lysloff - musical community on the internet - an on-line ethnography

8/7/2019 Lysloff - Musical Community on the Internet - An On-Line Ethnography

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Musical Community on the Internet:An On-line EthnographyRenl T. A. LysloffUniversity of California, Riverside

Throughout much of its relatively short history, the Internet has been the focusof considerable speculation and theoretical discussion from a field now widelyknown as cultural studies. What ties a great deal of this scholarship together isa com m on understanding of the Internet as a site for the production of "culturaltexts" and an approach that explores, as Rosemary Coombe puts it, "the rela-tionship betw een the word and the world" (Coo m be 199 8:17 ). It is hardly sur-prising, then, that m uch of the critical com m entary on the Internet co m es out o fEnglish departments and communications or media studies programs because,after all, the Internet is indeed largely textual in nature, being made up of e-mail , discussion groups, message services, websites, images, and other formsthat lend themselves to symbolic analysis. Yet what troubles me about a greatdeal of this literature is that it tends to be concerned almost solely with socialeffects (real or imagined) rather than the various apparatuses (technological aswell as social and political) and the people who are actively involved in usingthe Internet on a daily basis. I find an imbalance between the tendency to theo-rize the Internet at a general level and not enough close-to-the-ground ethno-graphic study of the new social space s the Internet mak es possib le. M izuk o Ito,an anthropologist who has conducted on-line fieldwork, suggests that many ofthese studies erase the real world technological and social underpinnings of In-ternet phenomena: "Much of the social commentary around virtual worlds im-plicitly reinscribes a split between information (virtuality) and materials (real-ity), describing ways in which on-line spaces provide a space of 'pureinformation that is both amputated from, and inconsequential for, real worldphysicality" (Ito 1997:88). Furthermore, it is too easy to forget that like theproducts of mass media, the "cultural texts" produced by the Internet are them-selves public representational forms, a part of what might be called "publicculture." The danger of a purely textual approach is that it perpetuates "thefantasy that on e can understand the wo rk ings of pub lic cultural representationssolely by interpreting/deconstructing [such] representations" (Ortner 1999:5 5 - 5 6 ) .

Cmttural Anthropology 18(2):233-263. Copyright O 2003, American Anthropological Association.

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234 CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

How and why people find meaning in their use of the Internet should be asimportant as textual analysis for anthropologists to study. Ethnographic ap-proaches understand the social and technological interactions (and processes)that desp ite taking place in the virtual realm of cyb erspace, have con sequ enc esfor lived social worlds. Until recently, anthropology has produced relativelyfew studies of the Internet, and fewer still were ethnographically based. Theproblem may be, as Michael Fischer argues, that "ethnographic fieldwork pro-vides the tools of investigations, but those tools are challenged by cyberspaceto maintain insider-outsider critical and comparative perspectivesnot to be-come absorbedand to adapt writing strategies that can map voicing and to-na lities, loc ate pe op le and their social structures, and thereby articulate criticalsites of constraints and open ness" (Fischer 19 99 :24 6-2 47 ).

In my analysis of a specific on-line music community, I address some ofthe challenges mentioned by Fischer, particularly those related to time andplace. In cyberspace, he points out, "temporalities as well as topologies foldthemselves into interesting configurations" (1999:247). To bring the theoreti-cal aspect of my discussion into sharper relief, I will focus on two questionsraised by Barbara Kirshenblatt-Gimblett (1996:23): (1) What is the nature of"presence" in a disembodied medium such as the Internet and what are the im-plica tion s for thinking about the "real" and about the materiality of social c om -munication? and (2) How are locality and community established in a mediumdedicated to the seamless flow of data through a network of nodes that are ad-dre sses but not places?

Virtua l Ethnomusico logyMy study is about a small but socially complex community existingw ithin the larger matrix o f the Internet, one that em erged uniqu ely as a result of

computer technology and coheres primarily through on-line communications.This community is not entirely textually based in the sense of being limited todiscussion groups and e-mail lists that now form a familiar part of the on-linemedia landscape as widely analyzed in scholarly literature on late-20th-cen-tury technoculture (although it also exists in these forms).1 It is made upmainly of electronic-music composers and aficionados and is described by itsmembers as the mod scene (referring to digital music modules the composerscreate and exchange). In conducting on-line ethnographic field studies of them od sc en e, as I have don e since 19 97 ,1 have learned new mu sical and lingu is-tic skills, interviewed composers, visited numerous research websites, col-lected relevant texts and audio recordings, and observed various kinds of mu-sic-related activities. In fact, in many respects, my research tools were not allthat different from those used in classical field research: participant-observa-tion, interviews, documentation, and so forth. Moreover, this fieldwork was astime consuming and intellectually demanding as any other ethnographic pro-ject I have done; it involved the study of esoteric knowledge and the develop-ment of new skills in making music, and it challenged my understanding ofmusical performance. Yet in other respects, this experience was quite different


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from my earlier research on rural musical traditions in a mountainous region ofcentral Java. Internet fieldwork involved long periods of solitary work in frontof a computer monitor, instead of being out and about, engaging in daily face-to-face encounters with people in the midst of a hot, tropical environment. Myon-line activities were made up of viewing images and listening to sounds andmusic, of reading and writing texts, and of absorbing abstract coding informa-tion. My mem ories of Java, on the other hand, are filled with visceral emotionsand vivid imagery: driving my motorcycle on dusty and dangerous two-lanehighways filled with chaotic traffic, sitting cross-legged at all-night perform-ances, eating delicious spicy foods and drinking hot, sweet jasmine tea, suffer-ing through debilitating bouts of flu and diarrhea, enduring periods of pro-found lonelinessall intensely sensuous, physical experiences that stand outin stark contrast to the more sedate intellectual pleasures of learning Javaneselanguage, history, musical concepts, and performance skills.

Even though my Internet fieldwork seemed, in the realm of embodied sen-sation, a rather solitary experience, it was still no less intensely social. Al-though I conducted my research without ever leaving my home, my work in-volved immersing myself in a new musical community, but with informants Iwould never actually meet face-to-face, people whose presence I could only in-fer from their textual messages. I wondered whether what I was doing reallywas fieldwork because I never had to go anywhere physically, never had tomake demands on my body or endure the tangible hazards that field re-searchers routinely face. Instead, fieldwork meant spending many late nights infront of my computer, "traveling" the far corners of cyberspace. Using real-time electronic "chat" systems and e-mail, I would often stay connected the en-tire night, traveling from one homepage to another, engaging in a network offar-flung friends, reading and typing messages to electronic musicians andtheir fans, gazing at images, both still and animated, and listening to randomsongs that would play automatically at some websites. Some of these siteswere installed with plugins (small software applications, or applets) that al-lowed me to listen to a song without necessarily first downloading it and thenplaying it back on my own software; others offered excerpts of songs usingstreaming audio programs. Throughout the night I would check my e-mail tosee if my composer friends or fellow enthusiasts had sent their most recentpieces for discussion.Synchronous message systems or "chat" networks allowed me to inter-view informants and make new friends. A young composer from Israel whocalled himself TrackZ became my tutor; he taught me a great deal about usingsome of the software involved in electronic music composition. Occasionally, Ifelt it necessary to set my synchronous message program to the "hide" mode toconceal my on-line status because idle textual chatting sometimes became anuisance; the number of people wishing to "chat" with me was sometimes un-manageable and distracting. Even my teacher, TrackZ, often wanted to communi-cate when it was not convenient. These distractions were not unlike my experi-ence in central Java, where I was often visited by strangers from neighboring


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villa ge s, curious about a foreigner in their midst. In both case s, I cou ld not con -trol my encounters with others and had to learn to adapt to the immediacy ofeach situation as it aro se. 21 also experienced disorienting moments of temporalsusp ens ion w hen I dow nloade d large files of m usic; these were long mo men tsof isolation and boredom. Everything seemed to pause in the speeded-up tem-porality of cyberspace. I had similar feelings of separation in Java duringRamadan, when performances and many social activities were halted for amonth of fasting and introspection. I tried to fill these times with reading andwriting, but the days seemed to stretch into eternity. In comparison, it seemsastonishing that on the Internet, such seemingly endless periods could actuallybe m easured in sec ond s or minu tes rather than days or w eek s.In addition to issues of embodied experience and subjectivity, Internetethnography complicates the conventional understanding of how one defines asite for ethnographic research. Websites are not field sites in the traditionalsense; research does not involve travel in the conventional sense of physicaldisplacement. Nevertheless, many websites do represent the loci of complexnetworks of social relationships that are in fact dispersed in geographicalspace. What brought us all together were the metaphorical places that stood asmonuments to the social relationships created through them. Thus, Internet re-search entails a form of travel, in a metaphorical sense, to radically differentkinds of social space.

