. Such qualities, implies that
digital pirate copied films do not just interrupt commodity spheres; they
queer them. By twisting, bending, and subverting notions of authenticity
and originality, pirate copied films bring in (and encourage) a multiplicity
of material identities, and thus carry a cultural energy that reaches well
beyond their audiovisual content.


2. Following the Copy

    In the 1980’s, Arjun Appadurai’s edited volume The Social Life of
Things (1986) gave nourishment to the anthropological study of material
culture, and inspired a wide range of investigations into the politics, his-
tories, and social lives of things (see for example Knorr Cetina 1997;
Suchman 2005; Marcus 1995)2. In the introduction, Appadurai stressed
that things, much like human beings, have a “social life” which is realized
when things “circulate in different regimes of value in space and time”
(1986, 4). Following similar trails of thought, Igor Kopytoff (1986) argued
for the need to trace the “cultural biography of things”, and to explore
how objects follow – or diverge from – their planned career paths and life
trajectories. Such tracings, Kopytoff (1986, 67) suggested, have the poten-
tial of revealing “a tangled mass of aesthetic, historical, and even political
judgments,” and may serve as a starting point for capturing broader cul-
tural tendencies.
    In their call for more intimate engagements with objects, Appadurai
and Kopytoff encouraged the study of mundane and ordinary things, but
they also directed special attention towards objects that have wandered
off the grid of legitimacy and order; they pointed towards divergent mat-
ter. Such a focus also resounds in the work of Sara Ahmed (2006), who
shares Appadurai’s and Kopytoff’s fascination with the histories of things,
and embeds their outlooks into her queer phenomenology. For Ahmed
(2006, 45), objects are “properties of assemblage”; they are things that
come together through a mixture of labor, materials, and thought. Much
like Appadurai, she suggests that we should study such assembled objects
on their own, and she encourages us to begin with the non-normative;

    2
     It should also be noted, however, that anthropology has a much longer tradi-
tion of mapping out and tracing the circulation of things. Classical anthropologi-
cal works such as Bronislaw Malinowski’s writing on the Kula exchange (1920),
and Marcel Mauss investigations into the practices of gift giving (1966), all take
objects as their starting points for the exploration of what it means to be human.
90                                                                Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)

that is, with queer matter.
    A queer object, according to Ahmed, is a thing that appears as crook-
ed or out of line, and instead of trying to straighten and re-align such a
thing, she suggests we should “inhabit the intensity of its moment” (2006,
66). For Ahmed, the queer is fascinating and worthy of attention in its
own right; it is indeed something that carries its own politics. In what fol-
lows, I draw from Appadurai, Kopytoff, and Ahmed’s work in order to
trace the initial histories and materialities of pirate copied films. While
Appadurai and Kopytoff’s work will guide my opening questions (where
does pirate copies come from? How are they expected to look and func-
tion?), Ahmed’s thoughts on queerness3 will assist in trying to understand
the implications of the material messiness of such objects; their untidy
identity play, and their disarrayed affiliations.
    Importantly, I suggest that such a material messiness needs to be un-
derstood as the result of transfiguration; the process by which objects are
altered when they move between different hands (Gaonkar and Povinelli
2003). As a critique against scholarly outlooks that assume that objects
have stable and fixed meanings, Gaonkar and Povinelli encourage us to
pay attention to conditions of becoming when tracing and studying
things. This includes following the ways in which materials are re-
purposed and transformed when they circulate through different contexts
(Gaonkar and Povinelli 2003; see also Lee and LiPuma 2002). Circulation
is never a neutral or non-interruptive practice, argues Gaonkar and
Povinelli. On the contrary, it is something that alters, adjusts and changes
the thing being transported.
    Recognizing that transfiguration – or metamorphosis – is a central
part of what happens when objects move is especially important with re-
gards to pirate copied materials, since it allows us to investigate how the
act of copying involves something more than the sole mimicry of original
forms. As Ravi Sundaram (2010) has put it, the kinds of copying that take
place as a result of piracy are more a matter of “recycling” than replica-
tion. The concept of transfiguration permits us to understand piracy as a
production form that carries its own norms, and not least aesthetics (Lar-
kin 2004; Benzon 2013). As Hillel Shwartz (2014, 214), has describes it,
“we perpetually transfigure what and when we copy. By heart, by hand,
by art, by ROM or RAM.” What follows is thereby an exploration of how
such digital transformations take place. I am interested in the ways in

