Book Piracy As Peer Preservation
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Date
2014-11-09
Authors
Foxman, Maxwell Henry
Tenen, Dennis
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Computational Culture
Abstract
In describing the people, books, and technologies behind one of the largest "shadow" libraries in the world, we find a tension between the dynamics of sharing and preservation. The paper proceeds to contextualize contemporary book piracy historically, challenging accepted theories of peer production. Through a close analysis of one digital library's system architecture, software and community, we assert that the activities cultivated by its members are closer to that of conservationists of the public libraries movement, with the goal of preserving rather than mass distributing their collected material. Unlike common peer production models emphasis is placed on the expertise of its members as digital preservations, as well as the absorption of digital repositories. Additionally, we highlight issues that arise from their particular form of distributed architecture and community.
Description
13 pages
Keywords
Citation
Dennis Tenen, Maxwell Foxman. “Book Piracy as Peer Preservation.” Computational Culture 4 (9th November 2014). http://computationalculture.net/book-piracy-as-peer-preservation/