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> I don't promote or demote filesharing per se: it's just the cutting edge where the future trends will show years before they land elsewhere and that's what it
by pemulis 14y ago
> I don't promote or demote filesharing per se: it's just the cutting edge where the future trends will show years before they land elsewhere and that's what it makes it so interesting.
One interesting thing I've noticed that the people behind the best filesharing networks tend to have tremendous success with their later projects.
Napster is the obvious one. After Napster went down, Shawn Fanning co-founded Rupture and Path, and Sean Parker went on to become the first president of Facebook, key investor in Spotify, and managing partner at the Founders Fund.
Kazaa is another great example. After their legal walloping, the founders and development team behind Kazaa regrouped to form Skype.
And then there's The Pirate Bay, which is still rolling merrily along, court rulings notwithstanding. Its team hasn't created any billion-dollar companies yet (we'll see what happens with Flattr), but they created a political party that's won elections in multiple countries, as well as the webhosting company PRQ, which was Wikileaks' home in its early days.
I don't think all of these later successes are a coincidence. Filesharing involves hard technical problems, hard logistical problems, and intense competition. If you were an investor, a blind strategy of giving money to the best pirates you can find seems like it might be surprisingly sound.
- rmc 14y agothey created a political party that's won elections in multiple countries "won elections" is a bit of a stretch. In countries with multi-seat constituancies and proportional representation, there are often minority/niche candidates.
- pemulis 14y agoThey haven't won many heads-up elections, but they have won a few.[1] They're also pulling significant percentages in Germany, and close to a full percent in a few other countries. They're active in 40 at the moment. They're hardly a major party, but doing pretty well for one that's only six years old. [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party#National_Pirate_Parties http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pirate_Party#National_Pirate_Pa...
- eyko 14y agoI would say reaching the parliament, and hence being represented, is kind of a win.
- elmindreda 14y agoThe Pirate Bay people didn't create the Pirate Party. There isn't a lot of overlap between the (publicly known admins of) the Pirate Bay, the (no longer existing) Pirate Bureau that gave rise to it and the Pirate Party. This is true both in terms of people, and also frankly terms of politics, beyond the basic realisation that the status quo is untenable.
- 97-109-107 14y agoI found your comment very interesting. Could I perhaps ask you to take a look on what I've build? It's a student project in a very related field. If so, I'd be delighted to hear from you. lkaslkaslkaslkaslkaslkaslkas@aol.com