    3
      Ahmed does, however, use the term “queer” in two senses; first to describe
objects that diverge or appear as slightly “off” track, and second to describe non-
normative sexual practices. When I henceforward draw from her work and de-
scribe pirate copied films “queer,” I am primarily doing so in the first sense of
Ahmed’s usage of the term (although others, like Jonathan Sterne, have indeed
suggested that digital objects – and in particular MP3 files – could be described as
having promiscuous, and thus non-normative, sexual drives built into them. See
Sterne 2006).
Eriksson                                                                   91
which pirate copies take on forms that both revive and divert from their
originals, and will argue that it is partly in the mixture of these two com-
ponents – the play between intimate resemblance and defiant originality –
that pirate copies find their place as provocative and inflammatory ob-
jects.


3. Matter Displaced

     Piracy has now become an everyday feature of the Hollywood indus-
try and its prevalence would hardly surprise anyone working with film;
indeed, both filmmakers and researchers have testified to its mundanity
(Andersson Schwarts 2012). However, upholding a narrative in which
films are described as passing through carefully designed and monitored
paths of commodity circulation is still a fundamental part of Hollywood-
discourse. While movies reoccuringly escape from their planned circuits,
an insistence on their association to particular distributive paths is central
to legal prosecutions around copyright violation. In effect, certain future
life stories and expectations continue to be crafted around films, and such
was also the case with the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier that
first had its Hollywood premier on the 13th of March 2014. The film ap-
peared as the second release in a trilogy about the comic figure Captain
America and his alter ego Steve Rogers; a young man who receives super
powers after being part of a medical experiment, and later sets out to aid
the US government’s efforts during World War II. Originally founded in
1941 as a critical response to growing German Nazi powers, the comic se-
ries has remained in print up until this day, and was the first series from
the legendary publisher Marvel Comics that was transported into another
media format than comic books.
     Like most of its commercial movie siblings, Captain America: The
Winter Soldier was described as intended to move through a series of
“windows of display” after its first Hollywood premier. These display
venues initially included a pattern of carefully scheduled cinema premiers
at different points in time across various global regions, including (classic)
regionally scheduled airline/hotel releases, home video releases (DVD,
Blu-ray), pay-per-view releases (VOD, PPV), pay TV broadcastings (Ca-
ble TV), and broadcastings on free TV-channels (Nelson 2014). Like oth-
er systems of artifact circulation, this means that the movie Captain Amer-
ica: The Winter Soldier had a clear ideal destiny staked out for it on its
journey from producer to consumer (at least from its creators point of
view); the film was supposed to pass through specific and pre-approved
chains of actors, who were each expected to treat, value and present the
film in particular ways.
     Captain America’s carefully scheduled life journey (and other similar
circulatory patterns for film) – began to be carved out and implemented
on a wide scale during the 20th century, but it didn’t take long until the
92                                                                 Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)

boundaries of such routes of display began to be transgressed. Films
(much like other types of intellectual and cultural artifacts) have always
been stolen, hijacked, smuggled, kidnapped and turned into copies (Lo-
bato 2012; Johns 2009), and so was Captain America. Only days after its
first Hollywood premier, pirated camera shootings from within cinema
halls where widely available online, and since then the film has been
transformed into copies from virtually every legal form it has taken.
    At the time of this article’s writing (October 2015) a search for “Cap-
tain America: The Winter Soldier” generated 586 unique hits on the web-
site KickassTorrents (or www.kat.cr) – a site which was currently consid-
ered to be the largest bit torrent site in the world (TorrentFreak 2015).
These torrent files where of at least 14 different formats including porta-
ble camera recordings, copies made from exclusive industry previews (or
so-called “screeners”), and copies originating from retail DVD discs, Blu-
ray discs, and TV transmissions. What is the history behind these files?
Who – or what – governed the forms they took? And out of which as-
semblages where they put together?