I argue that on-line communities, such as the mod scene, are as "real" (orimagined) as those off line. The realization that communities are based on ashared sense of belonging that is not necessarily dependent on physical prox-imity is perhaps not in itself new (se e, e.g., And erson 198 3). W hat is of interestis how the Internet as a technology makes possible communities and new so-cial practices that may have been unimaginable before. The mod scene offersan interesting c ase in which o n-line mu sic production and dissemination set upthe con ditions for a prestige eco no m y in wh ich "go ods" (mu sic m odu les) areexchanged by electronic means. As with other on-line communities (for exam-ple, fan fiction, or "fanfic," rings), the Internet provides a new materialitythrough which social interaction and group formation can take place and fromwhich new possibilities for subjectivity and group identity can emerge.

C ul ture , S i m ul a t i o n , C o m m uni tyLooking at this new materiality of communication, Sherry Turkle sug-

gests: "We are mov ing from a modernist culture of calculation into a postmo d-ernist culture of simulation" (1997:20). She argues that the graphical user inter-face (GUI)along with hypertext media and the Internethas changed theway we interact with our computers, allowing us to navigate within simulatedenvironments and manipulate metaphorical objects . As they become in-creasingly important in our lived experience, the computer and media tech-nologies are changing the way we think about the "real" and representationsof the real.


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While the culture of simulation (what Arturo Escobar calls "cyberculture")might orient itself toward constituting a new order, it "originates in a well-knownsocial and cultural matrix, that of modernity" (Escobar 1996:112). In otherwords, although the Internet may be rooted in familiar terrain, it still holds thepromise of new cultural narratives and social formations. It remains to be seenwhether these will be understood as an extension of modernity, inherent in alarger postmodern condition, or simply one of many alternative modernities.Clearly, in the lofty realms of cultural theory, literary criticism, and the higharts, postmodernism offers ways of understanding the various aesthetic re-sponses to modernism, yet I find it falls short in explaining the more prosaic re-alities of everyday life. If we want to make the argument that postmodernity(as a historical condition) represents a fundamental shift in subjective experi-ence, then we need to examine specifically how that experience has changed. Ifsubjective experience is becoming increasingly constituted through simulatedforms, then w e need to ask how the subject finds m eaning in these form s.

We might say that cultural forms emerge out of the materials at hand: ifrepresentation ex ists in the ab senc e o f "the real thing," then it is representation,or simulation, that constitutes the stuff of culture. As Turkle notes, we are be-coming "increasingly comfortable with substituting representations of realityfor the real" (1997:23). Indeed, we communicate with one another by tele-phone or e-mail. The music we listen to is recorded in a studio and played backon our stereo systems, and much of what we see of the world is brought to usthrough broadcast or videotaped television. In other words, an increasingamount of our day-to-day experiences are mediated rather than "live." Newtechnologies create virtual and hyper-real experiences that are at times indis-tinguishable from the real or are impossible to find in real-world contexts.Sometimes called the Disney effect, such simulated environments and medi-ated social interactions are becom ing central to our lives. H owe ver, d espite thefact that we may be experiencing radically new forms of social interaction as aresult of media technologies, the quality of these social interactions still de-pends on the hum ans that give rise to them (see Escobar 1999 ).

Although these new media technologies have altered our relationship withthe world around us so radically that the real and the simulated seem to be in-distinguishable, they are rarely seen as being part of culture. It is too easy toforget that the realm of science and technology is, to use Clifford Geertz'sphrase, as much of a cultural system as the realms of art or religion. Turklemight argue that we live in a culture of simulation, but we also live in a veryreal world of hardware networks made up of computers, telephones, fax ma-chines, televisions, and stereo systemsa material culture of technological de-vices with sharp edges, machined parts, and wiringall fil l ing physical space,breaking down over time, and requiring considerable money to maintain andreplace. Understandings of media technology or the Internet should not be di-vorced from the networks of materiality made up of physical devices and thehuman beings who use them. With these caveats in mind, the remainder of thisarticle will examine whether the Internet constitutes a "virtual world that


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stands against and defines or supersedes something else called the real" (M illerand Slater 2000:193).3

In examining the relationship between technoculture and music, I viewtechnology not simply as the intrusion of scientific hardware on "authentic**human experience but as a cultural phenomenon that permeates and informs al-most every aspect of human existence including forms of musical kn owledgeand practice.4 This article addresses the question of embodiment and presencein the formation of community. If Internet communication is based on whatsome might consider the illusion of presence and others call "telepresence,"can it nevertheless support ongoing social collectivity? If so, are such "virtual"communities any different from those arising from embodied, face-to-face en-counters? Are they extensions of, substitutions for, or alternatives to, offlinecommunities? How do the technical realities of on-line communicationschange the way we think about individual and group identity?

Below, I describe in detail a set of social relationships mediated entirelythrough computer-based technology and the Internet. My object is to demon-strate the ways in which this new set of material practices has in fact consti-tuted a community composed of relationships that are socially meaningful toits members.

Dig i ta l Mus ic Modules : ModsThe on-line community that is the focus of this article is devoted to the

mod form of music production.5 Mods are music files in binary form createdthrough music editing programs known as "mod trackers," and they are playedback for listening using software called "mod players." Mod music files con-tain digitally recorded samples, as well as coding for sequencing the samples inplayback.6 The "trackers" that are used to create these files provide composerswith the means to control and manipulate sound samples in almost limitlessways to produce music. What is unique about these editing programs is that inthe hands of technically sophisticated composers, the resulting product rivalsstudio-recorded music in production quality. Creating music using such editingprograms is simply called tracking a term perhaps more appropriate thancomposing because the musical notation is actually coded data played not byhum ans but by comp uters. H ow ever , tracking is not simply com puter program-m ing but a highly creative and skillful activity. It inv olve s a much closer con-tact with musical sound than conventional composition because every aspectof each sonic event must be coded: from pitch and duration to exact volume,panning, and the laying in of num erous effects (such as ec ho , tremolo, and fade s).Mod musicians are thus both composers and performers of their music. Theyare studio sound eng ineers as well, producing high-qua lity digital "recordings"with virtual mixing boards that have as many as 64 channels. In this way, modmusic is akin to the do-it-yourself (DIY) sensibilities of punk garage bands be-cause it undercuts the division of labor in conventional music production anddistribution, as I discu ss be low .


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The Mod SceneOnce the mod is finished it is released to the Internet community of mod

enthu siasts, which is called "the scene." The composer uploads the newly com -pleted composition to one or more of several sites where mods are archived,making it available to his or her audience, who can download the file to theircomputers. Literally thousands of mod files can be found on the Internet. Al-though most compositions emulate high-tech popular dance music such ashouse, jun gle , am bient, and so forth, the mod scene is not by any m eans limitedto a particular style or genre of music. One can also find rock, heavy metal,new age, remixes of old and current radio hits, TV and movie themes, blues,jazz, and even classical music in mod format. Mod websites are important cen-ters for the exchange of information among community members. They pro-vide not only elaborately catalogued archives of mod m usic files, with detailedcharts of new and past hits, but also a public forum for mod fans to commenton any song. They also provide news of the scene, including news of "compos"(mod composition contests) and related music events. They function as com-munity centers, encouraging the free flow of ideas and information by offeringbulletin boards and chat services for members to communicate with one an-other more directly.

Because they can encode textual information within each mod file, com-posers also maintain contact with their audiences and with one another by in-cluding their e-mail addresses, greetings to fans and other composers, and vir-tual signatures (often in the form of textual graphics). The text is displayed forthe listener during playback. It is either scrolled in the title window of theplayer by clicking a button or displayed in a separate w indow , along w ith othersong information, by clicking another button. In their communications, modcom posers affect the language and style of the rave and dance club scen e. Theyrarely use their own names to identify themselves but take on futuristic or oth-erwise fantastic aliases such as Timelord, bionic, equinox, kosmic, mysterium,and so forth. Often the names themselves use graphics that play with conven-tions of spelling and capitalization.

