The Paquete and the politics of consumption

The Paquete and the politics of consumption
El Paquete is a 1 Terabyte size, changing database of digital content that has been compared to Netflix and to the Internet itself. But unlike such digital platforms, El Paquete travels across the country from one external hard drive to another, following the structure and dynamics of the Cuban informal economy. Made out of a combination of pirated and original global and local media (from software to PDFs to films), El Paquete is a large compilation of folders organized by categories like Series (which includes the most popular current US TV series), Sports, Soap Operas, Magazines (some of which were born in this media and exist only in digital, offline versions), Films, Trailers, Video Games, Music, Video Clips, Celebrities, Technology, Computer Programs, IPhone & Android Apps, among other digital and digitized material. Each of these folders usually contains both National and International selections. The compilation is produced by ordinary people and costs no more than 2 cuc a week (1 cuc, or "convertible Cuban peso" equals 23 Cuban pesos, roughly $US 85 cents).
The main compilation is produced every week at an originating center, known as the Matrix, then taken to the streets by Messengers or Paqueteros. Messengers [Mensajeros] will deliver El Paquete to your house weekly if you are subscribed, while Paqueteros are those who sell the media package at stands or from their own homes, and who are usually also vendors of other media products like pirated DVDs of music, TV shows, children's sartoons and popular series. These DVDs are digitally signed by the media archives’ owners--perhaps the most frequently-spotted name is that of WhiteRecords Productions, a Cuban pirate distributor located in the city of Cienfuegos--who copy and sell the content and present it in a modest way by using homemade printed paper covers.
El Paquete is strongly linked to the rise of Reggaeton culture in Cuba. This once underground landscape began much as did Cuban hip hop did not long before it, created by amateur street M.C.s that produce their music in independent, home-based studios. Today, small but powerful entertainment industry brands like Platinium Records, Odisea Estudio, ETRES Productions and Abdel la Esencia are not only associated with but depend upon now well-established Cuban Reggaeton artists, who have emerged within a national or bi-national context, if we take into account circulation of artists and music between Havana and Miami, but also within the larger latin music arena. The fame and fortune of each Reggaeton celebrity has much to do with the emergence of El Paquete. If for Cuban hip hop stars like Los Aldeanos recognition and fame came from heavy rotation in Almendron taxis (the large American cars from the fifties that circulate as collective private transportation), today Reggaeton singers are  launched, remixed and continuously streamed in El Paquete, alongside American popular series like House of Cards or Homeland.
It's important to point out that this whole exciting scene operates outside government networks. That's a lot to say in Cuba, where the media and the cultural resources are concentrated in State hands and all independent sources are prohibited by law. It´s not that El Paquete's piracy is an issue: the government has long been a pirater, and the movies that we see in theaters are often Movie Theater copies complete with the captured shadows of people coming and going during a projection. The sale of pirated content in DVD form is a licensed private business in Cuba authorized by the government. And the American series that the Cuban Television streams are downloaded from the same sources that furnish El Paquete with its media (www.gnula.com is the most common web address housing American series and TV shows), although the Paquete usually offers current programs closer to their initial streaming date.
So if something about El Paquete worries the government, it isn't the pirating--it's the open circulation of information or the lack of control in the selection and distribution of the content itself. It's hardly news that the Cuban authorities are against the relaxed moral values and individual consumption standards that the Reggaeton culture promotes.