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

[M. Fioretti]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 19:43:15 PM +0100, Andy Robinson wrote:

> It would seem that p2p could never entirely be "sharing without
> caring" because the system relies on people seeding without apparent
> gain - the downloader can easily remove files once downloaded, and
> seeding presumably slows connections and increases risks of
> detection.  This is why it often gets termed "gift economy".

I don't think it's correct to call Pirate Bay "gift economy", just as
it isn't correct to call it P2P in the "high" or any
"above-merely-technical" sense, exactly for this reason:

> I suppose on a broader level it is "without caring" about the
> artists (or production costs) specifically, and that this could in
> theory render the system non-sustainable in terms of abundance over
> time.

You can talk of gift economy when it is the original creator, artist,
whatever, who puts what he/she did in the commons.

Real P2P, that is exchange among equal peers, where everybody is
producer and user/consumer at the same time, yes, that is something
that by definition cannot entirely be "sharing without caring". But
Pirate Bay users (or the founders, for that matter...) aren't sharing
anything that *they* did. They are not giving any gift, as they aren't
giving up anything of theirs. (*)

IMO, what they do is more like what happens with free newspapers
distributed at subway stations in European cities. Those who come
early in the morning grab a free copy, read it in the subway, leave it
on the seat because they don't need it anymore and it's easier than
carrying it to the recycle bin, then people coming in grab the paper,
read it, leave it on the seat... Nothing wrong with that, of course,
but can it ever be defined P2P or "gift economy"?

Whether an author or a publisher can or cannot claim any copyright on
some work in the first place is an entirely separate question, of
course. It doesn't change the fact that (regardless of what to do
about it, being indulgent or not, etc..) file sharing a-la-Pirate-Bay
isn't P2P and it's counterproductive for a real P2P advocate to not
make the distinction.

Marco

(*) I don't know about music, but with DVD movies and computer games
DVDs, it's quite common for some people, at least here in Italy, to
rent 2/3/4 of them together, at BlockBuster or similar places, in the
afternoon and bring them all back in the early morning (there are
discounts for very short rentals). Of course, those people don't spend
the night sleepless playing or watching 4 movies in a row. They copy
everything on their PC in one hour, to watch the movies if and when
they'll feel like it. That's how some seeding happens, ie not even
"giving" to the community the cost of one DVD purchase. Again, no
judgement of any sort here about this, but let's be accurate, please.

Maybe it's sharing without caring or maybe is just giving media
corporations the slap they deserve for being so dumb, but it's not P2P
or gift economy.

-- 
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