6 ms·

*Guy who stole from artists everywhere. It's much more accurate that way.

cookiecaper 14y ago
What about: "guy who started a popular, light-speed, peer-to-peer library"? Think about libraries and why they exist. Think about the way libraries work. Then compare with modern filesharing. It seems that the only difference is that online, we can trade things so fast that the old guard in big media can't think of a way to keep monetization intact. Anyone who accepts the value of a library system (i.e., a big building that holds various kinds of "intellectual property" for members to peruse for free and/or a nominal one-time fee) should logically conclude that The Pirate Bay and its ilk are a public service, not a criminal engagement.
- StavrosK 14y ago
  Which library are you talking about?
- biot 14y ago
  You might have an argument if all uploads to TPB were purchased (or otherwise legally licensed) copies and people sharing materials in this peer to peer library could only share as many simultaneous copies as were purchased. There are a few companies who are trying to adopt such a legal peer-to-peer lending network. However, there's a great example of a modern library where you can find works produced by small and big media alike, and monetization is effortless for the consumer via nominal, one-time fees: Apple's App Store. Yet still people find ways to circumvent the new guard just to avoid paying 99 cents for apps.
  - Volpe 14y ago
    Didn't the "original" seeder, pay for the copy? Seems to be that rather than pay taxes to buy content for the library, one can just contribute directly to that library.
    - biot 14y ago
      Not necessarily, though no doubt some have paid. Leaked copies of movies and software are sometimes uploaded prior to the media being made available for sale. Theater employees have been caught camming movies and uploading them without having paid for a license. Others upload rentals or media captured from broadcast TV, not purchases. Public libraries welcome donations of books. And as I mentioned in my parent comment, startups are trying to work within copyright law to allow people to upload their movies/music and loan it out to others with the caveat that the number of simultaneous consumers of the media cannot exceed the number of licensed copies. I'd like to see such services take off, though they face an uphill battle to prove that loaning format shifted media isn't a copyright violation.
      - cookiecaper 14y ago
        You're basically arguing against digitization of media. The whole point of digital stuff is that we can make nearly-instantaneous, perfect replicas with negligent overhead. That's why we convert and encode stuff as strings of repeatable digits. Attempting to limit the number of copies of mass-produced, digitized media in circulation is not only silly but totally futile. They simply must accept that the old monetization model based on artificially controlled scarcity is no longer tenable. As Bruce Schneier says, trying to make digital bits not copyable is like trying to make water not wet. It's an inextricable property of the medium. Your example of the app store is actually good, and shows a good monetization path that actually benefits from the inherent properties of the digital medium. You're right that some people still try to pirate 99 cent apps, but in my experience those people aren't part of the audience in the first place, because they don't have the 99 cents to spend, or they wouldn't be wasting hours and days to save themselves a few dollars. The time of anyone with a job is significantly more valuable than that. While there are always going to be a few penny wise and pound foolish irrational actors in the mix, you can't cripple your business based on that kind of rabid obsession. You have to let it go at some point. It's time to give up the archaic, draconian copyright regime that demands total control of a PC before it allows it to display a movie and reasonably embrace our digitized future, including building monetization models that aren't "sue filesharers".
