
The Pirate Bay Is The World’s Most Efficient Public Library - mtgx
http://falkvinge.net/2012/12/07/the-pirate-bay-is-the-worlds-most-efficient-public-library/
======
adrianonantua
"If free and open access to all of human knowledge at the push of a button
truly prevents our society’s beloved artists, authors, thinkers, and other
creative people from putting food on their tables, then maybe it’s time to
rethink how to put food on their tables."

This itself nails half of the core of the issue. The other half is getting rid
of the middle men, who are now just struggling to justify their existence.
Their time will come.

~~~
MrScruff
That's a nice noble reframing of humanities innate desire to have access to
Game of Thrones season 2 without paying for cable.

Can I speak as one of the creative people that, you know, actually _works_ to
produce the content so many people seem to feel righteously entitled to? If
you're going to pirate/copyright infringe, do so, but please stop trying to
rebrand it as a freedom of speech issue. It's embarrassing.

As I see it, there are four types of people who generally don't pirate
content:

\- The technically illiterate.

\- People who have made a conscious decision to support the producer of the
content.

\- People who fear enforcement of copyright law.

\- People who have no interest in the content available.

The whole piracy political movement is manifestly obviously just
rationalisation, with the goal of striking back at shadowy 'middle men' being
particularly ridiculous.

~~~
wwwtyro
I wouldn't be so quick to consider the anti-IP position as one of simple
rationalization. I once held your position, and now consider it to have been a
narrow-minded mistake (that was directed at my past self, not you).

Give me a moment to explain my philosophical transformation by way of example:

Suppose you walk out into some unclaimed forest and gather some wood. Per John
Locke, you have mixed your labor (gathering) with a natural resource (wood)
and now own the gathered wood.

And what is ownership? Ownership is the right to do with your property
whatever you'd like, provided what you do does not affect or threaten the
property of others (including the property they have in their own persons).
This is understood intuitively in the scope of the example here that it would
be wrong for someone to, by force and against your will, take the wood that
you gathered.

To continue the example: your friend Bob approaches you and shows you an
invention of his - a wooden seat, exquisitely crafted and very comfortable to
sit upon. It's a fantastic idea, and you're really quite taken with it.
Instead of purchasing the seat, however, you decide to produce some of your
own, using the wood you own, for your own use and to sell to others. You do
so.

Bob comes to you, quite upset. You've stolen his idea, he says, and profited
with it against his will. And here the internal conflict introduced by the
concept of "intellectual" property is highlighted. You used your own property
as you pleased and in a way that did not harm or threaten to harm anyone
else's property, and yet according to Bob, you've violated his "intellectual"
property rights. In fact, the only way to not violate Bob's "intellectual"
property is to not do with your property as you please, even though that use
is entirely nonviolent. Bob's exercise of his "intellectual" property right is
a violation of your property right!

I hope I have sufficiently demonstrated here that IP cannot be a right at all,
because it destroys the internal consistency of property rights in general.

The response to this is usually utilitarian: "But how are artists going to get
paid without IP?" I offer a riposte here not because I have to (the ends do
not justify the means) but because some people need firm ground to stand upon
before they can move into a brave new world sans copyright. The threshold
pledge system (<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threshold_pledge_system>) is a
means of providing compensation to artists for their work that does not depend
upon IP law.

~~~
MrScruff
This doesn't really refute my statement at all. I was merely claiming that
piracy is often framed as a political statement, when it really isn't at all.
It's about people choosing to spend their money on something else, relying on
others to pay for the actual production of entertainment.

As for your point about there being no inherent right to protection of IP, I
would have said that was obvious. However the legal system doesn't exist to
just enshrine and enforce basic rights. It's also used to shape societies in
ways we (or our representatives) feel are beneficial.

Currently we as a society choose to enforce IP law. If that changes, then
sure, I'll find another job. Good luck waiting for that Game of Thrones season
3 though.

~~~
ShawnBird
Are you saying that selling plastic by the sword is better for society than a
strong public domain? Or do you just think that a system where content can be
produced without artificial scarcity is idealistic?

I guess what I am asking is this: Do you think that 'public ownership' of IP
is impossible, impractical or immoral?

As a content creator do you have an objection to public content on principle?
Or do you dislike it because you don't see it being possible?

I am asking this out of pure curiosity. I am just kind of surprised to see
someone on hacker news of all places saying that information should not be
free. I can understand saying that now is not the time or that models are not
yet ready but it seems ridiculous to think that we should ignore the power of
the internet for content distribution forever because it doesn't pay the bills
now.

~~~
MrScruff
I'm not sure what you mean - are you arguing that all information should be
put into the public domain as a matter of course? If so, I wouldn't agree with
that, no.

I'm curious as to why you think people posting on Hacker News should wish for
information to be free. The vast majority of start ups benefit from
withholding information from competitors, for example their source code or
client list. In general, I would say most people like to be given the
opportunity to choose which information is free and which is not.

Just because the internet makes that difficult to enforce doesn't
fundamentally change this in my view. As long as we still have a concept of
wealth, at least.

