Pirates, traders – or hoarders?
p2pnet.net News:- Posting on Corante, Dana Blankenhorn says given that, “both sides in the Copyright Wars know about language and framing, I’m urging use of this new term for the heavy hobbyist users on peer to peer networks.”
Thus, “Pirates (the copyright industries’ term) is false. There is no economic motive behind most file trades. There is no assurance that, if trading ended tomorrow, sales would rise appreciably.”
And, “Traders (the term favored by users) isn’t correct either. Most traders are asymmetric. Most are downloaders, not uploaders.”
Blankenhorn’s preferred terminology?
“I think the word hoarding says more about the motives of the users, and the way toward ending the practice, than anything else," he states. "Thanks in part to the industry’s rhetoric, and in part to its actions, many lovers of music and other files are afraid they will lose access to the culture they crave. Thus they demand to have physical copies of its artifacts, and grab all they can. It’s classic hoarding behavior.”
But no matter how big your collection is, you can only listen to one song at a time or watch one movie at a time, he points out. So how can hoarding be stopped?
“1. One step is already being made, unlimited rentals. Economically this is very similar to the concept being pursued in some quarters of taxing the media. The industry gets regular income and data that can be used to parcel it out.
“2. Tone down the rhetoric. All this talk about an industry ‘lock-out’ of its users (if this keeps up we’ll go out of business) is only increasing hoarding.
“3. Engage the market. The movie industry hasn’t even begun to do this. BitTorrent has many legal uses, and could easily be used to take a service like NetFlix fully online. But as of now, while there are many non-infringing uses of BitTorrent we’re short of economic models for it.”
See:-
Corante – File Hoarders Get BitTorrent Win, May 23, 2005
May 25th, 2005 at 3:42 pm
“All this talk about an industry ‘lock-out’ of its users (if this keeps up we’ll go out of business) is only increasing hoarding.”
This is the only statement I disagreee with. No one honestly believes the industry will go out of business and people aren’t downloading movies and music because of that. Hoarding (I’m not sure I like that term) is occuring because the industries retoric is making more people aware of how to get these files. Also the main reason most don’t share isn’t because they don’t want to, it’s because they don’t want to get involved in a legal mess.
Rick
May 25th, 2005 at 4:30 pm
My main reason for the lack of sharing is the lack of a broadband connection. Any wardriver who scans my network has access to the thousands of file I have made available. I also get a few uploasd as well. These files are stored on an encrypted partition and the reset switch on the computer is connected to circuitry that is activated apon a sudden raid. Of course, I cannot remember the encryption key, so I cannot be forced to deliver it if subpoenaed
May 25th, 2005 at 5:09 pm
where do you keep your tinfoil hat?
May 26th, 2005 at 4:20 am
How can this be ‘hoarding’? Hoarding has a clear implication that one is activiely amassing a quantity of some item (that is far more than the reasonable amount to meet their needs and those of whom they must provide for) AND THUS depriving others of it’s availability and use. There is also the connotation that the excess reserves will at some point be used as a form of currency to barter and trade for other items. Recalling Y2K, some people who thought that it was doomsday were HOARDING fresh water, canned food, batteries, fossil fuel, styling mousse, Oreo cookies and whatever else. There is also an implication that the items being HOARDED are basic necessities of civilized life such as food, water, toilet paper, etc.
Once again, the use of terms that generally apply to physical property are inappropriately applied intellectual property.
The activity being described is more accurately characterized as ‘collecting’ than ‘hoarding’, particularly since the items it question are easily replicated without the use of raw materials.
May 26th, 2005 at 1:51 pm
I used the metal collander that I drain cooked pasta in. I made a lovely chin strap for it out of red velvet ribbon. It’s just stunning.