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Dropbox is taking a moral stand. They are taking a stand against piracy. They choose not to be part of the problem. Sure, Boxopus could be used for legal pur

by rprasad 14y ago

Dropbox is taking a moral stand. They are taking a stand against piracy. They choose not to be part of the problem. Sure, Boxopus could be used for legal purposes, just as bittorrent could be used for legal purposes. But everyone on HN knows that the vast majority of bittorrent use is not for legal purposes. Visit any major torrent site. Look at the first 1000 torrents. Count the number of legal torrents. Checking the PirateBay, KickAssTorrents, and Demonoid, I count about 16 legitimate uses of bittorrent. The remaining 984 torents are ebooks, movies, software or games.

wissler 14y ago
These rich corporations are de facto stewards of our political system. (That may not be the ideal way the political system should work, but that's how it does work, and the well-connected, well-funded fully exploit it). And the problem here isn't piracy. It's freedom of speech and property rights. Might someone misuse their property? Sure. But that's no grounds for stifling them. Dropbox is behaving in an immoral fashion. (For contrast, look at what Twitter's very morally upstanding behavior on a number of issues over the past few years).
- rprasad 14y ago
  Dropbox is behaving morally. They are choosing not to allow a product/service that they know will be overwhelmingly used for copyright violations. This is not theft, but it does cause meaningful and measurable economic harm to the owners and producers. Before you spout off about media company oppression, remember that the people most affected by piracy are the crews that work behind the scenes to make the movies and tv shows. The crews are the first people fired if movies and tv shows can't cover their budget. Furthermore, freedom of speech is protection from government censorship of speech. Private persons do not have to let you say anything on their property. Private persons do not have to let you use their property. Dropbox is a private company. It does not have to let other people use its API, website, service, facilities, or employees. If you want to use Boxopus some much, create your own Dropbox, from scratch. Then you can do whatever you want with it.
  - wissler 14y ago
    While I agree with your free market principles, I do not agree with your application in this mixed economy context. Dropbox is not exactly a private company. The larger the company, the more it tends to be a branch of our government (via insidious corporatist mechanisms), so your standing up for their "private property" rights is dangerously misplaced. An even more extreme example would be the telecoms, which greatly benefit from government privilege and where individual competition is prohibited. Saying "build your own telecom from scratch, don't complain" is just very deranged given the context. Further, even if you were correct that it was a truly private company, your defense on the grounds of property rights is misplaced. A torrent is merely a technical way of copying efficiently, it is not a copyright-violating tool. Whether you believe it is often used for that purpose is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that there are users with legitimate needs for this service, and Dropbox is arbitrarily declaring it off limits because some other users might use it in a way they don't approve of. There is no moral principle that says punish Peter for what Paul might be doing; on the contrary, behaving that is viciously immoral behavior. So, Dropbox is indeed behaving immorally.
    - J3L2404 14y ago
      Oh the noble pirate, Dropbox must throw themselves on their sword to be moral. You are way out on a ledge but your tinfoil hat fits well.
      - wissler 14y ago
        I'm not a pirate. I don't even use torrents myself. But your admission that you have no argument, implied by your fabrication in order to make an ad hominem attack, is noted.
        J3L2404 14y ago
        Well I don't think it is ad hominen if the reference was metaphorical, but I could be wrong. Sorry I labeled you as pirate (god I hate that word now), but I thought that was implied. Dropbox has certain rights. Whether they spend capital on a moral crusade should be up to them. It's a freedom thing.
- jeremyarussell 14y ago
  Dropbox is not the huge powerhouse of money that would be able to just act as if the law doesn't apply to them. They are scared that they will get in trouble, and the biggest reason for them to do this in my honest opinion is simple... Traffic, dropbox servers were acting up recently, right when boxopus got big, chances are they can't keep up the kind of traffic that torrents require. Is it a shame that I can't use a legit tool to download me some open stuff? Yeah a bit. But, guess what. I found 5 open source dropbox clones within minutes of a google search. It really wasn't that hard. If boxopus could have stayed, I promise I would have been getting a paid dropbox account. With dropbox not letting these guys continue, there's a good chance I'll invest my time in one of the open source projects. I really like debugging stuff anyways so it'll be fun. TL;DR - Dropbox is a private company, I can take my money elsewhere if I want, or pick one of the many open source alternatives.
jeremyarussell 14y ago
So in order to get unpirated stuff you go to the pirate bay to find it? Humble Bundle, most Linux Distro's, Open Source Software, Public Domain Books, Articles, http://www.clearbits.net/ http://www.clearbits.net/ (legal open music), every site listed here http://gigaom.com/video/ten-sites-for-free-and-legal-torrents/ http://gigaom.com/video/ten-sites-for-free-and-legal-torrent..., NASA Footage... I could actually go on. Thanks for trying to show everyone how evil torrents are.
- wrekkuh 14y ago
  Great post. To add to the usefulness of the protocol, I use the BitTorrent protocol on the WAN to sync files with my own computers and those of family members via my own/our tracker, and also on the LAN when i have to move large files and repositories of information between computers (which i do often). It is surprising to me, to say the least, that people on HN don't understand this protocol is extremely useful to hack with.
samstave 14y ago
BS - dropbox is NOT taking a moral stand. They are under the control of corporate council in a highly visible silicon valley company. Give me access to Drew Houston's home machines and I will likely be able to prove he has torrent software installed and content downloaded. Let's not be morons here - this is about corporate governance to appear responsible regardless of morals. If Dropbox wanted to take an actual moral stand it would implement a system which would fingerprint the .avi and .mp4 files (as examples) stored by its users, compare them to torrent files it could download in an automated fashion And delete/block syncing of said fingerprinted files. This is in no way a moral stand it's a legal circle jerk making sure VC funding credibility is retained.

