CMNS 240 Chapter Notes - Chapter 9-1: Market Failure, Digital Distribution, Market Structure

• School: Simon Fraser University
• Department: Communication
• Course: CMNS 240
• Professor: Enda Brophy

Document Summary

Our current understanding of the social dimensions of file-sharing is inadequate. The term piracy camouflages the complex structural foundation of file-sharing activities. Discourse about file-sharing generally falls into two categories: criminality or missing markets. The european union has defined piracy as whatever the knowledge industry needs protection from. It ain"t no different than smashing a window at tiffany"s and grabbing [merchandise] . Far from being an antisocial behavior, file-sharing is a richly social and complex activity. By naturalizing the market form, these approaches explain file-sharing as some sort of aberration. The structural dimension of p2p systems is largely ignored, as is the constitution of social relations premised on something radically different from market relations. As such, file-sharing is analyzed as a possible articulation of an alternative form of social relations associated with the ascension of immaterial labor within the economy as a whole.