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

[M. Fioretti]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 05:08:39 AM +0100, Andy Robinson wrote:
> Point taken, BUT...
> 
> The p2p nature of the technology infrastructure is crucial to the
> resilience to repression, and also, isn't the development of
> technologies in this area usually p2p among designers as well?

Even if it were, it doesn't change the issue: "p2p-ness" at the mere
technical, transmission level has nothing to do with the philosophy.
If people use software built around technically p2p routing algorithms
it doesn't mean at all that they know or are embracing P2P in the
cultural/philosophical sense

> I wonder how passive the use is; I actually doubt that: "99.99% of
> the people... never remix or make any derivative work of what they
> put into, or get from those networks."

I admit that I have not considered "really" home made videos, that is
videos made for pure home use: but I feel that adding the "Rocky"
soundtrack to one's holiday or wedding video, which will only be seen
by relatives and close friends, wouldn't count as "distribution" and
should be left out of this discourse.

I wasn't even thinking of YouTube, that's indeed something for
"producers", ie active people. I refer to Pirate Bay and similar,
which I understand to be much bigger than Youtube (when it comes to
non-self produced content, at least)

Another thing which proves my point is the protocol itself. Pirate Bay
is popular because it distributes torrents. Torrents make sense only
when there are many people who want the same new thing in the same
moment. Try to download any 2008 Linux distribution (something which
whoever wanted it, already got months ago) with a torrent: it's much
slower than FTP. So Pirate Bay or any other torrent network being
popular is a proof that purely passive consumption is the overwhelming
rule, ie that they are not P2P in the "p2p foundation" sense.


> Something following from the Filipino argument - I thought it was very
> interesting to see this issue put in a North-South perspective.

Then you may want to read this:

http://mfioretti.com/tragedy-creative-commons

which may bring in another, indirect proof of my thesis. When I wrote
that article, I noticed a very strong fracture. I asked "what do you
think of CC" to many people worldwide, more than mentioned in the
article. Some answer were positive, other negative, but one thing was
constant. Almost 100% of the people from "first world" spoke mostly
about multimedia, audio/video mashup, unrestrained creativity and all
these cool things that (relatively) rich people have the possibility
and inclination to care about.

All people from developing countries only spoke about education. They
wouldn't even bother to think or explain why music, for example,
should be CC, they talked of (mixing) textbooks, scientific papers and
so on.

If Pirate Bay and friends mostly contained this second kind of stuff,
then it would make sense to call them "P2P" as in "active producers
and promoters of free as in freedom culture". Their "top 100" list is
a proof that, whatever they do, they either are purely passive
consumers or, as you say, people looking for a cool soundtrack of
their basically private videos, so they shouldn't be called in the
same way.

Marco

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