4. The Standardization of the Copy

    One crucial aspect of understanding the arrival of the various pirated
versions of Captain America: The Winter Soldier (and from a broader per-
spective, the onset of pirated digital films in general) is to understand the
practices of the networks of people who make such objects come alive.
Such networks generally consist of so-called “release groups”; units of
people who assemble under the umbrella grid of the “scene”; a highly di-
verse underground sphere from which most pirate copies originate.
    Digital pirate scenes first developed around the illicit copying of soft-
ware, TV games, and computer games during the 1970’s, and perpetually
grew to become a “global, virtual network of people copying, cracking,
and distributing copyrighted digital material, such as movies, games and
software” (Huizing and van der Wal 2014)4. The motivations for partici-
pating in such networks has been described in terms of anti-conformism,
pleasure, sociality, and sharing (Wittel 2011; Rehn 2004), but also along
the lines of competition, since the cultural organization of “scenes” have
often centered around hierarchical rewards for rapid and “proper” pirate
production and rivalry between release groups (Huizing and van der Wal
2014).
    A central element in such competitive arrangements has been the es-
tablishment of rules for quality assessment, or so-called “release stand-
ards”; a type of guidelines that underlie battles between different release


    4
      The page numbers of the article are not available as this is an online publica-
tion. The citation is from the introduction.
Eriksson                                                                        93
groups. Apart from being understood as competitive yardsticks, these
rules can be seen as broader attempts to professionalize and regulate pi-
racy. Release standards give fascinating insights to the histories of digital
pirate copies, and reveal how most objects – pirate copied or not – are
surrounded by rules, norms, and regulation that guide their use and pro-
duction (Dent 2012). Far from existing in a lawless limbo, practices of pi-
rate copying have been subjected to far-reaching organization processes
(Lobato 2012), and a closer look at release standards give insights into the
ways in which digital pirate copied films are “brought forth” as cultural
artifacts.
    Jumping back in history, evidence of some of the first and most orga-
nized attempts to regulate the production of digital pirate-copied objects
appeared around the year of 20005. In the history of the circulation of
digital pirate copied materials, this period marks a significant point in
time, since it was during the late 1990’s that large-scale file sharing first
started to flourish and become a widespread practice. With sites like
Napster and Kazaa expanding their territories, pirate copies where no
longer only shared within intimate networks, but also reached main-
stream users on a global scale. In such a situation, not only “authentic”
fakes, but also “fake” fakes were widely circulating online; that is, pirate
copies that were wrongly labeled, carried viruses, or were of an unwatch-
able quality. Relatedly, the act of pirate copying had become a practice
that was performed by greater numbers of people and groups; something
which undermined former hierarchies of piracy production.
    One of the first piracy release standards that was produced for film
specifically addressed such circulatory disorder, and consisted of a set of
rules and guidelines produced by a group of people who called them-
selves Team Div/X, or TDX. After engaging in a series of conversations
about how to sharpen the ways in which pirated movies come about,
TDX published a document online that suggested the enforcement of a
series of piracy rules and regulations6. This document was signed and rati-
fied by five different release groups who all motivated their engagement
in questions regarding the order of pirate production by referring to the
“sloppiness” that was said to prevail in many pirate circles. In order to
correct such perceived orderly negligence, the TDX regulations included
a series of demands that every network and competition-approved pirate
copy was urged to submit to.

    5
      For other media formats, however, traces of standards date even further
back in time. Such is the case with release standards for MP3-files which have ori-
gins in the mid 1990’s (see https://scenerules.org/t.html?id=1996_DACMP3 .nfo,
retrieved October 7, 2015), and standards for TV-games that most likely also orig-
inate from sometime during the 1990’s (see https://scenerules.org/p.html?id=
vcd.nfo, retrieved October 7, 2015).
    6
      See https://scenerules.org/p.html?id=2000_XViD.nfo (retrieved November
28, 2015).
94                                                              Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)

     In tandem with the technological affordances of the time, the release
standards suggested a minimum resolution and bitrate, a maximum file
size, and specific guidelines regarding the efficient packaging of films.
TDX also presented rules for how recently released, and older types of
film materials should be treated, and revealed instructions regarding the
practice of adding so-called .nfo-files to pirate copied films; a type of text
files that are attached to digital pirate copies, and offer additional infor-
mation about them (I will discuss this further in one of the following sec-
tions).
     The TDX release standards further introduced thorough instructions
for how pirate-copied files should be named. According to the instruc-
tions, the title of each movie was not allowed to exceed 64 characters, and
it was prohibited to add any detailed information about the movie in
question in its title. Only a certain set of characters were allowed to enter
the title of a film7, and it was disclosed that the naming of files should al-
ways follow a specific pattern: first, the full title of the movie was to be
revealed. Second, the origins/type of the copy should be disclosed, and
last, TDX insisted that every release group who produced a copy should
inscribe their name into the title of the film. Following this logic, the titles
of movies were supposed to sustain the following pattern: Mov-
ie.Title.File.Type.-Group.
     In part, the standardizing efforts of TDX can be understood as an at-
tempt to straighten, professionalize and re-align a messy field of artifact
circulation, where cultural objects were shuffled around on the web with
little quality control. However, the DivX standards soon faced competi-
tion, and it did not take long until a wide range of other groups were de-
veloping similar documents. Rather than serving as a finite outline for the
production and acceptance of pirated contents, the TDX standards only
marked the beginning of a wide proliferation of comparable ordering de-
vices.
     Today, there exists a multiplicity of rules that resemble the standards
that originated from the TDX group, and the protocols are often contest-
ed and revised on a continuous basis.8 More or less every type of media
format is now accompanied by release standards of various forms, and
within each media format, such as film, there commonly exists a long row
of subcategory rules containing specific instructions for specific file for-
mats or geographical regions. In relation to the multiple pirated versions
of Captain America: The Winter Soldier that was found on KickassTor-
rentz’s website, it was possible to find traces of compliance with release
standards in a majority of the copies, and perhaps the most obvious ex-
ample of standard obedience relates to the titles given to the pirate copied