To have any kind of status as an active member of the mod community,one must either be a mod composer, a programmer of mod-related software, orthe owner of a website that features mod music. In other w ords, social status isdirectly linked to social action. Even fans are able to con tribute to the scene bymaking mo ds available to the wider public by having a "plug in" mod player ontheir personal web page that automatically plays a composition when the site isvisited. Most of these personal web pages also provide links to other modwebsites and sometimes include small archives of featured or favorite mods.Like the m usic they advocate,* such hom epages are tanked according to ongo-ing surveys or the number of hits (total or daily) by several of the central modsites. Homepages are reviewed by scene members at the major websites ac-cording to their originality and creativity, as well as by their impact on thescene (the num ber of hits they draw ).


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Although most mods are composed by individuals, many are the result ofcollaborative efforts. In either case, and perhaps also for economic reasons,composers often form alliances similar to bands, setting up elaborate websitesfor their groups to promote and distribute their music. These alliances areknown as crews, and they may also include programmers and graphic artists (ifthe composers themselves do not have these skills). The composers, graphicartists (sometimes called "graphicians"), and programmers in the mod sceneare predominantly young men, varying in age from late teens to early 30s.They are generally middle-class white Europeans and Americans, college edu-cated and possessing some basic computing knowledge. 7 Some have access tofast, high-e nd com pute rs and broad-bandw idth w eb sites as a result of their job sin the computer industry, where they work as programmers and coders. Most,however, work on conventional PCs in their own homes, perhaps upgradingthe soundcarcl or adding RAM or other hardware depending on their financialresources and compu ting kn owled ge.

Difference on the Internet is generally not based on visible markers ofrace, gender, and age but emerges through the textual-based interactionsamong generally invisible groups and individuals. Whereas some people mayprovide digital photographs of themselves (on websites, for example) or self-identify when they post, on-line encounters are mostly based on the exchangeof m ess ag es w ithout reference to physical iden tity. Alth oug h I rarely knew forcertain the age, race, or even gender of the person with w hom I comm unicated,it was not hard to disco ver details about his or her edu cation , political leaning s,and musical background. I found m yself making assum ptions about the physi-cal identity of my correspondents based on very little information. Because weall used "handles," or aliases, even nam es were often m isleading. Byron Burk-halter writes that "certainty of racial identity offline or on-line is always con-tingentabsolute proof is not available and rarely necessary" (Burkhalter1999:62, my emphasis). This likely holds true for all forms of human differ-ence, and to paraphrase Burkhalter, establishing human difference is no lessrelevant on-line than it is offline (1999:74). In most cases, offline interactionsdepend first and foremost on visual codes inscribed on the body to establish theidentity of others. For better or worse, we routinely stereotype others: beliefs,experiences, and perspectives are assumed on the basis of the physical charac-teristics we see in them. However, on-line interactions, as Burkhalter pointsout, often follow a reverse pattern. Once the other's perspectives and values areestablished, we tend to make assumptions about race, gender, and sexuality.

Nevertheless, the assumptions we make about the identity of another per-son can sometimes be dead wrong. This is no less true when they are based onon-line comrnunications. For example, when people have common interests ina particular genre of popular culture, they may also share language style, val-ues, political perspectives, and so forth, and these common interests may over-ride or obscure race, gender, or other categories of difference. I witnessed adispute in a moderated public discussion, when one member of a website bulle-tin board, a person using the name L ogikz , wa s told to stop using the word nig-


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gaz (a stylized textual version of niggers). The moderator argued that the wordwas offensive and, therefore, not permitted (even though Logikz used it purelyas an affectation). Logikz (presumably a male) pointed out that his use of theword expressed solidarity with African Americans and was not intended as aninsult. He then angrily stated through capital letters (a form of textual shout-ing) that he was, himself, an African American and, therefore, had the right touse the term. Because the site promoted dance music of all kinds (includingrap), many fans of hip-hop culture affected the speech style of urban BlackAmerica in their posts (even as nonnative speakers of English). Yet most of usassumed that Logikz was white. No doubt we were drawing from the commonbut perhaps mistaken belief that the Internet is still a highly privileged world,open only to those who have access to sophisticated computer and media tech-nologies. As someone once said on that same bulletin board, spoofing a recentTV commercial: On the Internet no one may know you are a dog, but chancesare, you are a white middle-class male. Although it is clear that the Internet isbeing populated by increasingly diverse communities and it seems to hold Uto-pian possibilities for the future, the current realities of on-line participation arestill grounded in fundamental real-world economic and political contingencies.8

As an on-line community, the mod scene has a relatively short but richhistory.9 It emerged in the early to mid-1980s with teenage computer hackers"cracking" (deciphering) the software codes of early Atari, Commodore, andAmiga game programs. As a kind of computer graffiti, hackers would thencode short intros of modified music and graphics into the cracked games andpass them around like war trophies. The intros grew increasingly larger andmore sophisticated, eventually becoming autonomous entities. The interests ofthese young hackers slowly turned from cracking games to PC programming,creating "demos" or multimedia programs that had no other purpose than todemonstrate virtuosic coding abilities. Created entirely for aesthetic pleasure,demos have been described in W ired Magazine as the "last bastion of passion-ate enthusiast-only programming" (Green 1995). This resulted in what is nowcommonly known as the "demo scene," in which teams of young computerhackers compete against one another in producing the most elaborate and so-phisticated multimedia programs using the least amount of disk space. Ideally,a good demo is one that has interesting music and graphics but can be saved ona floppy disk. Mod tracking arose out of the demo scene because it uses rela-tively little disk space but produces near studio-quality music. Creating demosremains a popular activity today (among a small but active group of program-mers); however, it has now been subsumed by the mod scene. What is knownas "demo music" has come to be recognized by most community members assimply a style of com position.

A vestige of the early demo scene is a category of mod music known as"chiptunes," in which composers create full-blown mods using only computer-created sounds, often simply modified sine or square waves. To qualify as achiptune, the mod must be quite small (about fifty kilobytes or less) and useonly "hand-drawn" tones (that is, tones created by the composer) instead of


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sampled sounds. These mods, while usually having the distinctive bleep andbeep quality of transistor-generated tones, are often astonishingly creative andrich in ex pr essive nua nces. This kind of mod mu sic remains a viable option forcomposers perhaps because it poses particular challenges and limitations, asw ell as providing a low -tech alternative to the bigger and more elaborate com -positions that use increasingly larger samples of real-world sounds and are cre-ated with the sophisticated new tracking programs that are widely distributedthrough the Internet.

The social order of the mod scene is formed from a hierarchy of graphicartists, musicians, programmers, music experts, and fans. At the top are theseason ed dem o artists who have b een around since the early days of A m iga andCommodore computer hacking. They serve as the community elders and dic-tate the aesthetic standards of mod composing. In the middle are many experi-enced younger mod composers, many of whom are dedicated specifically tocomposing music and are not necessarily interested in creating demos. Novicecom pos ers and serious fans make up the largest but low est level of the comm u-nity. They generally have little voice in serious discussions of aesthetics andtechnical matters but make their presence felt through chat networks and e-m ail byasking que stions or expressing enthusiasm over a particular mod or com poser.

The musical aesthetics that developed out of the peculiar history of themod and demo scene still have a strong hold over the community today. Newcomposers, in particular, are reminded of rigorous tracking standards throughsometimes devastatingly harsh reviews of mods published regularly on the In-ternet. The aesthetics are, in their extreme manifestation, based on a kind ofgeek adolescent techno-machismomusic coding is damn hard and not suitedfor the technologically handicapped. Some community elders have lamentedthe decline of musical-coding standardsa result of increasingly user-friendlytracking softwa re that allo w s an ybod y to create a "lamer" (a poorly or sloppilycoded piece of music). Yet apprentice composers are generally welcomed to thescene and naive attempts at tracking are viewed with considerable tolerance.Although some hardcore tracking enthusiasts may emphasize highly polishedtechnological production and sophisticated coding techniques over musicalsubstance, most experienced mod composers have an astoundingly sophisti-cated knowledge or at least a profoundly intuitive understanding of music theoryand compositional technique, and they produce mods of outstanding quality (inmy opinion). Ultimately, however, it is the popularity of the composer's modsthat determine his or her status within the community.

All active members of the mod scene communicate with one another regu-larly by e-mail, Usenet discussion groups, and bulletin boards, as well asthrough real-time chat syste m s. Frequent com m unication is particularly impor-tant in the mod scene for establishing and maintaining friendships, as well asfor promoting one's own music and web page. As with any community in theoffline world, the mod scene is dependent on personal networks of communi-cations among its various members. These personal networks constitutesmaller collectivities of friendships and alliances in which individuals are in


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direct contact with other individuals (even though they may never meet in theoff-line world). Indeed, very few members are known personally by everyonethroughout the scene. In a musical community based almost entirely on the dis-embodied exchange of information, status is entirely dependent on name rec-ognition: the more widely a person's name is known, the greater prestige he orshe enjoysunless, of course, one gains notoriety for certain transgressionsagainst the scene (discussed below).

