Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley door pickup 10am - 7pm 3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
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  • Open Daily: 10am - 10pm
    Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm

    3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
    612-822-4611

Open Daily: 10am - 10pm | Alley-side Pickup: 10am - 7pm
3038 Hennepin Ave Minneapolis, MN
612-822-4611
The General Library: Piracy and the Politics of Minority Access

The General Library: Piracy and the Politics of Minority Access

de Kosnik, Abigail

Paperback

Series: Distribution Matters

General ReferenceGeneral Political ScienceGeneral Sociology

PREORDER - Expected ship date November 17, 2026

ISBN10: 0262057077
ISBN13: 9780262057073
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: Nov 17 2026
Pages: 246
Language: English
A bold argument for piracy as a system of knowledge sharing, cultural preservation, and political resistance.

What if copying and sharing media, acts frequently labeled as piracy, were understood as part of a vast cultural infrastructure that sustains knowledge? The General Library dismantles the myth that piracy is theft, demonstrating how unauthorized modes of distribution and access can act as techniques for cultural preservation, political expression, and everyday resistance. Rather than reinforcing the industry narrative that piracy drains resources, Abigail De Kosnik argues that unauthorized access provides essential pathways to learning, belonging, and survival--particularly for marginalized communities often excluded from official channels.

Drawing on in-depth oral history interviews with media users who identify as fans, pirates, and intensive consumers, De Kosnik traces how Black, brown, queer, disabled, and poor communities use illicit access to explore identity, build communities of care, and imagine futures otherwise rendered inaccessible by technocapitalism. She also examines how definitions of piracy are shifting with the rise of AI, as corporations scrape copyrighted works to train LLMs--an example of illicit copying on a massive scale that dwarfs any act of appropriation committed by individual consumers.

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