    7
       In particular, the approved characters where: “ABCDEFGHIJKLM-
NOPQRSTUVWXYZabcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz0123456789.-_”.
    8
      For an example of an overview of both current and historical release stand-
ards visit https://scenerules.org/ (retrieved October 10, 2015).
Eriksson                                                                     95
films. Most titles followed a pattern similar to the one that was stated by
TDX, and through these titles, it is possible to discern parts of the history
of the copies. For example, a heading like “Captain America The Winter
Soldier 2014 BRRip XviD AC3-REKD” reveals that the copy was most
likely made from a BluRay source that was pre-released before the film’s
official cinema premier (BRRip), that it was produced according to the
latest accepted XviD ruleset (XviD)9, and that the file has an audio stream
encoded according to a compression technology developed by Dolby
Digital in the early 1990s (AC3). The title also reveals that the release
group who produced the copy call themselves “REKD”.
     Similarly, a title such as “Captain.America.The.Winter.Soldier.2014.
1080p.3D.BluRay.Half-OU.x264.DTS-HD.MA.7.1-RARBG” reveals that
the copy has origins in a BluRay source (BluRay) that was encoded in a
3D format (3D), using a special technology that places the video for the
left eye slightly above the video for the right eye on the screen (Half-OU).
Furthermore, the title tells us that the film has a comparatively high reso-
lution (1080p), that it was compressed using the ITU-T H.254 standard
which is typical for BluRay discs (x264), and that it carries a surround
sound format called DTS-HD Master Audio and was developed by the
American company Digital Theatre Sound (DTS-HD.MA.7.1). Last, the
title also discloses that its producers call themselves RARBG – a group
which happens to have their own webpage where new copies are regularly
uploaded, and hosts elements such as a facts and questions-section and
contact information10.
     The phrases and acronyms used in the two examples above illustrate
how the language around pirated content is highly multifaceted and quite
tricky to interpret for non-initiated readers (there is, in fact, an entire
wiki-page that explains and translates piracy terminologies11). For this
reason, release standards that systematize certain types of language use
reveal something important about the senders and expected receivers of
pirate copied films. Far from being tailored to mainly attract mainstream
film fans, the discursive sphere around these copies is aimed at a tech-
savvy audience that is familiar with technical terminologies, and appreci-
ates detailed accounts of the materialities and qualities of digital objects.
Release standards encourage the creation of cinematic paratexts that de-
mand special types of knowledges and skills; thanks to their adherence to
certain codes, jargon, and literary styles, the copies end up addressing
certain readers, while excluding others. Here, the standards reveal a sig-
nificant power struggle in play; by encouraging highlighting technologi-
cally oriented information and knowledge around cinema, the status and

    9
       See https://scenerules.org/p.html?id=2013_SDX264.nfo (retrieved October
9, 2015).
    10
       See https://rarbg.to/index8.php (retrieved February 24, 2016).
    11
        See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirated_movie_release_types (retrieved
February 24, 2016).
96                                                           Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)