Websites may also reflect a form of social action in the mod scene. Tomaintain a large archive of mods and to make mod programs available to thepublic requires considerable resources. Some site owners use their own com-puters as servers (that is, as host com puters from which the public may retrievefiles) but most obtain storage space on commercial servers. Generally, thismeans renting disk space for data storage and paying a monthly fee for a cer-tain amount of bandwidth (i.e., public access to the site). Major sites might bestaffed with volunteers carrying out specific jobs, such as mod reviews,graphic art, research, and news reports on the mod scene or music in general.Additionally, major mod sites are the center of scene activity and must bemaintained on a daily basis. Important sites such as MODPlug Central, UnitedTrackers, HomeMusic, or the now-defunct Trax in Space reflect a profoundcommitment to the scene and those members associated with them enjoy con-siderable prestige throughout the mod com mu nity.

Thus, the mod scene is made up of a social hierarchy based primarily onprestige and authority. Prestige for composers is gained from having a largefollowing of fans and name recognition, while authority arises out of a thor-ough knowledge of tracking and computer-programming esoterica (and, to alesser degree, music theory and compositional technique). Prestige can also beobtained through other forms of commitment to the scene, most commonlythrough software development or establishing and maintaining a majorwebsite. Although those who occupy the highest levels in the social hierarchy(mostly seasoned composers and computer programmers) have little real con-trol over community members, they do command respect for their knowledgeand experience.

Imaginary Communities in Virtual PlacesThe idea of community is predicated on a collective sense of common in-

terests and purpose. Members of a community are bound together throughcomradeship and a desire to seek one another out. In the past, communitieswere based , at least in their conc eption, on proximity mem bers lived near oneanother. In m ost cases, as Benedict Anderson has shown, even small comm uni-ties are imagined communities because it is unlikely that any member will everknow all of his or her fellow m em bers; yet as Anderson sugg ests, "in the mindsof each lives the image of their com m union" (A nderson 1983:6). All mem bersknow some of their fellow members and, as a result, define their sense of be-longing to the larger group in terms of these specific relationships.


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Although the Internet is made up of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses thatare unlocalizable in observable space, it is nonetheless all about place. It is animaginary universe filled with a multitude of places. When we connect ourcomputers to the World Wide Web, we suspend disbelief and embark on ametaphorical voyage. Web-related language is filled with metaphors of jour-ney and place: we go to sites, we visit web pages, we surf o r cruise the Internet,we travel on the information highway to certain home pages. Most web pagesare, in fact, often graphically oriented around themes related to place, such ashomes, offices, castles, rooms, or spaceships. In some ways, they become al-most interchangeable with the physical sites they representsuch as certaingovernment or religious web pages that stand as virtual monuments to theirreal-world counterparts.

The imagined community of the mod scene is certainly based on commonpurpose and a strong sense of place among its mem bers. As should be clear bynow, their purpose is to create, distribute, and listen to mods. More impor-tantly, however, their sense of place is defined specifically in terms of the In-ternet, rather than the real world. There is no mod scene in the physical w orld;there are only isolated mod composers and fans. Indeed, the mod scene addsfurther meaning to the notion of transnationalism. Many alliances that partici-pate in the scene are made up of composers who live literally thousands ofmiles from one another. A g roup s web page becom es the locus for the activi-ties of its members and a place in which they share their common purpose. Itinstitutionalizes the group by providing its geographically scattered memberswith the means to present themselves to the world as a unified whole. Thus,though members may come together only in the disembodied telepresence ofthe World Wide Web, their home pages provide them with a kind of virtualcorporeality that is com pelling to their fans. Finally, the various web pages of themod scene are linked with one another through the M od W eb Ring, an Internetapplication that allows Web surfers to jump from one mod home page to an-other by simply clicking a button.

I want to explore the social structure of the mod scene a bit further by ar-guing that in many ways it resembles a prestige economy constituted throughthe circulation and exchan ge of valued o bjects. How ever, in this case, these ob-jects take the form of data and information. This exchange system can perhapsbe best understood in terms of what we might call the "virtual materiality" ofgraphical interface-based computing.

Digital Mediation and Simulated MaterialityThe com puter has been described as a kind of "language m achine " (Biggs1996:320), but this seems to me misleading from a cultural perspective. Cer-

tainly, in the strictest linguistic sense, a computer is a language machine be-cause it processes information and as most people understand it, it is mainlyconcerned with communication. Although some computer experts might beable to "read" program languages, much of the information that flows from thehard drive or the Internet to the computer processor remains invisible, as well


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MUSICAL COM MUNITY ON THE INTERNET 245

as incomprehensible, to most of us. Computer data, as such, means little to theuser. Yet when it is processed to become images, text, or sounds, the same datais now saturated with social relevance. I want to argue here that if we are toconsider the broader sociocultural implications of computing technology, weneed to examine how people actually use this technology on a day-to-day basisand as a result, how they derive meaning from it. For most of us, program filesare seen as icons in Windows or Mac environments. When we click on the iconit becomes a kind of virtual device that can do things for us such as reading andmanipulating data files. For example, clicking on the Netscape or Internet Ex-plorer icon initiates the computer modem and a so-called browser (itself repre-sented as a kind of stylized window) to download data found on the Internet.As we explore the World Wide Web, the browser processes various kinds ofdata that become, for the user, meaningful text, graphic images, or sounds.Thus, the advent of the GUI j s , aside from the technology itself, one of themost important innovations in the computing industry because it has changedthe way people use computers. As Turkle notes, "These new interfaces mod-eled a way of understanding that depended on getting to know a computerthrough interacting with it, as one might get to know a person or explore atown" (Turkle 1997:23). In other words, the GUI brought a kind of materialitythat simulated the physical experience of handling objects (like an audio com-ponent) or moving through space.

The practitioners and followers of the mod community have been usingthe Internet from its earliest days both to maintain a common group identityand to disseminate compositions and various related software programs. Thatis to say, the community members not only exchange information but they alsoengage in exchanging "products." Because both involve transmitting bytes ofcomputer data, what I mean by information in this context is textualized formsof knowledge (e-mail, chat systems, discussion groups, and so forth); by prod-ucts, I mean programs, images, and data files that, when processed, have func-tions analogous to three-dimensional objects we can literally hold in our hands.For example, mod program files, such as trackers and players, are analogous toaudio equipment like cassette tape decks, mixing boards, synthesizers, or CDplayers. One might view these as a kind of virtual media technology. As soft-ware, they provide access to certain media forms but are themselves entirelydependent on computer hardware as a primary media technology. Similarly,music compositions in binary files, such as mod files, are analogous to audio-cassette tapes or compact disks. In addition to being playable on particularsoftware programs, they are also collectible, as are recordings on disk or cas-sette tape. Fans collect and exchange the mods of favorite composers or musi-cal styles. Additionally, composers also collect and exchange digital samples.For example, a mod composer may post a request for acoustic guitar sampleson the alt.m usicm od discussion group. Other composers respond by attachingsample files to their reply posts. In any case, this exchange of virtual productsis what distinguishes the mod scene from other on-line communities. Past studiesof such on-line com munities have focused on textual material (discussion groups,


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lists, and chat systems), viewing them almost exclusively in terms of publicdiscourse. This makes sense in those cases because on-line dialogue is the pri-mary evidence one might have of communal activity. In the mod scene, how-ever, the distribution and exchange of virtual products, particularly mods, isabsolutely crucial to the vitality of the scene.Thus, the mod community is dependent on the use and exchange of pro-grams, data files, and textual files. Active interest in the community is continu-ously maintained by a steady supply of new compositions uploaded daily tokey archive sites. However, the question remains: What provides composerswith the incentive to produce new works? Everything related to the mod sceneis free. All the software programs are either freeware or fully functional share-

ware, and there is no fee to download mod files from the many available webpages and public archives. After participating in the scene for several m onths, 1came to realize the most important form of currency in the mod scene is an e-mail message from a listener telling you that your music is awesome. This iswhy almost every single mod on the Internet is identified with the composer'shandle (alias) and an e-mail address, sometimes including a message by themusician begging for comments. Several websites provide reviews of modswith featured songs and a rtists. Others provide rank ings of each song based onhow many times it is downloaded. For example, administrators of the Home-M usic w ebsite use complicated formulas for determining the top ten or top 100songs based on the num ber of downloads per day, week, or month. Com posersseek recognition for their creative work, and while Billboard-like charts mightindicate the popularity of their music, many simply want feedback from theirfans. Some composers create mods following a rather narrowly defined musi-cal style, such as death metal or acid jazz, and will not gain the popularity moremainstream composers are able to achieve. For these, listener response is par-ticularly impo rtant. All in all, websites that provide mod files for dow nloading,or services such as bulletin bo ards and mod reviews, are extremely active, and,more importantly, they are the infrastructure for the prestige system on whichthe scene is based.

