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

[M. Fioretti]

On Wed, Apr 22, 2009 23:14:05 PM +0100, Andy Robinson wrote:

> Marco, I understand your point, and you re right that file-sharing
> is not 100% gift economy from production to consumption.  But I
> think you re misunderstanding or misconstruing some of the claims I
> and others have made.

Andy,

sorry, I really wanted to answer this as it came, but it got lost in a
lot of other messages.

I don't think I am misunderstanding those claims. Whether I'm right or
not is another issue, of course, but my core point is simply that,
inside Pirate Bay and similar networks, the **amount* of activity which
**consciously** happens because of, and is inspired by, real P2P culture, 
values and so on is *much* smaller than most of you think.

> Data is inherently abundant because it is infinitely reproducible
> (unless artificially restricted).

The real costs of this "infinite reproducibility" and "inherent
abundance" are huge (and I'm NOT talking of copyright, IP, etc...), so
it's worth wondering if it's fair to spread all of them even on people
who couldn't care less of file sharing. I wrote about this in the
message I sent to this list yesterday titled "About "Failing business
models for user-generated content". Please have a look to it and reply
to that if you have any feedback.

> You seem to be assuming real P2P is sharing of labour.  I think
> there can also be sharing of goods and of information.

It takes real labour and real, very limited personal time to produce
quality information.  See the post from me starting with "Here I am
again" at
http://www.linuxformat.co.uk/index.php?name=PNphpBB2&file=viewtopic&t=9666&postdays=0&postorder=asc&start=15
If you have any comment, I welcome them, but please let's make a
separate thread of that, as it's a much more general issue.

>  That's how some seeding happens, ie not even
> "giving" to the community the cost of one DVD purchase. 
> 
> You re missing the point completely.

Are we sure? You, for example, wrote:

> Certainly one might leave a file in the sharing folder out of lack
> of motive to move it, but one wouldn t leave the file-sharing
> program running indefinitely, and if one was concerned about
> download speeds (which file-sharers generally are), one WOULD move
> it or set it not to share.

but sharing already downloaded files impacts upload speed, much more
than downloads.

I know, although not in all details, what seeding is and how file
sharing networks work. Just like I know that in many of those networks
how fast you can download depends on how much you leave available for
upload, even if that's not the case of Bit Torrent, IIRC, so you are
forced to leave it on.

Or like I know that the world is still full of people who leave their
VCR or all the lights in their home on for days, or their PC on 24/7
just because they forget it, or can't be bothered to wait a few
minutes when they go back to their desk in the morning (see links in
my post sent yesterday for the overall greenhouse cost of such
behaviors).

Or like I know that many computer users never change the defaults of
many programs they use, and that the default settings of several BT
clients is "seeding on"

Again, I don't think that all your models are wrong, bad or
unpracticed. It's just that, if I apply the "simplest explanation
often is the right one" to this case, I find it quite unlikely that
file sharing participants who are this conscious and philosophical are
not a (little) minority. Especially after looking at which the most
torrented files are.

The only real thing we disagree is actual percentages, ie how big each
class of users is. That's why I pointed out that, whatever one thinks
of them, maybe calling TPB users "champions of P2P culture" or
anything of that sort is a bit misleading.

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