~~~
jivatmanx
The ability to withholding something from the public is privacy.

IP is use of law to prevent others from using something that is public.

Note: I don't think copyright is that evil, just current term lengths,
enforcement laws, and infringement damages. Patent as it exists now is pretty
screwed up and in order to not be evil would have to be pretty radically
different from what it is now.

------
roryokane
This article has a similar argument to “The Teleporter Library: A Copyright
Thought Experiment”: [http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/07/11/the-teleporter-
libra...](http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/07/11/the-teleporter-library-a-
copyright-thought-experiment/). The comments on that blog post contain useful
discussion of the argument.

I especially agree with comment 18 on that blog post,
[http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/07/11/the-teleporter-
libra...](http://www.juliansanchez.com/2011/07/11/the-teleporter-library-a-
copyright-thought-experiment/#comment-14798). It argues that the only reason
we find public libraries morally okay in the first place was because we
couldn’t copy their work. So perhaps if hard drives were invented before
physical books, public libraries would have radically different restrictions,
or not exist at all.

~~~
_delirium
I agree copying is a difference, but for >90% of my own usage, at least for
books and films, it's not one that makes a _practical_ difference. I don't
typically watch a movie hundreds of times: I watch it once, maybe twice. So
really I only need to loan it, whether from a library or TPB. In theory TPB
would let me not only "loan" it, but actually keep a permanent copy for
myself, which the library doesn't. But I have no desire to archive hundreds of
gigabytes of films I've already watched, so I typically delete them.

Another approach I sometimes take is to buy a used copy and then resell it.
This ends up costing the price of shipping + Amazon/eBay/etc. transaction
costs. It doesn't really benefit the artist/studio/etc. any more than
torrenting it, though, since they don't get a cut of used sales.

With music it's a bit different because I do actually listen to the same album
multiple times over an extended period of time, so prefer a permanent copy of
music I like.

~~~
jiggy2011
It may benefit them a bit. In order to get that used copy there had to be an
original sale at some point.

So if there is a big market for people to temporarily buy and resell something
then there will need be be a fair number of original sales unless people are
prepared to wait a long time to get their "turn".

With TBP in theory you can give the entire planet parallel access to something
by seeding only one original sale.

~~~
aes256
If the ability to sell the content on the second hand market makes the
original purchaser more likely to buy the content first hand, then it may be
said to help the rights holder.

On the other hand, by selling on the second hand market the original purchaser
may make others less likely to buy the content first hand, harming the rights
holder.

The latter effect is almost certainly more significant than the former, so the
net result is negative as far as the rights holders are concerned.

~~~
jiggy2011
True, but it's still miles better (for the rights holder) than torrents.

There's also times when I've bought a game or something with the intention of
playing it and then re-selling it, but I just never got around to the
reselling part.

~~~
Fargren
By what measure is second is miles better than torrents for the rights holder?
It's been shown, at least in some cases, that having a free download of
something increases the sales of that thing. It can be good publicity. The
myth that free distribution is always harmful to sells is one of the things we
need to kill if we want to have a reasonable argument of what's the best way
to get content from creators to consumers.

~~~
jiggy2011
Well my argument was based more on the basis of an individual transaction. For
example, I want this game should I buy it new , used or pirate it? In such a
situation it is clear the order in which they will directly benefit the rights
owner.

Of course there may be other indirect benefits, like pirating a game and then
recommending it to a friend who buys it at full price and alternative business
models.

When you say free distribution it is not quite clear whether you mean piracy
or the IP owner providing some free content as a kind of "loss leader".

I have always had a feeling that piracy benefits certain types of goods more
than others. For example an obscure indie band with fans exchanging mixtapes
or torrents reducing their obscuring somewhat.

OTOH something huge and mainstream being pirated by people who just didn't
want to pay for it is probably more harmful.

~~~
Fargren
I see, I misunderstood what you meant then. Obviously if you are going to get
the product by some means, it's best for the producer if you pay for it.

However, it's important to note that a lot of the content that is consumed for
free wouldn't be consumed otherwise. Just because you are not going to pirate
something, it doesn't mean you are going to pay for it. And from the
producer's side, it's better if his product is consumed than if it isn't, if
the distribution and duplication is free.

As far as free distribution goes, I don't think it makes a large difference
whether or not it's through official or illegal means (though it certainly
merits studying and testing). Having your product for free on your website and
having it on a torrent site probably both make you a sort of "loss leader" in
a very similar way. You may have different costs and the visibility to some
demographics may vary, but I doubt it matters much.

I just think the benefits of free distribution need to be better weighted. We
just have no idea how much companies are losing or winning by having their
content pirated.