Simulation and the Creative ProcessAs I stated at the beginning, we live in a culture of simulation, in whichthe representation of reality seems to have triumphed over reality itself. How-ever, the mod scene exists within yet another order of simulation because most

other so-called virtual communities are extensions of real-world counterparts.In its own peculiar form of virtuality, the mod scene is a social simulacrum ithas no real-world counterpart. It emerged within, and as a result of, computertechnology and the Internet. Like other virtual communities, the mod scene de-pend s on the Internet for com munication . W hat makes it unique is that its prod-ucts (the music files, the trackers, the mod players, and other associated soft-ware programs that form the basis of exchange among its members) and itsservices (provided on major web pages for scene members) are also entirelydependent on the Internet. The music modules and the related software might


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MUSICAL COM MUN ITY ON THE INTERNET 247constitute what Jean Baudrillard (1983) calls true simulacra: third order simu-lations that have no (physical) originals and are themselves based on othersimulations.

Creativity in electronic music is based on what Arthur Kroker views asdigital recombinancy, where identifiable elements of one expressive form arereconfigured to becom e another, entirely different form:Western music goes recombinant. It is suddenly uplinked into a starlight horizonof a thousand billion data bytes, becoming a malleable object. Not a sound-object,that's too hard-edged, formalistic, and mechanical, but more like liquid sound,where noise melts down into a fluid, viscous material, endlessly combinatorial,following an indefinite curvature of violent velocity. [Kroker 1993:58]

Kroker's phraseology aside, music recombinancy redefines the compositionalprocess. Instead of writing fo r certain music instruments, as in past Westernmusical practice, mod comp osers m ake music with sound. In other words, modcomposers work directly with sound rather than writing instructions (i.e., mu-sical notation) for musicians specializing in particular instrum ents. This has di-rect imp lications not only for the creative p rocess but also for the social organi-zation of music production.When music is produced in the simulated environment of computer tech-nology, it forces us to reconsider the Cartesian mind-body divide. TraditionalWestern art music, on the one hand, valorizes virtuosity, which hinges on theclose relationship between body and music making, even while musical crea-tivity is understood to be centered in the mind. Virtuoso musicians are valuedfor their technical skills in performance in ways that athletes are valued forspeed, flexibility, control, stamina, and power. Furthermore, musicians areevaluated according to their mastery over a musical instrument, their technicalcontrol of it, and their physical ab ility to make it do extraordinary things. Theyhave an intimate and direct relationship with the sound they produce, and thatrelationship has always been through the body. On the other hand, Western art-music comp osers have come to be regarded as great musical think ers ." Being acomposer might be less glamorous than being a performer, but composers areseen as the fount of creativity, while performers are merely interpreters andtechnicians: composition results from the creative mind, while performance isexecuted by the interpretive body. Thus, the Cartesian divide is manifest evenin the social division of musical labor.

In electronic music, such as that produced in digital modules, the mindand body divisions are blurred: the composer determines all aspects of the mu-sic, including how it is to be executed down to the most minute detail. In thisway, the composer both creates and interprets music with the computer. YetWestern notions of musicaltfy, virtuosity, and talent have all been bound up inan ideology of human agency, individualism , and personal autonom y. B ecauseelectronic music is not performed by a virtuoso but rendered by a software pro -gram or a digital sequencer, what are the implications for the understanding ofmusical talent, ability, and virtuosity? Is the electronic-music programmer an


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artist or simply a computer technician? Where does musicality lie? Is it in themind or the body of the programmer? Or is it somewh ere b etween? Or nowhere?

Mod music has also undermined common-sense understandings of whatconstitutes "the music"what has been generally used by Western-trainedmusicologists and musicians to describe the notational score of a composition.In traditional art music, the composer scores out ideas to create a piece that isperformed by a singer, instrumentalist, or ensemble. Similarly, in electronicmusic, the composer codes instructions for software programs that in turn ren-der those codes into music. Both scoring and coding music, broadly consid-ered, are forms of inscription. A conventional music score, however, is a kindof text that is (re)interpreted by the performer to become music. In this way,the score becomes a textual record of an ephemeral phenomenon, but beforethe fact. That is, when music is rendered into notation, it becomes textualizedin a way similar to language performers "read" the score in exp ressive wa ys,jus t as actors "read" the script to a play. I am trying to argue here that con ven -tional music notation is thus often implicated in the simple-minded but persist-ent analogy drawn between music and language. Western music "seems" to bea kind of language (a "universal" language, some have said) perhaps because itcan be rendered into text. While musicologists today might deny the analogy.Western music scholarship is still largely founded on musical texts that are, ineffect, analyzed much like language texts. Through notation, music theoreti-cians are able to determine the grammar, syntax, and even the semantics of mu-sical composition and thus perpetuate the music-as-language myth. Most im-portant, however, Western music institutions are founded on the notion ofmusical literacythat is, being able to "read" music notationthereby main-taining a kind of priesthood based not only on music as expressive sound butalso music as text.On the other hand, electronic-m usic cod e m ight also be considered a kindof text, but it is not written to be read by humans. It forms a set of instructionsto the computer to carry out particular commands in precise order and detail.Like the old hole-pu nch ed paper rolls of player pianos, m usic codin g is writtenby humans but "read" by machines. In this way, music coding is more like anaudio recording than a text. A recorded performance is always fixed in relationto the medium on which it is inscribed. The same holds true for coded music.With audio recordings, however, the performance always precedes inscription,while in mod music the performance follows inscription (the coding). Whatthis means is that mod composers do not need to understand "music theory,"nor do they need to be musically literate (in the traditional sense of being ableto read notation). A composition (or any part of it) can be immediately "playedback" by the computer (using a tracker software program) so that the composercan listen to atiy passage throughout the compositional process. In this way,composition becomes a more intuitive form of musical expression, somewhatakin to improv isation in jaz z or blues. I am not trying to say this necessarily resu ltsin intrinsically better music but that it provides more possibilities for untrainedcomposers to experiment with musical sound and structure.


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MUSICAL COMMUNITY ON THE INTERNET 249*Coding music with the use of digital samples also implicates the way lis-teners understand particular sounds. Audio samples no longer necessarily havea parasitic relationship with real-world sounds. That is, certain musical instru-ments may remain in the collective imagination only as a sound, not as physi-

cal objects. This is already beginning to happen with particular instruments,such as the Hamm ond B3 Organ or the Moog Synthesizer. M od composers aregenerally quite familiar with these instruments even if most have never playedor even seen them. They might know them only from the sampled tones theyhave obtained from commercial sound collections and fellow mod composers(or com mercial audio recordings). For many m od fans, these sounds may sim-ply be free-floating sonic sym bols without a material referent. In any case ,thinking about this leads us to ponder the temporality of recorded musicalsound: the audio recording fixes performance in time, specifically in the past(after all, the recording is by definition an archival docum ent). Musical cod ing,too, fixes the performance in time, but in the present (because the computermanipulates sound samples removed from historical context).