  - eru 14y ago
    I wasn't aware that the pirate accepted any uploads other than torrent-files, which do not contain copyrighted information.
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      This is a good semantic distinction for legal considerations, but in this primarily philosophical discussion on the implications of filesharing, I think "donating" a torrent which serves as a proxy to the actual content to TPB and "donating" an actual copyrighted work to a library are decent analogs.
      - eru 14y ago
        Isn't seeding the equivalent of the donation to the library, and torrenting just filling out the catalog index card?
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- benologist 14y ago
  How about we come back to this when libraries are monetized by billions of ad impressions a month and don't even pay for what they hand out?
  - cookiecaper 14y ago
    Libraries today are monetized by many millions of tax dollars, money which is extracted compulsorily from everyone within a certain geographic area. imo this is more lucrative than banner ad sales. Libraries already often don't pay for everything that they hand out; they welcome and indeed rely upon donations.
noonespecial 14y ago
Not all artists would agree. He did verifiably found the Pirate Bay. It is doubtful that he stole from artists "everywhere". So, um, less accurate.
bxbb 14y ago
*Guy who stole from artists IS everywhere. It's much more accurate that way. corrected, that's how the torrent work :p
offdrey 14y ago
More like te guy who stole from recording/motion studios. There is a difference
- deleted 14y ago
  [deleted]
- Executor 14y ago
  Copying/sharing not stealing.
mverwijs 14y ago
What is your homeaddress? I'll send you 10 random CD's that I own. Am I now stealing from the artists? Are you?
- quasque 14y ago
  Depends if you made a copy of the CDs first.
  - mverwijs 14y ago
    Does it though? One could argue that even without making the copy I am depriving artists from income. Perhaps one or two of those CDs you would actually have bought yourself had you not received them from me for free. Follow that line of thought and pretty soon no gifts could ever be exchanged as it could potentially be considered theft. Now, what if there were a website that you could post something like: "Man, I'd really love to have that latest Rihanna CD. Here's my address." And some do-gooder would be able to send you his copy, since he doesn't want it any longer. No copies made. No money exchanged hands. Just a gift from one fan to another. Yet you are still depriving Rihanna her 2cts. Someone is still stealing. I mean, Rihanna is still a few cents short, isn't she? I don't know, man. This whole thing is too grey. Far too grey to simply say that TPB is depriving income simply by providing a platform for downloading .torrent files that could potentially be used to download copyrighted materials, which could possibly sometimes deprive some artist of some income.
    - Kylekramer 14y ago
      I don't see what is so grey about it. Regifting property to one other person without retaining it, OK. Regifting property to multiple people or while retaining it, not OK. You could argue that regifting is depriving artists, but it is terrible argument because property is generally allowed to be redistributed without the original creator's consent.
      - summerdown2 14y ago
        If digital files are property, why can't I resell them?

