A fragment of people’s identities interested in the same content gather together online at the same time to ‘ride the wave’ of a particular torrent as it surges in popularity and peers. While the identities in the swarm may be the simulacrum of our identities, they still generate a community of interest, located in the same time. First, it is a reflection of reality, then it starts to mask and pervert a basic reality next it starts to mask the absence of a basic reality and finally, at the fourth stage, it bears no relationship to any reality, it becomes its own simulacrum. This potential assault on people’s wellbeing has changed the way in which they present their identities online.īaudrillard presented four phases of the image.
Those unlucky enough to be found and prosecuted face significant financial loss, while the fast majority of file sharers continue without sanction. The response to this and other file sharing services has been both arbitrary and severe. The idea that 27 to 55 per cent of all traffic on the internet consists of a protocol that is made up of at least 89 per cent of illegal transmissions of copyrighted material is truly staggering, and the threat it poses to the power of the owners of those copyrights is self-evident. 38 In Australia, this focus is modified to try to have ISPs made liable for acts of copyright infringements by their subscribers. In France, the UK and New Zealand there is legislation to cut off access to the internet for households that are accused of violating copyright three times. 37 This new mode of control is taking a number of forms. The holders of copyrighted materials have, for the time being, changed tack and are now applying pressure to the next easily identifiable level of a file sharing network in the form of the internet service providers (ISPs) that deliver an internet connection to people in the swarm. The sense of community and an individual’s own identity within that community is still important. Yet people continue to take risks to support the rest of the community.
36 However, despite these moves to further decentralise the process, people using Bit Torrent are still largely vulnerable to being identified, mostly through their Internet Protocol (IP) address that identifies the computer device they are using on the network. Having bypassed the need for central torrent trackers, some swarms are now moving discussions to Twitter, with the hash tag for the discussion determined by each individual torrent’s own infohash. While these websites help to maintain a community, Bit Torrent is moving to a further decentralised network. Mike Kent, in Digital Dialogues and Community 2.0, 2012 The future
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