authority of commercial and more non-technical/mainstream ways of de-
scribing film is countered and undermined.
    Apart from assisting in making copies recognizable by virtue of their
names and aiding in creating a ‘techy’ discursive framework around pirat-
ed films, release standards also function as a broader set of criteria against
which pirate copies can be valued, assessed, and judged. For example, bit
torrent sites frequently use release standards to decide which materials
are accepted or rejected on their websites. In that sense, these rule sets
have a significant impact on how digital pirate copies are shaped, formed,
and packaged – and also how they later come to circulate in the world.
Much like quality ensuring mechanisms within the market economy, they
help to separate grain from husk and thus exert power over the future
movements of digital pirate copied objects.
    However, the existing multiplicity of release standards also speaks of
an untidy bureaucratic framework for the production of digital pirate
copies. Paradoxically, the establishment of TDX’s rules (and other early
release standards) could be said to have initiated a system of regulatory
disorder, rather than plain and simple tidiness. Release standards exist in
confusingly multiple forms and are often adopted according to national
and personal preferences (for example in terms of language and subtitle
settings). As we will see, they also make room for the production of am-
bivalent and highly individualized objects. To borrow from Ravi
Sundaram, release standards reveal how “replication is not more of the
same, but a giant difference engine, experimenting with possible open-
ings… and becoming[s]” (Sundaram 2010, 12). Instead of closing the
doors for identity play among digital pirate copied artifacts, release stand-
ards allow a multitude of material identities to flourish within their
boundaries.


5. .nfo:s, Copies, Narration and Inscription

    As briefly mentioned before, one common rule stated in release stand-
ards declares that each pirate copied object should be accompanied by a
so-called “.nfo”-file. An .nfo (shorthand for the word “information”) is a
text document – sometimes also containing images or videos – that is at-
tached to pirate copied objects and follow each file as it begins to travel
across the web. These small and discrete files often go unnoticed, but sig-
nificantly reveal a type of “stickiness” that mark digital pirate copies; they
uncover where and how these objects have travelled, and who they have
come in contact with during their journeys (Ahmed 2006).
    Importantly, the phenomenon of adding .nfo-files to pirate copies
builds on longer traditions of complementing digital copies with artistic
and self-descriptive messages. For example, artsy computerized audiovis-
ual presentations was the main output the so-called demo scene of the
Eriksson                                                                              97
1980’s (Carlsson 2009; Polgár 2005), and was later transported into the
production of graphic presentation texts, or so-called “crack screens” and
“crack intros,” within the software piracy scene of the 1980’s and 1990’s
(Reunanen et.al. 2015). Contemporary .nfo:s borrow their aesthetics and
rhetoric from these early types of pirated paratexts, and help to present,
introduce, and frame digital pirate copies.




   Fig. 1 – Example of .nfo from the release group “SANTi” containing ASCII artwork12 .



    In most cases .nfo:s begin with presenting some ASCII artworks that
often take the shape of logotypes for release groups, or illustrative frames
that surrounds its textual contents. In short, ASCII is a graphic design
technique that involves the production of images and patterns by way of
using letters, symbols, and numbers. Several dynamic styles and types
mark this art form which has its origins in the late 19th century when the

    12
        See https://kat.cr/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-2014-brrip-xvid-ac3-
santi-t9402616.html (retrieved November 10, 2015).
98                                                                      Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)

first typewriters were introduced. Developed as a curious play with art,
symbols, letters, and technology, ASCII images have served a practical
“need for pictures when there wasn’t bandwidth to transmit them” and
have further been described as a kind of prequel to contemporary emoti-
cons (Madrigal 2014)13.




     Fig. 2 – Example of .nfo from the release group “KAGA” containing ASCII artwork14 .



    The images above are all taken from .nfo files for pirated versions of
the movie Captain America: The Winter Soldier and reveal a creative flora
of cinematic paratextuality. Due to technical advancements, these ASCII
artworks might perhaps be best approached as nostalgic artifacts that
connect contemporary forms of pirate production back to subcultural

    13
       The page numbers of the article are not available as this is an online publi-
cation.
    14
        See https://kat.cr/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-2014-1080p-bluray-
dts-x264-kaga-t9413691.html (retrieved November 10, 2015).
Eriksson                                                                      99
and aesthetic digital practices in the pre-www era. Appreciated more for
their aesthetical appeal than their functional affordances, there today ex-
ists several webpages that are completely dedicated to the collection and
exposure of artsy .nfo-files15.
    After some introductory art, .nfo-files generally contain three types of
textual contents that adds to the re-packaging of pirate copied films and
embeds them in layered types of description. First, .nfo:s commonly pre-
sent information about the actual movie in question. This information is
often copied straight from movie producers themselves, or public movie
websites such as IMDb. Often, such film information includes classic data
about who directed the movie, when it first premiered, who starred in it,
and which genre it can be said to belong to. Occasionally, snapshots from
chosen scenes of a film, or images of movie posters are also included in
.nfo:s, and it is also common to include a summary of the plot of the film.
Such a summary is revealed below, where a text written by the movie en-
thusiast Kenneth Chisholm (active on Imdb.com) got transported into a
Captain America .nfo:
    “Release Notes:
    Plot:

    For Steve Rogers, awakening after decades of suspended
    animation involves more than catching up on pop culture;
    it also means that this old school idealist must face a
    world of subtler threats and difficult moral complexi-
    ties. That comes clear when Director Nick Fury is killed
    by the mysterious assassin, the Winter Soldier, but not
    before warning Rogers that SHIELD has been subverted by
    its enemies. When Rogers acts on Fury's warning to trust
    no one there, he is branded as a traitor by the organiza-
    tion. Now a fugitive, Captain America must get to the
    bottom of this deadly mystery with the help of the Black
    Widow and his new friend, The Falcon. However, the battle
    will be costly for the Sentinel of Liberty, with Rogers
    finding enemies where he least expects them while learn-
    ing that the Winter Soldier looks disturbingly familiar.

    Cast:
    Chris Evans    ...        Steve Rogers / Captain America
    Samuel L. Jackson         ...    Nick Fury
    Scarlett Johansson       ...    Natasha Romanoff / Black Wid-
    ow”16




    15
        See for example http://artscene.textfiles.com/asciiart/NFOS/ (retrieved
November 25, 2015).
    16
       This quote was taken from the .nfo file of the torrent available at https:
//kat.cr/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-2014-hdts-xvid-crys-t9328825.html
(retrieved November 7, 2015), but can also be found in its original form at the
Imdb website, where Kenneth Chisholm gets credit for his summary:
100                                                              Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)


    To a certain extent, such mimicry of classic Hollywood packaging’s
reveal how our relationships with objects are often shaped by already ex-
isting ideas and elements of recognition (Kirshenblatt-Gimblett 1998). It
also suggests how the status of diverging pirate objects are negotiated
alongside their legal predecessors. As Hillel Schwartz (2014, 268) has
noted, the skill of performing as a “good” model, or copy, is about learn-
ing the ability of “posing, as it were, au naturel”; an art which requires the
careful mastery of effortless consistency. Mimicking the presentation
mechanisms of the film industry is a practice which helps to construct a
natural and authentic pirate copy; a trustworthy duplicate that poses as an
original in a relaxed fashion. As copies “muddies the waters of authentici-
ty” (Schwartz 2014, 311), re-dressing them in recognizable clothes, is
something which importantly raises the status and familiarity of digital
things that would otherwise be little more than anonymous clusters of data.
    However, the attachment of market-oriented information about films
is not the only material found in nfo:s. Secondly, .nfo:s commonly reveal
details about a film’s transformation into a copy. This may include infor-
mation about which software that assisted the act of copying, or specifica-
tions regarding the copy’s compression, formatting, and visual qualities.
In some cases, these technical descriptions are kept short and concise, but
other times they are paired with detailed stories of how a particular pro-
duction process took place. As an example, one producer of a CAM rip
(or hand filmed copy from cinema halls) of Captain America: The Winter
Soldier described his or her work as follows in an .nfo:

   “I asked my guy in chinatown which i got need for speed
   from, if he can get me the source, and he came through,
   so thx m8. Had the pleasure to get the original cam! so
   this one had NO Subs, nothing is cropped or chopped off
   and it was untouched in brightness etc. well that was
   some work, took me 3 days/nights to finally get it
   done…//… the cam itself was ok, had it faults, some
   scenes are very bright, some ok-ish and some darker (eg.
   runtime 4mins to 14mins) the colouring was varying a lot,
   from reddish to colourless and some purple and hardly
   colour at all. There was no way i could make one setting
   for the whole movie, i had to split up the movie into
   parts as needed. Categorized parts in daylight scenes,
   mid-scenes and darker-scenes. Noticed i had to split them
   up more cause of the different colouring parts. so each
   part got it as needed - adjusted brightness, contrast,
   rgb, saturation, sharpness, blackbase, whitebase etc. the
   final result looks great in relation to what is out and
   no damned subs, dont think there will be any new further
   cam, so it wont get better than this till retail. For the



http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1843866/plotsummary     (retrieved     November       7,
2015).
Eriksson                                                                       101
    Audio i used Millenium/Echo Line, cleaned it and raised
    vocals, and synced it back to my video. all in all it
    looks very nice and watchable and will do me till retail.
    attached 3 samples, daylight, mid-scene and action scene.
    enjoy”17