by rprasad 14y ago

wissler 14y ago

These rich corporations are de facto stewards of our political system. (That may not be the ideal way the political system should work, but that's how it does work, and the well-connected, well-funded fully exploit it). And the problem here isn't piracy. It's freedom of speech and property rights. Might someone misuse their property? Sure. But that's no grounds for stifling them. Dropbox is behaving in an immoral fashion. (For contrast, look at what Twitter's very morally upstanding behavior on a number of issues over the past few years).

rprasad 14y ago
Dropbox is behaving morally. They are choosing not to allow a product/service that they know will be overwhelmingly used for copyright violations. This is not theft, but it does cause meaningful and measurable economic harm to the owners and producers. Before you spout off about media company oppression, remember that the people most affected by piracy are the crews that work behind the scenes to make the movies and tv shows. The crews are the first people fired if movies and tv shows can't cover their budget. Furthermore, freedom of speech is protection from government censorship of speech. Private persons do not have to let you say anything on their property. Private persons do not have to let you use their property. Dropbox is a private company. It does not have to let other people use its API, website, service, facilities, or employees. If you want to use Boxopus some much, create your own Dropbox, from scratch. Then you can do whatever you want with it.
- wissler 14y ago
  While I agree with your free market principles, I do not agree with your application in this mixed economy context. Dropbox is not exactly a private company. The larger the company, the more it tends to be a branch of our government (via insidious corporatist mechanisms), so your standing up for their "private property" rights is dangerously misplaced. An even more extreme example would be the telecoms, which greatly benefit from government privilege and where individual competition is prohibited. Saying "build your own telecom from scratch, don't complain" is just very deranged given the context. Further, even if you were correct that it was a truly private company, your defense on the grounds of property rights is misplaced. A torrent is merely a technical way of copying efficiently, it is not a copyright-violating tool. Whether you believe it is often used for that purpose is completely irrelevant. What is relevant is that there are users with legitimate needs for this service, and Dropbox is arbitrarily declaring it off limits because some other users might use it in a way they don't approve of. There is no moral principle that says punish Peter for what Paul might be doing; on the contrary, behaving that is viciously immoral behavior. So, Dropbox is indeed behaving immorally.
  - J3L2404 14y ago
    Oh the noble pirate, Dropbox must throw themselves on their sword to be moral. You are way out on a ledge but your tinfoil hat fits well.
    - wissler 14y ago
      I'm not a pirate. I don't even use torrents myself. But your admission that you have no argument, implied by your fabrication in order to make an ad hominem attack, is noted.
      - J3L2404 14y ago
        Well I don't think it is ad hominen if the reference was metaphorical, but I could be wrong. Sorry I labeled you as pirate (god I hate that word now), but I thought that was implied. Dropbox has certain rights. Whether they spend capital on a moral crusade should be up to them. It's a freedom thing.
jeremyarussell 14y ago
Dropbox is not the huge powerhouse of money that would be able to just act as if the law doesn't apply to them. They are scared that they will get in trouble, and the biggest reason for them to do this in my honest opinion is simple... Traffic, dropbox servers were acting up recently, right when boxopus got big, chances are they can't keep up the kind of traffic that torrents require. Is it a shame that I can't use a legit tool to download me some open stuff? Yeah a bit. But, guess what. I found 5 open source dropbox clones within minutes of a google search. It really wasn't that hard. If boxopus could have stayed, I promise I would have been getting a paid dropbox account. With dropbox not letting these guys continue, there's a good chance I'll invest my time in one of the open source projects. I really like debugging stuff anyways so it'll be fun. TL;DR - Dropbox is a private company, I can take my money elsewhere if I want, or pick one of the many open source alternatives.

jeremyarussell 14y ago

So in order to get unpirated stuff you go to the pirate bay to find it? Humble Bundle, most Linux Distro's, Open Source Software, Public Domain Books, Articles, http://www.clearbits.net/ http://www.clearbits.net/ (legal open music), every site listed here http://gigaom.com/video/ten-sites-for-free-and-legal-torrents/ http://gigaom.com/video/ten-sites-for-free-and-legal-torrent..., NASA Footage... I could actually go on. Thanks for trying to show everyone how evil torrents are.

wrekkuh 14y ago
Great post. To add to the usefulness of the protocol, I use the BitTorrent protocol on the WAN to sync files with my own computers and those of family members via my own/our tracker, and also on the LAN when i have to move large files and repositories of information between computers (which i do often). It is surprising to me, to say the least, that people on HN don't understand this protocol is extremely useful to hack with.

samstave 14y ago

BS - dropbox is NOT taking a moral stand. They are under the control of corporate council in a highly visible silicon valley company. Give me access to Drew Houston's home machines and I will likely be able to prove he has torrent software installed and content downloaded. Let's not be morons here - this is about corporate governance to appear responsible regardless of morals. If Dropbox wanted to take an actual moral stand it would implement a system which would fingerprint the .avi and .mp4 files (as examples) stored by its users, compare them to torrent files it could download in an automated fashion And delete/block syncing of said fingerprinted files. This is in no way a moral stand it's a legal circle jerk making sure VC funding credibility is retained.