There Is No "I" in Torrent: Collective Effort and the Collected Self in Peer-to-Peer File-Sharing Networks

Abstract: In this study, the file-sharing networks known as private trackers are discussed, which are networks centered around BitTorrent technology. The purpose of the study is to explore how individuals share content on private trackers and discuss how the act of uploading is affected by actors within the file-sharing network. By using actor-network theory, both human and non-human actors that affect the network are taken into account. The main findings are as following. File-sharing on this type of platform is dependent on users experiencing a sense of community. This experienced sense of community is not, however, taken as a basis for an academic definition of the concept. Instead, actor-network theory is used to show how the sense of community on the private trackers is constructed through interactions between several human, as well as non-human, actors. Hence, the community cannot be said to be primarily social in nature. Since the network does not take the form of a primarily social grouping, the private tracker cannot be said to be a gift-giving economy, as described in previous research on file-sharing. Because of the large number of non-human actors in the network, interactions within the network are also shaped by the various incentivizing features built into the technology. Since gift exchanges between human actors are mediated by and through a large number of technological components, the metaphor of gift-giving is inadequate in the case of private trackers.