    These types of alternative – and piracy rooted – tales of production
are form of political inscriptions that inserts new historical dimensions to
the life histories of films. In particular, stories like the one above bring
forth practices of labor that are oftentimes disowned, and instead lays
bare the time and effort that goes into the production of pirate copied
things.
    Lucy Suchman (1995) has shed light on the power dimensions in rep-
resenting work, arguing that there lies a particular power in “making
work visible.” Suchman (1995, 58) suggests that “bringing (…) work for-
ward and rendering it visible may call into question the grounds on which
different forms of work are differentially rewarded, both symbolically and
materially”. She further talks of the existence of “representational arti-
facts” that intervene in the sphere of ideas that exists around practices of
labor, and I would suggest that .nfo:s could partly be understood precise-
ly as that. By adding new types of technical details and descriptions of la-
bor to the histories of film, .nfo:s are artifacts that make an alternative
kind of labor visible to the audience that reads them. Doing so, turns
.nfo:s into representational agents; into snippets of texts that bring for-
ward the voices of alternative co-authors of film. In relation to Foucault’s
(1984 [1969]) classic notion of the author function, .nfo:s thus usher in
the principle of abundance (rather than thrift) with regards to the prolif-
eration of meaning relating to a particular type of work. Through .nfo:s,
films are given new and multiple authors.
    Last, .nfo:s commonly also carry personal messages from such authors
(or producers). Oftentimes these messages are directed towards potential
collaborators, and sometimes they are designed as pure recruitment ads:
    “LOOKING FOR ANYTHING YOU WANT TO LOOK AND SOUND BETTER
    COME   FIND   US   AND   HANGOUT  WITH   US   DRUNKARDS
    CM8@hushmail.me”18

   Other times, they may simply encourage people to join the producer’s
networks on social media:

    “=!JOIN OUR COMMUNITY IN FACE BOOK


    17
       See .nfo attached to the torrent: https://kat.cr/usearch/Captain.America.
The.Winter.Soldier.2014.SUBFREE.HD-TS.XVID.AC3.HQ.Hive-CM8/                    (re-
trieved November 10, 2015).
    18
       See .nfo attached to the torrent: https://kat.cr/captain-america-the-winter-
soldier-2014-subfree-hd-ts-xvid-ac3-hq-hive-cm8-t9090523.html (retrieved No-
vember 14, 2015).
102                                                              Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)

      HD          Desi          Rockers                   -               HDDR
      https://www.facebook.com/hddr1

      HD DESI ROCKER RELEAESEES
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/hddesirockers/

      DJ Group HD Movie Releases
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/inam70/

      Rocking Shop
      https://www.facebook.com/inam77

      TQMovies
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/TQTorrent/

      Invincible Movie Zone
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/229482163842928/

      Invincible Audio Zone
      https://www.facebook.com/groups/630571410308171/”19

    These types of advertisements and announcements are commonly
placed under headlines such as “group news”; which reveals how .nfo:s –
much like other earlier types of “crack intros” – are used as continuous
channels of communication (Reunanen et al. 2015).
    On an even more personal note, .nfo:s may also contain lyric quotes,
proverbs, literary fragments, or long descriptions of the histories of re-
lease groups. In other cases, they might make moralistic proclamations
that encourage people to buy, rather than download content, or celebrate
artists, moviemakers or authors. Other times, they might contain movie
clips that present the release group, or home-made posters like the one on
the next page, displaying a copy-pasted image of Captain America (Fig. 3).
    Through these kinds of messages and contextual elements, .nfo files
reveal an entangled mix of textual and descriptive materials that add to
the social life of pirate copied films; they contain art, labor descriptions,
personal messages, movie industry contextualizations, and tales of materi-
al transformation. These discreet (yet politically-laden) attachments tell
alternative origin stories of films. .nfo:s intervene in classic cinematic bio-
graphical writings, and carries diverse patchworks of cinematic paratex-
tuality that all contribute to the metamorphosis, or transfiguration, of dig-
ital pirate copied film. In essence, .nfo:s reveal that pirate copying is not
just about sole replication, but the staging of narrative revisions and con-
textual re-births of film. Through the contents of .nfo:s (and through the



      19
      See .nfo attached to the torrent: https://kat.cr/captain-america-the-winter-
soldier-2014-720p-bdrip-dual-audio-english-hindi-x264-ac3-dd5-1-inam-
t9441401.html (retrieved November 14, 2015).
Eriksson                                                                          103
standards that surround their production), movies are transfigured into
recognizable, and fiery pirate copied things.