What about: "guy who started a popular, light-speed, peer-to-peer library"? Think about libraries and why they exist. Think about the way libraries work. Then compare with modern filesharing. It seems that the only difference is that online, we can trade things so fast that the old guard in big media can't think of a way to keep monetization intact. Anyone who accepts the value of a library system (i.e., a big building that holds various kinds of "intellectual property" for members to peruse for free and/or a nominal one-time fee) should logically conclude that The Pirate Bay and its ilk are a public service, not a criminal engagement.

StavrosK 14y ago
Which library are you talking about?
biot 14y ago
You might have an argument if all uploads to TPB were purchased (or otherwise legally licensed) copies and people sharing materials in this peer to peer library could only share as many simultaneous copies as were purchased. There are a few companies who are trying to adopt such a legal peer-to-peer lending network. However, there's a great example of a modern library where you can find works produced by small and big media alike, and monetization is effortless for the consumer via nominal, one-time fees: Apple's App Store. Yet still people find ways to circumvent the new guard just to avoid paying 99 cents for apps.
- Volpe 14y ago
  Didn't the "original" seeder, pay for the copy? Seems to be that rather than pay taxes to buy content for the library, one can just contribute directly to that library.
  - biot 14y ago
    Not necessarily, though no doubt some have paid. Leaked copies of movies and software are sometimes uploaded prior to the media being made available for sale. Theater employees have been caught camming movies and uploading them without having paid for a license. Others upload rentals or media captured from broadcast TV, not purchases. Public libraries welcome donations of books. And as I mentioned in my parent comment, startups are trying to work within copyright law to allow people to upload their movies/music and loan it out to others with the caveat that the number of simultaneous consumers of the media cannot exceed the number of licensed copies. I'd like to see such services take off, though they face an uphill battle to prove that loaning format shifted media isn't a copyright violation.
    - cookiecaper 14y ago
      You're basically arguing against digitization of media. The whole point of digital stuff is that we can make nearly-instantaneous, perfect replicas with negligent overhead. That's why we convert and encode stuff as strings of repeatable digits. Attempting to limit the number of copies of mass-produced, digitized media in circulation is not only silly but totally futile. They simply must accept that the old monetization model based on artificially controlled scarcity is no longer tenable. As Bruce Schneier says, trying to make digital bits not copyable is like trying to make water not wet. It's an inextricable property of the medium. Your example of the app store is actually good, and shows a good monetization path that actually benefits from the inherent properties of the digital medium. You're right that some people still try to pirate 99 cent apps, but in my experience those people aren't part of the audience in the first place, because they don't have the 99 cents to spend, or they wouldn't be wasting hours and days to save themselves a few dollars. The time of anyone with a job is significantly more valuable than that. While there are always going to be a few penny wise and pound foolish irrational actors in the mix, you can't cripple your business based on that kind of rabid obsession. You have to let it go at some point. It's time to give up the archaic, draconian copyright regime that demands total control of a PC before it allows it to display a movie and reasonably embrace our digitized future, including building monetization models that aren't "sue filesharers".
- eru 14y ago
  I wasn't aware that the pirate accepted any uploads other than torrent-files, which do not contain copyrighted information.
  - cookiecaper 14y ago
    This is a good semantic distinction for legal considerations, but in this primarily philosophical discussion on the implications of filesharing, I think "donating" a torrent which serves as a proxy to the actual content to TPB and "donating" an actual copyrighted work to a library are decent analogs.
    - eru 14y ago
      Isn't seeding the equivalent of the donation to the library, and torrenting just filling out the catalog index card?
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
benologist 14y ago
How about we come back to this when libraries are monetized by billions of ad impressions a month and don't even pay for what they hand out?
- cookiecaper 14y ago
  Libraries today are monetized by many millions of tax dollars, money which is extracted compulsorily from everyone within a certain geographic area. imo this is more lucrative than banner ad sales. Libraries already often don't pay for everything that they hand out; they welcome and indeed rely upon donations.

noonespecial 14y ago

Not all artists would agree. He did verifiably found the Pirate Bay. It is doubtful that he stole from artists "everywhere". So, um, less accurate.

bxbb 14y ago

*Guy who stole from artists IS everywhere. It's much more accurate that way. corrected, that's how the torrent work :p

offdrey 14y ago

More like te guy who stole from recording/motion studios. There is a difference

deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
Executor 14y ago
Copying/sharing not stealing.

mverwijs 14y ago

What is your homeaddress? I'll send you 10 random CD's that I own. Am I now stealing from the artists? Are you?

quasque 14y ago
Depends if you made a copy of the CDs first.
- mverwijs 14y ago
  Does it though? One could argue that even without making the copy I am depriving artists from income. Perhaps one or two of those CDs you would actually have bought yourself had you not received them from me for free. Follow that line of thought and pretty soon no gifts could ever be exchanged as it could potentially be considered theft. Now, what if there were a website that you could post something like: "Man, I'd really love to have that latest Rihanna CD. Here's my address." And some do-gooder would be able to send you his copy, since he doesn't want it any longer. No copies made. No money exchanged hands. Just a gift from one fan to another. Yet you are still depriving Rihanna her 2cts. Someone is still stealing. I mean, Rihanna is still a few cents short, isn't she? I don't know, man. This whole thing is too grey. Far too grey to simply say that TPB is depriving income simply by providing a platform for downloading .torrent files that could potentially be used to download copyrighted materials, which could possibly sometimes deprive some artist of some income.
  - Kylekramer 14y ago
    I don't see what is so grey about it. Regifting property to one other person without retaining it, OK. Regifting property to multiple people or while retaining it, not OK. You could argue that regifting is depriving artists, but it is terrible argument because property is generally allowed to be redistributed without the original creator's consent.
    - summerdown2 14y ago
      If digital files are property, why can't I resell them?