"Pirates bring choice and cause change. In this stunning book,Matt Mason forgets the parrots and the eye patches, but manages to teach us all a great deal. I learned a lot." -- Seth Godin, an American author of business books and a popular speaker.

"Mason, a writer for uber-hip magazine-cum-branding-effort VICE, offers up an entertaining thesis...For the executive's nightstand." --U.S. News and World Report

"Wacky and intriguing stories."--Fast Company, "Smart Books 2008"

It started with punk. Hip-hop, rave, graffiti, and gaming took it to another level, and now modern technology has made the ideas and innovations of youth culture increasingly intimate and increasingly global at the same time.

In The Pirate's Dilemma, VICE magazine's Matt Mason -- poised to become the Malcolm Gladwell of the iPod Generation -- brings the exuberance of a passionate music fan and the technological savvy of an IT wizard to the task of sorting through the changes brought about by the interface of pop culture and innovation. He charts the rise of various youth movements -- from pirate radio to remix culture -- and tracks their ripple effect throughout larger society.

Mason brings a passion and a breadth of intelligence to questions such as the following: How did a male model who messed with disco records in the 1970s influence the way Boeing designs airplanes? Who was the nun who invented dance music, and how is her influence undermining capitalism as we know it? Did three high school kids who remixed Nazis into Smurfs in the 1980s change the future of the video game industry? Can hip-hop really bring about world peace? Each chapter crystallizes the idea behind one of these fringe movements and shows how it combined with technology to subvert old hierarchies and empower the individual.