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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

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".
      - biot 14y ago
        My philosophy on this is simple: I ask myself what the right thing to do is. I saw Prometheus in the theater and liked it enough that I wanted to have it at home. When it was released on Bluray, I could have found a torrent and easily downloaded a ripped copy. Instead, in my mind the right thing to do was to vote with my wallet and reward those who made it by paying the asking price. I do this for digital bits delivered via Netflix, iTunes, and physical media whether purchased or rented via Redbox and such. I guess that makes me archaic.
        cookiecaper 14y ago
        I purchase the media I consume too. That's not the part that's archaic, necessarily. It is no longer possible to artificially constrain supply of desired intellectual property, and business plans that refuse to consider this are archaic. It doesn't necessarily mean that no one will be paying money for intellectual property anymore.
- 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.

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".
    - biot 14y ago
      My philosophy on this is simple: I ask myself what the right thing to do is. I saw Prometheus in the theater and liked it enough that I wanted to have it at home. When it was released on Bluray, I could have found a torrent and easily downloaded a ripped copy. Instead, in my mind the right thing to do was to vote with my wallet and reward those who made it by paying the asking price. I do this for digital bits delivered via Netflix, iTunes, and physical media whether purchased or rented via Redbox and such. I guess that makes me archaic.
      - cookiecaper 14y ago
        I purchase the media I consume too. That's not the part that's archaic, necessarily. It is no longer possible to artificially constrain supply of desired intellectual property, and business plans that refuse to consider this are archaic. It doesn't necessarily mean that no one will be paying money for intellectual property anymore.
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.