The Gift of Torrent

Abstract

The present work seeks to discuss the circulations of goods from the download of torrents from a perspective of the exchange for the gift. Initially some notions of gift are presented mainly from the discussions of the work of Mauss (2003) in interlocution with other authors who worked the concept more recently. In a second moment, possibilities of perceiving the gift on the internet and the operation of the torrent are presented, and then the discussion of the relationship between this mode of online sharing and the notion of gift, based on a bibliographical review of ethnographic research on peer-to-peer sharing. It is possible to identify the threefold obligation to give, receive, and retribute information and content shares through torrent by categories that resemble traditional categories, but it is also necessary to reconfigure the context to dialogue with the contemporary setting that includes digital media and their specificities of sharing.