Quoting Armin Medosch "in a networked environment it is not so much individuality and expression that count but increasingly new ways of creating, sharing, disseminating digital work". This is the basis of Markus Renschler's project, FileSwap, a website where it is possible to share different kinds of files (pictures, text, pdf, audio) according to the slogan 'Give one file, get one free!'. His author has imagined fileswap as a big black box where you put a file in order to get back something original and unexpected. However there are some restrictions on what can be shared. The first is a quantitative limit because it is not permitted to share more than 500 kB of stuff. You are also not allowed to send archives or executables. The most restrictive rule is connected to copyright that Renschler claims to take very seriously. This is the reason why you must be the owner of rights of every material you want to upload, as well as you must contact fileswap if you have the impression that copyright is violated by the files you are receiving. The final effect is a contradiction in terms between the anarchic nature of file sharing and the censorial attitude of copyright.
Valentina Culatti