The Moral Economy of Intellectual Property in Post-Soviet Society

摘要

As living standards have risen in recent years the citizens of post-Soviet states are turning increasingly toward newly-available high bandwidth Internet connections as a new medium for the exchange of music, films, and computer software. Taking Ukraine as an example, the author argues that users are literally and metaphorically reconstructing im-ported Internet technologies in accordance with their own pre-existing cultures. The author probes these understandings through analysis of statements on file sharing behavior made by a sample of Ukrainian Internet users. To explain this distinctive technological path, the author examines the interaction of technologies, users, and regulatory regimes. These have shaped the understanding of ordinary users to-ward what the author, following E.P. Thompson, calls the "moral economy" of copyright and file sharing. The transition from this moral economy of intellectual property to the global intellectual property regime has occurred in law but not in practice.