The Artificiality of Digital Scarcity: Contradictions between Code, Law, Norms, and Value(s)

Abstract

The rise and fall of Napster represented a major turning point in the history of the internet as it simultaneously paved the way for peer-to-peer filesharing as well as ushered in a backlash from incumbent media companies backed by an army of lawyers. This essay grapples with the ramifications of this struggle against filesharing and piracy that forever changed the internet. Much of how and why the internet is structured as it is can be explained through recognizing that this contradictory state of affairs is due to the inherent properties of the internet and digital files when "forced" to fit the capitalist drive for endless accumulation. Here, I examine why, from a critical theoretical perspective, governments and corporations have struggled to “overcome” the “problem” of freedom on the internet with only partial success. To answer this question, it is necessary to explore how digital infrastructures, supported by code and law yet also conflicted by new social norms, have shaped the internet to facilitate capital accumulation despite the ever-present potential for filesharing and piracy. Ultimately, I explain how piracy and filesharing represents a “crisis of value” and how these controversies emerged from the historical dynamics of capitalism that have far-reaching implications beyond online filesharing.