Sep 30 2008
Pools of peer to peer pirates pillage products.
Before getting too into this, if anyone is a little unclear on what exactly peer-to-peer (p2p) is and how it works, I’d recommend having a little look and the wikipedia pages on “file sharing” and “peer to peer” just as a little touch up kind of thing. The pages give a little bit of background knowledge about the characteristics of this kind of network, which is helpful and constitutes a fair amount of what I’m looking to talk about. If you’re quite knowledgeable then feel free to skip this stage.
A peer to peer network is inherently suited to the exchange of information or files between its users. It encourages its members to share content with the rest of the group, and, unlike a regular client/server system, is made better through more participation from its members. And so, members of such networks use this functionality to share content with each other on a large scale, and within this, share content illegally. That is, distribute illegal copies of songs, television programmes, and/or film to each other with no regard for the copyright laws that may pertain. While reading these works below, keep in the back of your mind the above paragraph. Also, consider these questions:
1. Do p2p networks encourage peer creation of content in any major sort of way?
2. How can p2p networks be considered a more participatory medium for exchange of information than say, broadcast, or even client/server systems.
3. What are your thoughts on the argument that p2p and piracy can serve as free advertising for artists?
4. How can this means of distribution help existing communities to communicate?
5. Have you ever used a p2p network and if so, have you felt like you were participating in it, in a meaningful or positive way?
6. Is the internet based type of piracy much different from earlier types – copying cassettes for instance.
7. Are internet based networks much different from “real world” types – ‘zine publishing for instance.
Reading
Johan Pouwelse The BitTorrent P2P file-sharing system
Baptiste Pretre Attacks on Peer to Peer Networks (*For this one, the important bits are the Introduction, Chapters 2 and 3 and the Final Conclusion. There are some interesting bits and pieces distributed throughout, but a large part of it is technical things that aren’t really of interest. Even some parts of the important bits aren’t of much use to us, so don’t worry if something isn’t quite getting through.)
Scott Jensen The P2P revolution (The second section of this has a fair amount of technical stuff that doesn’t really matter, so is skippable.)
Eric A. Taub Off New York Streets, Film Piracy Is Online
Dan, writing in the New Media Research Studio Internet Piracy and the Delicious Aroma of Waffles
To reiterate, there is a lot of technical stuff in some of the sources which isn’t necessary for our purposes.
Finally, I’d like to draw a hypothetical situation for you all to consider with all the above in mind:
There is a(n illegal) p2p network of which you are a member. What characteristics does it have? For instance, is it capable of keeping your location and identity secure? Is it large and anonymous, or small and private? Are you concerned with people leeching off the network and not contributing? Do you want good download speeds? Are you concerned by companies deliberately inserting bad data to the network?
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12 Responses to “Pools of peer to peer pirates pillage products.”
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The nature of peer-to-peer sharing is such that utilising a p2p network is automatically a different experience to sourcing content in other ways. A client-server setup may be a one-way ‘relationship’, serving the purpose of getting information and nothing else. With the internet, it is usually the case that the user can send as well as receive; broadcast only allows consumption of media. So p2p changes things because each computer/person is attached to a network along which many others are putting up and receiving data. The torrent technology is kind of phenomenal when I think about it. It seems to me that it’s more participatory because each individual involved is contributing to several (or more) others at the same time, and vice versa. It’s a bit like collective intelligence, but with bits of data only, and more can be achieved with less effort in this way.
Ideally, it would be this big network of equal sharing – and of course this doesn’t always happen. We tend to take down more than we put up, which is fine and seems to work. But (in theory at least) I do think that individual users should be required to return something to the pool, and not take only. I know we might disagree on this, Alex
and since I don’t download much via torrents (comparitively at least) I might possibly have a different view if I was more active. Or not.
If illegal p2p sharing via torrents is a kind of protest against the commodification of every possible piece of culture, then just being involved is helping the cause. Now, as soon as I say that I realise that many (or most) who use p2p would not even think in those terms, but simply see it as convenient and awesome that you can get free stuff. But I wonder if it is that – an alternative, a ‘little man’ win…
I was actually thinking about this during the seminar and throughout the week. Would illegal P2P sharing kill creativity and destroy the movie and music industry? It is the official claim of the Hong Kong government when it tries to ‘educate’ citizens to respect intellectual/creative property and discourage pirate music, movies and stuff like that. I believed in the claim without doubt. However, after the seminar, I have been really thinking through this claim, and started doubting if it is so.
Destruction on the industry? Maybe, since mainstream music and movies are produced for commercial purposes, if everybody is sharing instead of buying them, their profit (that means funds for new ones) are affected. But kills creativity? I think it links to the question of what is creativity. Creativity is not existed because of commercial purposes, and I guess it cannot be killed by any means. We have been looking at very creative short movies on YouTube and other video sharing sites, they have nothing to do with pirate sharing. Actually P2P sharing helps them promote and let other people acknowledge these creative products. Therefore, P2P is somehow doing good to creativity.
Any other thoughts?
I fall into Kiri’s many/most of category in the way I think about P2P networks (in that it’s “convenient and awesome that you can get free stuff”) – I hadn’t even thought about it as a protest against the commodification of every piece of culture, but I will definitely be giving that some thought, both in terms of whether is actually a form of protest and whether I support P2P as a protest statement!
The fact that I don’t really contribute much back to P2P compared to what I get from them has more to do with habit (I exit all programs as soon as I’m finished, whether I’m using itunes, word or limewire).
I think that people are going to have to contribute to the networks they’re using – otherwise the whole thing will fail, as more than just a few people uploading are needed to support a network. I don’t think people should be made share an equal amount, but maybe share an amount in relation to how much they upload (eg I would be made to share more then Kiri, as I download more than she does).
