[p2p-research] Where is P2P in the Pirate Bay, was: Pirate Bay Conviction Analysis from NETTIME list...

[Andy Robinson]

Marco, I understand your point, and you’re right that file-sharing is not
100% “gift economy” from production to consumption.  But I think you’re
misunderstanding or misconstruing some of the claims I and others have made.



“file sharing a-la-Pirate-Bay
isn't P2P and it's counterproductive for a real P2P advocate to not
make the distinction.”



Well, I think if you look carefully you will see that I did make
distinctions, I’m just not sure the distinction is between “real” and
“false” P2P.



Your claim:

“But Pirate Bay users (or the founders, for that matter...) aren't sharing
anything that *they* did. They are not giving any gift, as they aren't
giving up anything of theirs.”

hinges on an assumption that something can only be P2P or gift economy if it
is a gift at the level of production.  By this definition there could never
be partial P2P, or P2P in assemblages with other logics.  One could not even
talk of “gift” when someone buys something and then gives it away.  I think
this is unduly narrowing the concept.



The users who share “aren’t giving up anything of theirs” is not strictly
true.  They are giving up the exclusivity of the right to use a particular
song/film/etc which they have either purchased or rented.  But it isn’t
really very relevant.  Gift economy operates in contexts of abundance (not
scarcity – which is connected to labour-for-income).  Data is inherently
abundant because it is infinitely reproducible (unless artificially
restricted).  Filesharing creates a context of abundance.  This is why it is
a threat to rent-extraction, which rests on scarcity.  I would also argue
that the artists are not “giving up something which is theirs”, but rather,
giving up something which is then de facto in the public domain – the idea
that they are giving up something of their own, “intellectual property”, is
a legal fiction.  The situation is such that, once created, a song, idea,
film, etc, is “abundant” in the sense of being infinitely reproducible, as
such does not produce profit, and can only be made to produce profit by
being artificially restricted.



You seem to be assuming “real” P2P is sharing of labour.  I think there can
also be sharing of goods and of information.



“That's how some seeding happens, ie not even
"giving" to the community the cost of one DVD purchase.”



You’re missing the point completely.  In filesharing networks, for a file to
be available to others, someone needs to have their computer switched on,
with the file stored in it, running the appropriate software, uploading the
file for others to download.  So either someone has to leave the program
running, “seeding” the file, while they’re doing other things – at the cost
of slowdown; or run the “seeding” while their computer is downloading –
slowing download speeds; or run the computer when they wouldn’t otherwise
run it – using electricity.  There is no concrete incentive for someone to
“seed”, beyond community approval.  And it is certainly not as simple as
just leaving a newspaper on a seat.  Certainly one might leave a file in the
sharing folder out of lack of motive to move it, but one wouldn’t leave the
file-sharing program running indefinitely, and if one was concerned about
download speeds (which file-sharers generally are), one WOULD move it or set
it not to share.  So someone who chooses to “seed”, does so to allow others
to download and/or to maintain the overall community from which they
benefit.  I would say this makes it gift economy at the level of
distribution.



It isn’t gift economy at the level of production, as you say.  I think the
reasons for this run deeper – because other things are scarce or are defined
as scarce, people are usually unable/unwilling to give up their entire time
to activities without pay; and making certain kinds of things (films for
instance) would require buying a lot of the things to make them with also.  So
it isn’t as simple as artists choosing not to gift, it’s about a context of
scarcity forcing people into commodified lives (except for a few who
explicitly decide to refuse such a life).  It is thus unlikely that
gift-economy as an alternative to capitalism could come into existence all
at once, it has to be carved out in specific areas.  In this case, it is
carved out in distribution, which is relatively easy to do, but not in
production, which is difficult to do.



There are a great many cases where people are paid to produce something
which is not profitable, or are paid to produce something which is then
distributed free.  People who take part in any kind of P2P community are
affected by similar logics – for instance, open source programmers might be
motivated by such things as desire to obtain jobs in the software industry
by strengthening their CV and learning skills, and they must be receiving
some kind of income or subsistence while programming, which is subsidising
their activity (either they have a job which is not P2P, or they are
receiving a student grant, benefits, etc, or are being supported by others
who have jobs or grants etc).  So if we apply your standard and say
something has to be completely gift-economy to be gift-economy at all, then
we would have to say that gift-economy can only exist in a society which is
entirely a gift economy without any capitalism, statism etc.
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