ABSTRACT
This chapter presents a study of an online community organized around sharing digital versions of hard-to-find jazz records. Drawing on the political economy of file-sharing, and specifically gift economies, I examine how and why tastemakers in such communities produce, prepare, and distribute music, and the rituals of reward and reciprocation involved. I use the imagined perfection of a “digital utopia” to interrogate the discourses of fans, artists, and critics as tensions are revealed between the value of “MP3 blogs” as venues for taste-making and as archives, versus the ethical, moral, and industrial complexities they engender for rights owners and other vested interests.