I don’t think people should be made to leave programs open after they have finished downloading from them, as users are uploading from them while they are downloading…
P2p can be considered as a kind of ‘forced’ participation (especially if you think in terms of BitComet), as you need to contribute something before you can gain something in return. I wouldn’t call downloaders like ourselves leechers as we DO contribute to the big network of (ok, maybe not so much equal) sharing, as people upload from us while we download (but we’re constantly downloading more than we’re uploading!). We live under the impression that the best things in life are free! Unfortunately, that doesn’t happen. I’d rather we have a system where we have to leave programs open for awhile before we are allowed to shut down. Oh no! If p2p were to become a commercialized, it would become like iTunes, where we have to pay for every single thing downloaded. I’d rather pay a monthly fee or let whatever we’ve downloaded be deducted from our internet quota.
With regards to Shemila’s point… perhaps p2p might even help generate revenue and act as a form of advertisement for the movie and music industry. The amount of money lost through people downloaded from p2p might be minimal compared to the revenue gained thanks to advertisement through p2p. Afterall, sometimes you don’t get the best quality music or movie from p2p. As for creativity, perhaps creativity which exists from remixing videos using copyrighted stuff might be killed.
I think the system Alex suggests is fine, where the more you download the more you upload (and the less, vice versa), and this probably already happens, since you automatically return something to the network while downloading, right? (Minimal though it may be.) It’s not necessary to completely equalise download/upload quotas, so I think it’s ok that we all tend to ‘take’ more than we ‘give’. After all, with digital technology it’s not like there’s one copy for one person.
I don’t see how P2P is in danger of being commercialised, since the very philosophy is to slip under the radar of commercial products. If someone set up a P2P system for profit, it wouldn’t last because people would just continue to go around that and get stuff for free.
And I agree with Shemila on the point of creativity. Whether explicitly based on previous works, or a product of society and culture that is even unaware of what it is built on, there will always be creation of original content, fresh takes on existing content, etc. If copyrighters cracked down on p2p it might diminish or even squash the remixing of existing content, as happens in Hong Kong. But I think it unlikely that this will become a worldwide trend, and even in that scenario, underground creativity is likely to persist. No, despite regulation I think that as societies and regulators come to understand digital media more completely, new ways to accomodate different interests will be found.
Or perhaps I’m idealistic and underestimate the power of big corporations.
I agree with Joanne that P2P, especially Bit Torrent, is a kind of ‘forced’ participation. From my own experience, if I have a choice, I won’t share any of the content that I download with the others. However, if everybody on P2P is doing this, it violates the nature of BT and it just won’t work. That means, it is the forced participation bit that actually makes BT work.
P2p MIGHT be in danger of being commercialise due to copyright contents. Well, big corporations have a way of finding out how things are being pirated over the internet. If putting up fake/empty files on the internet is one way of dealing with copyright, who knows what might happen to the p2p network in the future?
Anyway, this is a short article I found on the internet regarding the future of p2p, thanks to copyright. http://news.softpedia.com/news/File-Sharing-The-Next-Generation-5735.shtml
The problem posed by the copyright issue might not seen prominent now but I can’t say for sure that things will be as smooth sailing in future. If most people are going to comply with the idea of having a “web of trust”, the whole free p2p sharing might just collapse…. or not???
Just trying to view the situation in a very pessimistic manner…
Kiri, I was prompted along a thought by you talking about underground content creativity, which can just as easily relate to the programmes used for the illegal distribution of content and the content itself. If that makes sense. The programme of BitTorrent is content. And so people can find new ways of distributing the client to users. And of course, given the people using the client are effectively a network as much as their computers are (they choose which content to download, and hence seed – if all computers indiscriminately got all available content then the people paying the bills for the traffic wouldn’t be happy) and these people are the ones who engage with the legal structure that is opposed to their sharing of content, so can use craftiness (creativity if you will) to go further underground and get away from the long arm of the law.
Which also ties into sites like piratebay, who are definitely promoting an anti-corporation agenda, with the website proclaiming itself as a victory for the little man. Whether or not the users subscribe to this as well, I don’t really know, but it’s definitely interesting there are people throwing around these sorts of ideas.
Just a random thought (I know it might sound very odd):
Just as underground drug trafficking continues to exists despite government’s attempt to eradicate them, illegal p2p will continue to exists too! despite big corporations attempt to gun them down!
I think that, as with drug trafficking and many other illegal activities, piracy can no longer be stopped or subverted. It’s patterns of usage will change over time (such as the high and lows of the P2P network usage in Hong Kong), and maybe one day the ‘system’ will alter to the point where piracy is not necessary… where we can get the information and media that we want at prices that are affordable (I hope!!!)
It has become a way of life, to access movies, music, television and programs when it is convenient for YOU – not when companies and producers tell we can. And I don’t think that we will ever be able to go back to only accessing information when we are told to – at least I don’t think I would be able to ☺
For the threats that exist at the moment, ie, the fake files seeded by companies, as far as I understand, network administrators can get around them. For instance, having a password protected network with a private tracker, and if somebody seeds a bad file then their account is suspended or deleted. So I guess the only thing that is lost here is a web of trust, that the trust isn’t taken for granted, but rather enforced by administrators.
I think that despite any pessimism, as long as there are people determined to break various laws, they will find ways around them. Combine this with notions of collective intelligence, wherein many people can work something out that one person can’t, and I don’t think the p2p model of distribution is in any danger of collapsing or becoming commercialised. By its very nature, it’s not suited to commercialisation, short of charging people subscription fees. And even then, someone who is both in a commercial network and a free one can pay the subscription then seed it to people for free.