~~~
jiggy2011
It is certainly true that some content that has been pirated would not have
been bought anyway.

Although I do feel that this might insentivise draconian DRM. If you are going
to buy $50 worth of content per month and then pirate everything else you are
probably going to pirate the stuff that is most easy to pirate.

For example I know people who pirate just about every PC game because it is as
simple as downloading the torrent, installing and sometimes cracking. OTOH
they don't pirate iOS games because they don't want to jailbreak their
iPhones.

The result is that iOS game developers get more money from them not because
they like iOS games more but because iOS is the more locked down platform.

------
tzs
The article overlooks the fact that the demand for an item like a book varies
over time. Typically, there is an initial high demand period shortly after
publication, and then a very long tail of low demand.

Libraries generally don't significantly undercut sales because the bulk of
sales occur during the early high demand period, when the library's limited
number of copies force waiting lists so that those who want the item sooner
rather than later buy it.

This was the basis of an interesting law review article published by Justice
Breyer back in his academic days, called "The Uneasy Case for Copyright",
where he argued that because such a high fraction of the profits from a work
occurred from sales shortly after publication, before copiers had time to
typeset and get into print unauthorized copies, there might not be a need for
copyright law.

Since then, copying technology has gotten much better, and so Breyer's
argument is no longer plausible.

~~~
jivatmanx
As an argument for reduced copyright terms, it's even more valid than before.

Why does a poor person from a developing country have to pay $10.00 for an
eBook from 1923?

Was the Author really thinking "I won't write this book unless my third
generation heirs get royalties".

~~~
tptacek
Because when companies sell books to poor people in developing countries at
steep discounts, rich people in the US buy them at the discount rate and
"import" them back into the US.

Book authors are generally thinking more about which second job they're going
to get to pay their rent, because apart from some notable outliers, it's
extraordinarily difficult to make a living as an author. But, by all means,
let's make their work product even less marketable!

~~~
jivatmanx
So, you're saving that if copyright length was reduced to thirty years, that
would have an effect on the ability of an author to make a living, and that
this marginal reduction in a book's marketability outweighs giving the poor
free access to them.

I'm arguing that it wouldn't affect authors, because except for the extremely
small number of books that become classics, essentially all profit comes soon
after release. And if you're book became a classic, you're probably no longer
poor, even if copyright term is only 30 years.

And, again, the poor in developing countries shouldn't have to pay outrageous
prices for ancient eBooks/books that are in the classical canon.

TLDR: If you believe that additional compensation for authors on books that
are still selling after 30 years outweighs letting them enter the public
domain and allowing the poor free access, I'm really interested to hear the
reasoning.

~~~
signalsignal
Congratulations. That's the most elitist argument I've read on the site.

------
shurane
That's a fun comparison. That's discrimination right there, innit? Artists and
authors aren't going after the library for copyright concerns the same way
they go after torrent sites.

Does the library have some type of licensing agreement with the media it
purchases? The article indicates that it isn't the case, but if there was,
could that be the reason why libraries aren't attacked but torrent sites are?
Though libraries have a lot less traffic and loss in potential sales compared
to a torrent tracker.

This type of discrimination happens with website scraping too. Websites don't
go after big search indexers like Google and Bing but will and can sue local
scrapers who never entered some type of agreement with the website.

~~~
kijin
> _Does the library have some type of licensing agreement with the media it
> purchases?_

IANAL but I think it's called the first-sale doctrine. Once you buy a book,
you can do whatever you want with it as long as you don't try to copy and sell
it.

Of course, publishers don't like it any more than the MAFIAA likes Torrent
users. As more libraries now stock digital items, publishers have taken the
opportunity to put restrictions on libraries' right to lend [1].

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/business/for-libraries-
an...](https://www.nytimes.com/2011/12/25/business/for-libraries-and-
publishers-an-e-book-tug-of-war.html)

~~~
knowtheory
To this point, content companies _hate_ libraries, but they can't do anything
about it because of the doctrine of first sale.

But that's why there were huge public media campaigns decrying any kind of
recordable media. Libraries could acquire all this content, and anybody could
go to the library, check out a piece of content, and make a copy.

This is also why in the world of objects that only exist digitally, libraries
are having such a hard time with digital lending. Content companies don't have
to play ball when they own the devices on which lending takes place.

------
INTPenis
Extreme hyperbole. The local library here in Malmö have a much better IT-
infrastructure than TPB.

The TPB website is built like something I made at 15 years old in PHP. It's in
fact a terrible product by todays standards. And that's _with_
noscript+adblock. I wouldn't want to see it without.

~~~
ajuc
Infrastructure doesn't matter, quality doesn't matter. What matters is how
many people use it, and how often. And there TPB wins by several orders of
magnitude.

