Peerless: The Ethics of P2P Network Disassembly
Paper presented by Ulises Ali Mejías within the context of the 4º Inclusiva-net Meeting: P2P Networks and Processes, celebrated in Madrid from July 6 to 10, 2009.
Other articles
- Guifi.net: Peer-to-peer network and Free Social Web for collective empowerment
- The Use of P2P Networks as a Source of Culture Manifestations in Brazil. The Example of Submidialogia Network
- Leeching Bataille: peer-to-peer Potlatch and the Acephalic Response
- P2P Broadcasting: Mesh Networks and the Democratization of the Radio Spectrum
- Beyond the Crisis in the Recording Industry: P2P Networks, Music, and Generational Cultural Experience
- Implementation Challenges for P2P Systems in Mobile Network Environments
Excerpt:
"In theory, P2P networks embody a model of collaboration that spells out the end of monopolies of communication. Like the Interactive-net Call for Papers states, P2P exemplifies principles like "equality of power among participants, free cooperation among them, putting into circulation or forming what are considered 'common goods', and participation and communication 'from many to many.'" While all this has been empirically confirmed in isolated cases, we need to question the 'goodness' of these premises at a large societal scale.
Even if we are to accept the claim that P2P network architecture engenders publics instead of markets, we should not put aside Kierkergaard's critique of publics as nihilistic systems intended to facilitate the accumulation of information while postponing action indefinitely. While Kierkergaard was putting down newspaper media, his critique couldn't be more fitting in the age of Web browsers, RSS aggregators and bitTorrent clients. Another way of putting this is to say that while P2P networks may indeed democratize access to cultural contents, we still need to ask: Whose cultural contents? The whole piracy debate revolves around the fact that the statistical majority of 'pirates' are using P2P networks not to disseminate radical countercultural products, but to share the latest Hollywood blockbuster or teen idol musical hit. We need to question how network processes normalize monocultures, and to do so we need to theorize what form of resistance is embodied by existing in the peripheries of networks."