About
This site hosts the augmented edition of Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age, by Philippe Aigrain with contributions by Suzanne Aigrain. Amsterdam University Press released it on 1 February 2012 in print and as an open-access digital monograph. Beyond the book text, you can read and download the source code and datasets from the research, comment on each chapter, run the economic models for financing a sharing-compatible culture with your own parameters, and apply the diversity-of-attention analysis tools to your own data.
Publisher and US distributor presentations
For more than two decades, sharing digital cultural works between individuals has sat at the center of debates about copyright, creativity, and the future of culture. Some treat non-commercial sharing as piracy to be suppressed. Others accept it as inevitable and propose compensation schemes for perceived losses. Policy and industry responses still lag behind the practical reality of near-zero marginal cost for copying and distribution.
Sharing starts from a different premise: non-market sharing of digital works can be legitimate and socially valuable. The book draws on empirical research showing that such sharing can increase diversity in which works receive attention. Building on what we now know about cultural markets and digital networks, Sharing outlines conditions under which creative work and public access can both remain sustainable.
An in-depth study of digital culture and how works circulate online, Sharing challenges the view that file sharing is simply theft. Philippe Aigrain examines how sharing helps lesser-known writers and artists reach audiences. The book also reviews financing models that let individuals share works freely without seeking profit, while still supporting creators. Aigrain weighs incentives for creative labor against the cultural commons and offers a grounded reading of how digital networks reshape cultural production.
What you can explore on this site
The augmented edition turns the book into a working reference for researchers, students, and anyone following digital-culture policy. Use the chapter comment pages to discuss arguments in context. Download replication materials from Datasets and inspect the implementation in Code. On the Models page, change population, broadband uptake, and funding parameters to see how alternative support schemes might perform. For a focused walkthrough of the book's empirical methods, read the diversity of attention analysis guide. The diversity-of-attention tools described in the appendices remain available so you can test the book's methods on new usage data. For purchase options, translations, and event listings, see the links in the sidebar.
About the authors
Philippe Aigrain is President of Éditions publie.net, a publishing house focused on contemporary French-language literature, and a co-founder of La Quadrature du Net. He is also the author of Cause commune: l'information entre bien commun et propriété (Fayard, 2005), and writes poetry, fiction, and translations of English-language verse and prose into French.
Suzanne Aigrain is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford and a Fellow of All Souls College.