Musical Creativity and Ownership 1: RippingAuthenticity, appropriation, and originality all remain slippery conceptsin the mod community. Mod composers pay close attention to one another sworks and to the music industry generally. In this way, ideas circulate freelyinto and around the scene. Distinguishing between imitation and innovation re-quires an understanding of the creative limits of mod composition. Mod-scenemembers draw a fine line between artistic emulation and slavish imitation, be-tween creative borrowing (or quoting) and outright theft, and between stylisticaffiliation and mindless fashion. Com positions are judged according to differ-

ent criteria, ranging from the overall artistry and technical execution to detailsof specific sound elements. The most difficult criteria in evaluating mods,however, have to do with authenticity and originality.One of the ways mod composers demonstrate their skills in tracking is bycreating "remixes" (or simply "mixes") of other compositions. Remixing, orrendering a new version of a known piece in its entirety, is a common practice .Composers may remix almost any popular piece of music. For example, thewidely known theme to the movie Bladerunner, by Vangelis, has been ren-dered by several mod composers. Some versions attempt to sound as much likethe original as possible, while others simply evoke the original theme. In eithercase, the title is retained and Vangelis is credited as the original composer.Generally, remixing is considered a form of homage to a particularly outstand-ing piece of music or tribute to a renowned artist. Remixing mod music is alsowidespread in the scene.12 For examp le, com posers often render more than oneversion of their own compositions. This practice is not unique to the mod

scene, of course, and occurs comm only in dance-club music and related forms(such as ambient, jun gle, and so forth all broadly designated "electronica").13Oc casionally, one mod com poser w ill create a remix of a piece by another m odcomposer as a form of tribute. However, only scene insiders would likely


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understand the significance of these remixes because very few mods breakthrough into the larger world of popular music. In any case, remixing is a riskyenterprise because the new version may be unfavorably judged against theolder, more established version.14

While remixing is an interesting aspect of the mod scene, more importantis the practice known as "ripping." Defined broadly, ripping refers to appro-priation in the Ricouerian sense of taking something foreign and makiog itone's own. In its most innocuous form, ripping is what many mod composersdo all the time: they appropriate sound samples from other mod files. Whilethis is allow able and even en coura ged com posers will contact or at least ac-knowledge the owners of the samples they rip. Samples range from extremelybrief sounds (such as percussive "one shots") to melodic or rhythmic motifs,sometimes even whole melodic phrases or harmonies. Because of this, thepractice of ripping samp les remains a key topic of debate, and on-line discussionsoften focus on whether musical creation begins with the sound sample itself (re-cording sounds and modifying them) or in the sequencing of a sample. For exam-ple, the following quote from the composer known as Ming reflects a commonsentiment in the scen e (posted on the ModPlug Central discussion forum):

Re -usin g sam ples from a mod is IMO not a bad thing. Instead, I encourage peopleto use m y sam ples , it makes m e proud to see that I have created so m ething usefulfor som eon e els e's work. D o not take the opportunity away from this free socie tyof ou rs to do that. The sam ple s are our instrume nts, the patterns are the m usic , andit's the m usic that w e shall not steal. Le t's defin e what is stealth [ste alin g] andwhat is not. I claim sample ripping is definitely NOT stealth [stealing], and thatfree use of samples should be encouraged. [Ming, July 7, 1999]

Many mod composers use only their own samples (i .e. , sounds they them-selves have digitally recorded and modified), while some use samples (with orwithout modification) ripped from other sources (such as synthesizers, com-puter games, audio recordings). Composers can also go to sites devoted to ar-chiving sound samples and other mod-related resources, for example, MAZ (asite that is well known to mod composers). These same samples are often thenripped by other composers and in this way move from one mod composition toanother. When samples travel so far and wide, they become public propertyas free-floating an on ym ou s soun d byte s on the Internet, available to any and allcomposers. Indeed, the concept of ripping here suggests the ideology of themod scenemusic should be available for free to all people. In such cases,therefore, ripping has purely technical connotations: rem oving a sound samplefrom a source and using it in a mod composition. Technically, one could "rip"a sample from one's own mod to use in another. Indeed, mod composers some-times use software programs to obtain digital samples from computer gamesthese are, in fact, called "rippers."

On the other hand, the concep t of ripping may a lso have nega tive assoc ia-tions. When the original creator of musical material is not acknowledged, trans-gressions associated with ripping can range from simple discourtesy (e.g., using


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someone's samples or musical ideas without acknowledgment) to outrighttheft (e .g., plagiarizing an entire com pos ition or section o f a com po sition ). A l-though most composers welcome the appropriation of their samples, evenwithout acknowledgment, some feel that it is a form of theft and are careful todeclare their ownership in their comments to the music or include a copyrightsymbol with the list of samples.15 The use of ripped samples also impinges onthe evaluations of mods. Reviewers judge not only the timbral quality of thesamples (discounting clicking or distortion) but also their uniqueness. For ex-ample, novice composers are often ridiculed for using samples that have be-come hackneyed as a result of their popularity, and they are thus motivated tocome up with unique sounds (or at least find less widely heard samples) fortheir music or to use well-known sounds in new and more interesting ways.Recently, however, plagiarism has become an important issue in thescene. Since the number of mod composers has grown significantly over thepast several years, music theft and plagiarism have become increasingly com-mon and remain ongoing topics of discussion and heated debate. One case ofmod plagiarism involved an artist known as Melcom who discovered to his de-light that one of his songs, called "Another World," was featured on a largewebsite that archived MP3 music.16 However, he was outraged when helearned that another person had taken credit for the composition withoutchanging anything in it, not even the title. An article posted on the ModPlugCentral website reporting the theft poses an unusual dilemma for mod com-posers .1 7 If mo ds are freely distributed and, as in this ca se, p lagiarism is not forfinancial gain, what legal recourse does the composer have?

This situation raises an interesting question: exactly whatrightsdoes Melcom have?The web site in question is a non-commercial venture, and does not profit from hiswork. Also, the "Digital Property" laws, at least in the US, are still rather vague.Let's talk about it. MODPlug Central m oves that, if there is an interest, a collectiveof MODmusicians should be formed to provide legal counsel in the case of an art-ists work being used for commercial purposes without their permission. Althoughwe walk a fine line by releasing music for free on the Internet, the holder of thecopyright on wholly original works is still the author. If this site was using Mel-com 's song in a commercial venture, he would have everyrightto sue them for copy-right violation. Problem being, does Melcom have the legal connections and themoney to pursue such a lawsuit? [Mister X aka Kim, webmaster, November 6,199 9]The offending piece has been removed from the web site and the plagiarizing

composer banned forever. In another case, an artist calling himself DJ Carbonposted several com positions to a web site and even released a C D of h is works,including several plagiarized from various highly regarded mod composers.What is particularly interesting in this and other cases like it is that many modcomposers themselves are well-trained computer programmers, and some areeven gifted computer hackers. Several highly skillful hackers in the scene wereable to trace DJ Carbon s real name, personal website, place of employment,and other personal information about him. DJ Carbon's punishment was humili-ation and banishment from the scene. Because social standing is dependent on


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252 CULTURA L ANTHROPOLOGY

social action in the mod scene, DJ Carbon was publicly denounced and all evi-dence of his activities (his own compositions and his reviews of other composi-tions) was removed from websites. In effect, DJ Carbon ceased to exist in thescenethe mod community collectively sentenced him to virtual banishment.It is unlikely that he can return to the scene in another virtual incarnation (ex-cept, perhaps, as a so-called lurker) because scene members know who he is inreal life.

Mod-scene members discussed the various sides and possible remediesfor curbing mod plagiarism. One thread, on the M O DP lug Central we bsite bul-letin board, explored the idea of establishing an Internet watchdog organiza-tion to investigate and remedy copyright abuse in the mod scene:

ICO M M Discuss ion Group (first posting)This Bulletin Board is here to discuss the idea of ICOM M, the "International Con-sortium Of MOD Musicians," a group that could provide legal counsel and otherprotective services to MOD Musicians to keep their music freefree from chargesand free from being ripped off.Please post all of your ideas here , and le t's discuss this idea. Is it necessary? W ouldyou personally support such an organization? Let's hear what you have to say![M ister X aka Kim, webmaster, June 28 , 1999]

Ripper StockadeW hether ICOMM gets off the ground or not, I'd like to see a high-profile site dedi-cated to making confirmed rippers infamous, including posting the full details ofwhat they d id, links to their e-mail address and web page, and asking for people tocom e forward with information on those and other confirmed rippers. I've person-ally helped to blow the lid off of four different rippers, yet only one of them evereven bothered to apologize or to come clean, even in the face of convincing evi-dence. (That one ripper actually admitted to ripping songs that nobody had ac-cused him of ripping yet, so I believed the sincerity of his apologies.) 1 figure ifthey don't want to come clean, then why should we allow them to maintain anydignity in the scene at all? Ripping seems to be on the rise again, and if we d on 'tfight it now, it'll get out of hand. [Novus, June 30, 1999]

Be waryThe ICOM M seems like a good idea at first, but we should really think about whatthis would mean. I would like to first point out that the initial idea was regardingcommercial ripping, not just stupid-fuck ego-boosting "i made this" bullshit. Butthenreally is there that much of a problem right now with people using scenemusic for com mercial ventures? If, say, a production video game DO ES use scenemusic, and it is an obvious rip, it really is not hard for the composer to prove it incourt. [Michael, June 30, 1999]

You read my mindI had jus t been thinking about this same sort of situation a while ago ; what is thereto protect us from being ripped off? Especially because I am a lesser-known artist,it is definitely in my best interests to have someone looking ou t for m e. I think it isa brilliant idea to have protection.


