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Blog Torrent: Downhill Battle Interview
scubacuda writes "In this GrepLaw interview, Downhill
Battle's Nicholas Reville describes the success (and takedown) of SP2Torrent.com,
alternative ways to buy music, what indie musicians think about filesharing,
and real ways to counter threats to creativity and an open culture. Those excited
about the possibilities of Bittorrent
will especially appreciate Downhill Battle's Blog
Torrent, an easy-to-install program that will dramatically simplify the
creation, posting, and seeding of new torrents."
alternative ways to buy music
...music? wtf?
buy?
Bob has 2Gig of mp3s. Jane has 5Gig of mp3s. If they share via 1Gb/s (local) ethernet, they will quickly both have 8Gigs each.
In a few years that Gigabytes will become Terabytes. When one person can have a copy of nearly all music in existence, they will never spend a dime on it. It's too late. Content producers are fucked. Only niche markets will survive.
...BitTorrent is a boon for open source projects with large files. PostgreSQL, for example, publishes torrents of their releases and the the "PG Live" ISOs. On a much smaller scale, we've put up a torrent for the Ruby windows installer on RubyForge - it's only 11 MB, but even a small file like that is worth torrenting.
PLUG: Here's the beginnings of a Ruby BT library. Just parses the metainfo file for now, but it's a start...
The Army reading list
It's an established technology. That's good. What I'm looking for now is a push-based P2P system; one which allows you to subscribe for content and will then automatically download new content as it's propagated through the network. We've had stories on Slashdot before about sites' popular RSS feeds saturating bandwidth - well, this would be a perfect solution. Are there any plans to retrofit push functionality into BitTorrent to help alleviate the stress of releasing new content? BitTorrent doesn't gel with RSS at the moment because there's no way to automate serving and/or obtaining RSS files. It all has to be done manually, which is no better than just refreshing a web page.
No it's not. It's music, movies, books, art, science, ... . It's our entire culture that large corporations want to own and commodify.
Hey, it's only fucking music, why are we getting this worked up over it?
I don't know, why are you getting all worked up?
Test 1 2 3 4
Actually, primates sang long before we spoke, and "music for the masses" was precisely what music was for most of human history.
In fact, the idea that music has monetary value is a very recent aberration from the normal way humans have treated music for millenia.
You know how Mozart got famous in Vienna? He visted the Vatican, heard Allegri's Miserere Mei once (it's about 20 minutes long), and wrote out from memory all of the music to it when he got back so the Vienna choir could sing it. He also changed a few things he didn't like about it.
That's how music used to be: people sang, people played, people listened. When they heard something they liked, they took it; when they heard something they thought they could improve, they improved it. This whole notion that an artist, or worse yet, a publisher, "owns" music is a novelty and, hopefully, won't last too long.
Under the modern copyright system, Mozart could not have written half of his symphonies and almost none of his chamber music or operas. Ditto Haydn, and much more so Beethoven. And Bach... well, Bach pretty much wouldn't have a portfolio left except maybe a few keyboard pieces. Composers "pirated" each other rampantly, and the result was some of the greatest art mankind ever saw.
Hmmm... how many great composers have we had since music publishers started inventing this idea that they "own" music? Can anybody think of one? John Tesh? Andrew Lloyd Webber? That's the tone-deaf crap we're left with when we all buy in to the lie that it's "just music" and that copying other musicians is "theft".
Why should a musician, much less a publisher, have a "right" to make money selling a license to hear their music? I say, kill all copy restrictions on music. Let those who are in it for the quick buck get forced out when it's not profitable anymore and leave making music to those of us who do it because we love it. People will keep making great music: they did for thousands of years before they started charging money for it. They'll keep doing it.
All's true that is mistrusted
...for this. Look at the caption on the second and the last pictures. If you're going to throw moral/ethical stones at the RIAA, get out of the glass house.
Except that none of them had any right to do so. There is no such thing as "creating" anything from scratch, all of the jerks who believe in copyrights build upon the works of others. Scientists needs thousads of workers in the field who went before them to get to the point where they can formulate their theory. Musicians rip everything off from the ones who came before and thrive on small variations on those themes. Ditto for movies. Etc etc. I dont know when people will get it through their thick skulls that in order to "create" something, one draws upon of millennia of progress of human race and efforts of countless generations who went before. Those who claim they "own" their ideas are just selfish jerks, akin to bandits who go out and take over some land and then claim it to be "owned" by them. It wasnt theirs in the first place, they just happened to wander onto it and then proceeded to shoot anyone who came near.
Alpo already comes in can and bag form, is loaded with nutrients and proteins...and if it's good enough for your dog, it's almost certainly good enough for you. :)
// Agent Green (Ian / IU7 / KB1JQO)
// IEEE 802.3: All 10base Are Belong To Us
Eh? Why do you think they want to shut down p2p networks? They're not stupid; they know downloads help their sales.
They shut them down precisely to keep musicians from releasing our own music for all to share. That is what really scares them: not "piracy" but the fact that people like me are able to get exposure for our music without going through their tollbooth.
We don't need music middle-men anymore. We don't need A&R execs telling us what's good enough for us to hear anymore. We don't need million-dollar studios to produce studio-quality audio anymore. The music industry is an industry that no longer has a purpose. Let the artists create and try to sell their stuff and get famous. I don't need someone between me and the musician anymore.
All's true that is mistrusted
BitTorrent is good, DownhillBattle's idea of making BT easier for a larger audience is good, but their proposed technique has problems. The "Blog Torrent" site says....
"One good way to do this [avoid excluding a large portion of users] is to attach torrent files to an executable client."
Directing unsophisticated users to download custom EXEs from any random site offering big media they want would be a dangerous step backwards, encouraging a very unsafe practice that's likely to get their machines infected with various kinds of malware, sooner or later.
I'd suggest instead improving the installers of well-respected BT clients, and encouraging users to get them from well-known sites.
It loses a little in terms of instant gratification, butbut is instant gratification worth it if it also risks instant victimization?