[p2p-research] Where is P2P in the Pirate Bay, was: Pirate Bay Conviction Analysis from NETTIME list...

[M. Fioretti]

On Tue, Apr 21, 2009 18:57:54 PM -0500, Ryan Lanham wrote:

> Seen from  an Asian perspective,  the criminalising campaigns  lead by
> Western  business  interests  represent   a  worrying  threat  to  the
> planetary opening  that "peer to peer" cultures  and practices provide
> for developing countries.

I really have to ask: what the heck there is of "peer to peer" in the
Pirate Bay or in the larger file sharing community, besides the mere
**technical** protocol used to download and redistribute the files?

I'm not saying that those people are criminals, nor am I defending the
current copyright system or the corporations which abuse of it.

But I find very, very little overlap between that and P2P as in "P2P
production", "P2P cultural exchange", "commons-based peer production
and knowledge exchange," and most of what is written at
http://p2pfoundation.net/The_Foundation_for_P2P_Alternatives starting
from the "our aims" box, or at
http://p2pfoundation.net/Characteristics_of_P2P

That is all stuff about being equals, about everybody being a
producer, etc...

99.99% of the people who share the overwhelming majority of the music,
video and proprietary software found at Pirate Bay, Kazaa, Emule or
whatever else is trendy these days, don't even know that a
p2pfoundation.net website exists, don't really care about what it
advocates, and never remix or make any derivative work of what they
put into, or get from those networks.

They are passive and pretty happy with being passive. They put or get
into the network, AS IS, what SOMEBODY ELSE produced (mostly chosing
commercial manure, mass produced by large corporations). They don't
even really care about each other, besides sharing their IP numbers so
they can all download faster. More exactly: they may very well be all
wonderful, caring people who give every penny they earn and every
minute of their time to help other human beings, but they certainly
don't need what happens on Pirate Bay and similar to accomplish that
goal.

So, again, I am NOT saying that the current copyright system is good
or that the users of file sharing networks are bad people. But I
remain quite baffled whenever I see what happens and is advocated on
lists like this one, or at p2pfoundation.net... called and considered
the same thing as what happens at Pirate Bay. Really.

Marco Fioretti
http://mfioretti.com
-- 
Your own civil rights and the quality of your life heavily depend on how
software is used *around* you:            http://digifreedom.net/node/84