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However, on the flip side of the coin, we must be careful to avoid the self-servinggreed-mongering practices that govern the record industry today. I'm all for anti-plagiarism protection, but let 's be careful not to undo the open and sharing atm os-phere in the MOD com m unity; the best thing about M OD s, after all, is that the y'r efree to make and free to check ou t. [Craig, July 2, 1999]

A place to startRem em ber, the best weapo ns a com munity such as this has are word of mouth andsolidarity. Yes, the net is a big place, but there are a lot of people w atching it, andas long as they speak out the people w ho try and pull crap wo n't get away with it.Having a place w here people can speak out seems to be the bottom line of this pro-ject. [Whiggy, July 28, 1999]Policing mod authorship and distribution, as the discussion above shows,

may protect com pose rs from cop yright abuse, but it also can have a chilling ef-fect on the anticommodification ethic of the scene and its ideology of free mu-sic and free software. A lthough mod com pose rs do indeed enjoy copyright pro-tection for their creations (according to current U.S. laws), 18 it is unlikely theycan pursue redress when little or no money is involved. An important aspect ofthe scene, pointed out by Whiggy, is community solidarity and the rapid dis-semination of news among its members. Yet the strongest weapon against pla-giarism, suggested by Novus in his post, is to publicly humiliate transgressors.Because the mod scene is based on social prestige rather than financial gain,public humiliation is a powerful method for discouraging musical theft, at leastamong mod composers .

Prestige may also be the reason why plagiarism among mod composers isconsidered a particularly serious transgression by scene members. What infuri-ated them in the DJ Carbon case was not the issue of compensation becausemod com pos ers rarely, if ever, make m oney from their creations. Plagiarism isa serious crime in the scene because it robs trackers of their hard-eamed statusin the communitytheir prestige. Indeed, DJ Carbon's transgression was thathe stole the thing that trackers want most: fan recognition. Because of this, asone ModPlug Central Discussion Forum posting argues, plagiarism can beconstrued as a direct threat to the scene itself:

Keep in mind though that often the only "p ay" a tracker ever gets is ackn ow ledge-ment from his or her fans. Without this acknowledgement, very few people wouldkeep tracking, and the scene would die. And the reason why ripp ing is a problem is thatthey drain away this acknowledgem ent from the person who rightfully deserves it.[Nov us, June 30 , 1999]I have shown how ripping is a broad concept within the scene. When com-

posers borrow digital samples from one another, ripping is seen as a positiveaspect of the creative process. After all , tracking was founded on the subver-sive practice of ripping sounds from game software and music recordings (aswell as television and film soundtracks, audio effects, dialogues, etc.), usingthe rationalization that such brief sound elem ents shou ld be free for public us e.


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Indeed , for m ost scene mem bers, samples are simply considered publicly avail-able sounds that can be rendered into music only through the creative processof tracking (i.e., music coding). It is in the appropriation of coding that rippingbecomes a serious transgression. Although some trackers may identify certainsamples as part of their signature sound (usually if they have created or modi-fied a truly unique sound), most regard only their music coding as intellectualprop erty. Th is became apparent in the vigorous protest one tracker aimed at an-other for using som e of his "pa tterns" (i.e., sections of coding).19

Musical Creativity and Ownership 2: MP3 SoftwareAlthough plagiarism remains a serious threat to the scene, it is control-lable by scene members themselves. A greater threat, some scene membershave argued, is the advent of MP3 compression software. To some extent, MP3undermines the option of ripping as well as denies artists the ability to examineone another's coding techniques. Most computer users are more or less famil-iar with digital sound as "wave" files (usually bearing the suffix ".wav").These might be likened to uncom pressed b itmapped image files (often bearingthe suffix ".bmp"). As with images, the greater the detail, or resolution, the

larger the file. Compositions digitally recorded with CD-quality resolutiontend to take up considerable disk space in uncompressed wave-file format.However, software com pression techno logies like MP3 (using files with a suf-fix such as ".mp3 ") reduce the audio file size dramatically wh ile retaining mostof the overall audio quality, thus allowing digitally recorded music to be easilydistributed on the Internet.20 However, for mod music, this means playing thesong on the computer and recording it as a wave file that is then compressed(encoded) into the MP3 format. As an MP3 file, the song no longer containsany music coding and therefore cannot be played back on mod-player ortracker software. It is now a true recording rather than a set of computer in-structions with audio samples. Other artists cannot examine the composer'scoding techniques. On the other hand, some mod composers have argued thatMP3 protects them from plagiarism because their creative techniques, as wellas their sam ples, becom e hidden and are far more difficult to rip. It also allowsthem to do "postproduction" work on a songthat is, improve the overallquality of the song using nontracking software (such as audio editing and ef-fects programs). Once the song is rendered into MP3 format, it becomes"fixed" jus t like any other aud io recording, giving the composer greater controlover the final product and discouraging unauthorized versions by plagiarists.The files can be copied , but they cannot be easily altered.

Ironically, many mod artists and fans consider MP3 technology a stepcloser toward the commercialization of mods. For them, when mods are con-verted into MP3 format, they become like any other recorded musicthey areno longer mods. Some have even accused the major sites, such as Trax inSpace, of "selling out" to the popular-music industry because it allows artiststo submit songs in almost any digital format, including MP3. The irony here isthat M P3 and similar technologies are also considered a major threat to the m usic


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industry, as Reebee Garofalo (1999) points out. MP3 takes the record compa-nies out of the equation, linking artists and fans more directly through the In-ternet. Furthermore, distribution over the Internet is difficult, if not impossible,to regulate: MP3 files can be copied just like any other computer files. In re-sponse, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), in coopera-tion with major record companies, is proposing an open standard that wouldencode each digital recording with a "watermark" that identifies its owner andorigin to discourage illegal copying and distribution (Garofalo 1999:250).Other related software technologies are on the horizon or have already arrived.The various spin-offs from Napster (a program that facilitates the exchange ofMP3 files on the Internet) further undermine the power of the large music cor-porations, but it remains to be seen what this may mean for the mod community.21

Conclusions: Techno-Performativity and Virtual CommunityOur understandings of selfhood and community have been radically al-

tered by media and communications technology. In the discourse of postmod-ernism, the subject has been fragmented into many selves. When we go on-line, the computer extends our identity into a virtual world of disembodiedpresence, and at the same time, it also incites us to take on other identities. Welurk in, or engage with, on-line lists and Usenet groups that enable differentversions of ourselves to emerge dialogically. The computer, in this way, allowsfor a new kind of performativity, an actualization of multiple and perhaps ide-alized selves through text and image. Communities, too, emerge out of the con-vergence of the many disembodied selves on the Internet. Freed from the con-straints of real time and real space, so-called virtual communities are not boundby physical proximity or face-to-face contact. What makes an on-line commu-nity cohere is a common interest and a suspension of disbeliefa faith in thecommunity's reality on the part of its members.

The idea of a "virtual community" has been the focus of discussion in agreat deal of literature regarding computers and the Internet.22 Too often, how-ever, "community" is described in simplistic or entirely Utopian terms. On theone hand, Howard Rheingold defines virtual communities as "social aggrega-tions that emerge from the Net when enough people carry on public discus-sions long enough, with sufficient feeling, to form webs of personal relation-ships in cyberspace" (Rheingold 1994:5). Others writers compare the virtualcommunities of the Internet to the Habermasian ideal of the "public sphere." 23Here, the virtual community has Utopian possibilities: a kind of place where ac-cess is guaranteed to all citizens, where they can gather, organize themselves,and hold informed and reasoned debate. For many theorists, however, if it doesnot fulfill our Utopian dreams,of the public sphere, then it is not a community;rather, it is simply a myth created by the corporate world "to inspire and privi-lege commodified desires" (Lockard 1997:225). In some respects, this claimhas merit. Clearly, the users of Microsoft W indows 98 do not constitute a com -munity, despite the advertising hype.


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One might also argue that not all people have access to the Internetin-deed, most people in the world do not. Furthermore, it is rarely informed andreasoned debate that occurs on-line. Some may believe that what happens onthe Internet is not really (or virtually) community but simply a desire for com -munity (Lockard 1997:224). Yet this begs the question: what does constitutecommunity? Perhaps communities are based less on material and embodiedproximity (humans sharing physical space) than on a collective sense of iden-tity a fee ling that one belo ngs and is comm itted to a particular group. A com -mu nity cohe res through the com m on interests, ideals, and goa ls of its member-ship. The Internet lays the groundwork for community by providing access tosustained co m m unication , informational resources, and most important, a com -mon locu s for memb ers to gather. Internet com m unities have em erged, despitetemporal and spatial displacements, because they are formed entirely out of so-cial relationships that are very real to membersrelationships emerging out ofcommunication, exchange, common interests and purpose, and mutual com-mitment. As Nessim Watson argues, "We should begin thinking of communityas a product not of shared space, but of shared relationships among people"(Watson 1999:120) .

