Introduction

The term “peer-to-peer” (P2P) implies a flat topology, but despite the apparent lack of hierarchy that characterizes online “pirate” archives of digital content, certain hierarchical tendencies are found to arise in tandem with them. According to Derrida (1995), an archive is always dependent on someone – or even something – upholding it. Even the fleeting “an-archives” (Ernst 2008) of the online realm are dependent on some form of orchestration, some act of denomination and place-holding. Moreover, when observing the communities arising alongside such orchestrational hubs (or “strategic sovereigns”) (Andersson 2009), familiar patterns of eulogizing behavior are seen among its adherents, putting into place a mode of reverence that is actually hierarchical.

I have studied a range of different online data collections – one of them a wondrously deep, torrent-based cinephile archive of rare films whose name I have to leave out due to anonymity (see Andersson Schwarz 2015 for a further elaboration on this case study). Others include the P2P music-sharing application Soulseek and the web-based text archives Aaaaarg and Avaxhome. They vary significantly, but they all allow for sharing of intellectual property on a significant scale, without permission from the copyright industry. I will show how these online archives relate to issues of hierarchy. By doing so, I will critically engage with proponents of commons-based approaches to cultural content, such as Benkler (2002) and Medosch (2008), as I am detecting a virtuous, honorable ethos that unfolds within commons-based meritocracies. Despite not being based on traditional command-obey structures, certain strategies for coordination and administration come into play, serving a regulatory role by appeasing the users, thus simultaneously acknowledging the administrators as the rightful upholders of the archive. The existence of such an ethos contradicts simplistic dismissals of hierarchy.

Complexity

It would be hard to argue for a “pirate ethic” in the singular form – as the term “pirate” has a range of connotations and uses, many of which being unsettled and controversial. Despite this obvious demographic variety, a possible interpretation of a “pirate ethic” could be a uniform set of values shared by such a motley crew, akin to what Himanen (2001) or Raymond (1996) describe regarding hackers.