           Fig. 3 – Example of .nfo from the release group “Wolverdonfilms”20 .



5. Conclusion

    In contrast to the discourses of freedom that often seem to surround
piracy, digital pirate copied films are artifacts which are surrounded by
detailed and fascinatingly varied structures of production. Piracy stand-
ardization efforts are central to the ways in which digital pirate copies are
brought forth as cultural artifacts; they do not only help to adjust these
object’s production methods, but also assist in organizing their future
lives by serving as a background for quality assessment. Doing so, release

    20
       Published under Fair Use Policy. See .nfo attached to the torrent:
https://kat.press/captain-america-the-winter-soldier-2014-bluray-720plegendado-
t9402984.html (retrieved May 15, 2016).
104                                                          Tecnoscienza – 7 (1)

standards reveal how the production methods of the market economy
may get transported into informal market sectors and provide legitimacy
and authority to illicitly copied things. These standards further speak of
the historical development of digital pirate copying; its transformation in-
to a wide-spread and ubiquitous practice, and consequently the perceived
need to police its customs – not only from the outside perspective of law,
but also from within piracy circles.
    Through .nfo-files, films such as Captain America: The Winter Soldier
are given new and cumulative identities that challenge film narratives told
from the perspective of movie industries. nfo:s allow multiple fantasies
and tales of origin to enter the histories of film. By injecting new forms of
authorship, and new material contextualizations to film content, they re-
write cultural biographies of film and insert new dimensions to their so-
cial life. Such contextualizations speak to a very specific and tech-savvy
audience, which adds another power dimension to pirated content. Ra-
ther than adhering to mainstream discourses around film, the texts that
surround these copies privileges the attention of small and technologically
competent communities. Thus, they also go against the grain of classic
film contextualizations and narratives. Together, both release standards
and .nfo files are elements that expose how meaning and value is con-
stantly negotiated and re-negotiated at different points in time along the
history lines of objects; they testify to the cumulative and layered ways in
which artifacts (both digital and non digital) are given value, meaning,
and identity.
    Discussing female artist’s use of photocopying machines in the late
20th century, Hillel Schwartz (2014) has noted that, for them, copying
has not been an act of disembodiment through photographic reproduc-
tion, but the opposite; it has been used as a way to explore new kinds of
embodiments. “Women have used the photocopier’s capacity for appro-
priation less to lay claim to uniqueness than to celebrate multiple identi-
ties,” writes Schwartz (2014, 201). Perhaps these notions could be ex-
tended to the case of digital pirate copying as well. Pirate copied objects
tease out the existence of a multiplicity of material identities; they are
things that play with, and explore, the parallel existence of diversified cul-
tural matter, and diversified forms of authorship. In doing so, these ob-
jects are also things that queer artifact spheres and challenge dominant
orders of film circulation, presentation, and authorship. Pirated films are
queer in the sense that they – much like those who transgress gender,
sexual, or normative boundaries – destabilize categorizations, and occu-
pies spaces who’s edges are fluid and porous. They embody diversity ra-
ther than singularity, movement rather than fixidity, hybridity rather than
purity.
    As Kavita Philip (2005, 208) has described it, digital pirate copies are
at once “enthusiastic mimics and relentless betrayals”; their identities and
affiliations are only marginally coherent. Unlike carefully produced art
forgeries, these copies do not give their originals the honor and respect of
Eriksson                                                                       105
being made in their complete resemblance. Instead, pirated films are
“ambivalent objects” (Suchman 2005, 390) that partially (and selectively)
borrow from their predecessors, while simultaneously transporting new
and interventionist messages. Such double edged notes and materialities
are political scripts and marks of circulation and transfiguration (Gaon-
kar and Povinelli 2003). They are evidence of the co-presence of textual
and cultural forms, and the ways in which contestations and transfigura-
tions are an inevitable part of the circulation of things.


Acknowledgments
     I would especially like to thank Patrick Vonderau, Pelle Snickars and Vasco
Castro for giving thoughtful and inspiring comments to earlier versions of this ar-
ticle. The text builds on research being done at the Department of Social Anthro-
pology, Stockholm University during spring 2014, and was completed with the
help of funding from the Swedish Research Council.



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