Even in the off-line world, a community does not come into existencesimply because of the physical proximity of its members. A community is de-fined by the social relationships that form its underp innings. "C om mu nities areto be distinguished, not by their falsity/genuineness, but by the style in whichthey are imagined" (Anderson 1983:15). Thus, discussion should be focusedinstead on the nature and quality of the relationships in the formation of In-ternet communities. In other words, we should perhaps be asking what thesesocial networks do and mean for their mem bers.

W e m ight also extend A nderson s point that com m unities are imagined inparticular styles by argu ing that "styles" refer to the w ays in w hich groups takeon particular identities and how these identities are translated into social action.Following this reasoning, the concept of community could thus be consideredthe unique manner in which a network of relationships is conceived by itsmembers and represented to the wider world as the group's identity. That is,we might understand community as a collective and ongoing performativepractice of group representation (to itself and to others). Representations areboth entities made up of specific formal properties and kinds of practice thatare distinct but inseparable from the full range of human activ ity(K ean e 199 7:8 ).Representational forms and practices get at the core of understanding humaninteraction. They are "embedded within and implicit to the demands of interac-tion" and provide evidence of "how people constitute themselves and act as so-cial subjects" (1997 :224 ) .

The mod scene is a community constructed entirely of representationalforms and practices; it draws together symbolic structures and processes, in-cluding hierarchies of prestige and status (in which fans, newbies, establishedcomposers, technical experts, and so forth organize themselves into functionalcollectivities), informational systems of exchange (in which "goods" themselves


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MUSICAL COM MUN ITY ON THE INTERNET 257

are simulated forms based on computer data), rituals of inclusion and exclusion(manifested through member websites, Internet forums, discussion groups, etc.),and social drama (narratives of subverting the popular music industry, resolvingconflicts among members, adjudicating cases of theft, or plagiarism, etc.).Thus, it is the context of on-line communities that might be virtual (or elec-tronic, or cyber, or whatever), not the sets of social relationships such collec-tivities engender. What is perhaps unique about the mod scene is in the way itsmembers use computer technology to build, maintain, and represent real socialrelationships.

The mod scene evokes a Utopian vision of community: the circulation ofmusic without mass production and consumerism without monetary ex-changes. Mod music files are "conceived from the point of view of their veryreproducibility" (Baudrillard 1983:100). The wrinkle, however, is that modsare not conceived to be mass-produced commodities, even as they are mass-mediated through the World W ide Web. Access is secured when the music fileis copied and downloaded by fans. These fans often contribute to the distribu-tion of m ods by making copies and sending them to friends and acquaintancesvia e-mail, discussion groups, or Internet chat systems. Copying mod files isnot the same as making cassette or CD copies of store-bought recordings be-cause the source recording might constitute a kind of original (holding a kindof prestige that the copy does not have). Because mods are digital data files, thecopies are, for all and intents and purposes, the same as the original (and thereis no greater prestige associated with owning the "original" file). Even themeans of production and consumption are third-order simulacra: The necessaryaudio "technology" needed for mods (the mod trackers and players) is avail-able in the form of software that can be downloaded from the Internet, also forfree.24 Thus, the political economy of the mod scene is one based on new divi-sions of labor, new forms of symbolic capital, and new configurations of socialrelations.In Jacques Attali's Utopian view of the future of music, cultural produc-tion and consumption merge with the ascent of new social and aesthetic orders:"Today, a new music is on the rise, one that can neither be expressed nor un-derstood using the old tools, a music produced elsewhere and otherwise. It isnot that music or the world have become incomprehensible: the concept ofcomprehension itself has changed; there has been a shift in the locus of the per-ception of things" (Attali 1992:133).25 In a way, Attali's idealistic rhetoric of anew musical order seems to describe, to some extent, the mod scene. It is in-deed a music, to use Attali's words, that requires "new tools" to be expressedand understood, and it is indeed produced elsewhere and otherwise. These"new tools" have emerged out of the ingenious combination of personal com-puting, the Internet, and the unique software technologies created by mod-scene members to compose, distribute, and listen to their music. In Attali's Uto-pian scenario, music becomes a participatory enterprise in which consumersare involved in the creative process itself. Distinctions between high and lowculture disappear (or at least blur), econo mic networks of use and ex change


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dissolve, and, finally, composing is no longer a specialized profession, aimedat the production of a musical object, but an ongoing communal activity thatremains perpetually unfinished and is undertaken for the sheer pleasure of so-cial interaction wh at C hristopher Small calls "musicking":

The act of musicking establishes in the place where it is happening a set of rela-tion ship s, and it is in those relation ships that the meaning of the act lies. They areto be found not only between those organized sounds which are conventionallythought of as being the stuff of musical meaning but also between the people whoare taking part, in w hateve r cap acity, in the performan ce; and they m odel, or standas metaphor for, ideal relationships as the participants in the performance imaginethem to be: relationships betw een person and person, between individual and so ciety ,between humanity and the natural world and even perhaps the supernatural world.[Small 1998:13]Indeed, m od m usic is as mu ch about the mod sc ene and the relationships it

ent ails as it is about the abstract pleasure of listen ing. W e m ight listen to a modsong and dismiss it as banal, derivative, or simply an amateurish imitation ofthe popular m usic s tyles w e hear on the radio or find on com mercial record ingsmany (if not most) mods are musically conservativebut we would be missingthe point. Small's notion of musicking is similar to an argument that JohnBlacking made more than 25 years ago: "Musical things are not always strictlymusical" (Blacking 1973:25). We might view the mod scene as a musical sub-culture within the larger popular-music scene as well as the commercial com-puter-software industry. The aesthetics of abstract beauty do not necessarilyprevail over subcultural ideologies of self-expression, resistance, subversion,and personal or group empowerment.26 The pleasure of listening to mod musicis deeply enmeshed in the complex social relationships that the mod scene en-genders, in its often conflicted ideologies of resistance and subversion, and inits quirky techno-geek values. The mod scene is a community of young com-puter and popular-music enthusiasts who are trying to undermine the hegem-ony of com m odity capitalism and W estern technoculture. Y et "resistance" hereis based not on rejecting but on embracing mass m edia and computer technol-ogy, choosing and reconfiguring those elements that serve the aesthetic sensi-bilities, ideologies, and logic of the mod community. Whether they are suc-cessful or not in resisting the music industry, whether their community isUtopian or not, wh ether it is real or virtual, mo d-sc en e mem bers have neverthe-less carved out a social place for themselvesand they have carved it out inthe nonspace of the Internet.

It is clear that the Internet provides fascinating possibilities for social net-works, especially for innovative new uses of current technology, and for col-lective and collaborative artistic creativity. The mod scene demonstrates that itis the communal enterprise that impels new musiccomposers respond to oneanother (and to their fans) directly and imm ediately. Y et these com m un ities arealso far more than just som e p eople ex chan ging ideas by e-mail. Th e Internetpro vides a place for individuals to gather and, as a co llec tive , to generate em er-gent (sub)cultures, complex prestige systems, elaborate commodity exchange


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MUSICAL COMMUNITY ON THE INTERNET 259*

networks, and structured governing bureaucracies. W hen we take such on-linesocial collectivities seriously and acknowledge the reality they can accrue inthe social relationships they engender (think of reality as a kind of capital), wemight then finally understand what constitutes community, whether we theorize itas real or imagined.

NotesAcknowledgments. Many thanks to Deborah W ong and the anonym ous readers (as

well as past editor Daniel A. Segal and present editor Ann S. Anagnost) of CulturalAnthropology for valuable su gg est ion s. I am also grateful to my virtual friend Kim Kraft(known as Mister X in the mod scene) for his astute observations and my trackingteacher, TrackZ, for his bou ndles s patience.

1. See, for example. Porter 1997, Shields 1996, Jones 1997, Jones 1998, Kiesler1997, Smith and Kollock 1999 , or M iller and Slater 200 0.

2. At the same time, h ow ever , I do not want to imply that my fie Id work expe riencein Java is equival

lysloff - musical community on the internet - an on-line ethnography

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