~~~
INTPenis
Yes of course, Rick is trying to say that regardless of technology it feels
like a big library where you can find whatever it is you're looking for.

At the core I'm for piracy, hell I was raised a pirate and I will forever be a
pirate. I'd much rather donate my money to indie-artists and software
projects.

------
b3tta
I don't understand why everyone feels the need to portrait piracy as something
good.

I do it because I can.

~~~
webreac
Because the only way to prohibit piracy is to kill freedom of speech.

If you want to protect freedom of exchange of data between people with no
eavesdrop, you can not fight piracy.

~~~
Tyrannosaurs
Perhaps but that doesn't make piracy good. It might make it an unavoidable
side effect of something that's good, but that's a different thing.

~~~
eloisant
The important thing is not that piracy is good, but that the "war against
piracy" is a bad thing.

Just like in US drugs aren't "good" (at least they're no better than alcohol
and cigarettes) but "the war on drugs" has a pretty devastating effect on the
american society without addressing any drug problem.

This is the same with piracy: to fight it movie and video games studio are
adding DRM that affects paying customers without preventing piracy, and to
censor piracy websites (like the Pirate Bay) the government passes laws that
can later be used to silence an opposant (= restrict freedom of speech).

------
Surio
Since _game of thrones_ got mentioned a couple of times, and quick and easy
download/wait times and SD files with 720p resolution, etc...etc... in some of
the comments

obligatory comic: <http://theoatmeal.com/comics/game_of_thrones>

------
laserDinosaur
"It begs the question why every author, filmmaker, and musician isn’t up in
arms about the New York Public Library’s rampant sharing"

It should be noted there IS a somewhat large group of book authors who protest
that library's are just government sanctioned piracy. Which I think is a fair
enough stance to take.

~~~
smacktoward
Then those authors are idiots. Libraries pay for their books, they don't seize
them for free through some kind of literary eminent domain.

If their argument is that it should be illegal for anyone to share a book
_that they've paid for_ with someone else, that would be a radical
redefinition of what it means to "own" a book.

~~~
millstone
My mom borrowing my book is qualitatively different than a public institution
set up for the mass renting of media. The law makes that distinction all the
time; for example, the CRA prohibits discrimination in a restaurant, but not
at my potluck.

Back during the 90s, video rental stores would have to pay a higher price
(around $100 IIRC) for a copy of a movie they were licensed to rent. If you
believe that media should be licensable, then it follows naturally that more
permissive licenses should cost more.

The main reason that libraries are morally acceptable, by the way, is that
they are viewed as institutions of learning and betterment that service
students, the unemployed, and the less fortunate. If libraries were focused on
entertainment instead, they would not be so highly regarded and their
copyright issues would come to the fore.

------
georgeorwell
If you think TPB is good, you should see what private trackers have to offer.

------
alan_cx
The comparison is bogus because a specific copy is passed around. With file
sharing a new copy is made each time. What this means is that with a library
only one person can use the media at one time. That person gives the copy
back, no so in file sharing.

Shame 'cos it was a nice point for a while!!! Thing is, file sharing isnt
sharing. If I "file share" I still have my copy to use. A second person
wanting to borrow doesn't have to wait for my copy to be returned to me. They
can make a new copy.

So.... can such an arrangement work in place of current "file sharing"? Can a
file be borrowed and sent beck for re-borrowing after use? Since my local
library in the UK does films and box-sets, can government or local government
implement such a system?

~~~
icebraining
There was never a requirement in the definition of "sharing" that the sharer
was deprived of the thing being shared. When it comes to non-scarce things -
like ideas, knowledge or experiences - we've always used the word 'share'
without implying rivalry.

------
lominming
Interesting comparison but failed at making a substantial argument. \- Library
has limited copies. If the library has only 10 copies, only 10 people have
access to it. On Pirate Bay, 1 million people can instantly download and have
access to it. \- Time period to access an item. Even when 10 people have
access to it, they will probably borrow it for 2 weeks. This limits
circulation.

However, it does bring up an interesting thought experiment. What if the
library has 1 million copies of an item, and 1 million people can instantly
borrow it? Essentially, what happens when a library is very effective?

This comes down to whats the mission of the library. For NY library: "The
mission of The New York Public Library is to inspire lifelong learning,
advance knowledge, and strengthen our communities."

This quickly becomes a very philosophical debate.

------
paul_f
If libraries did not exist, and I created one, I'd be sued out of existence.

------
sgdesign
Maybe one difference is that libraries don't operate for profit, while pirate
sites display ads and (as far as I know) don't redistribute any profits to the
content creators?

Although I would gladly pay $X/month to TPB if it did give some of it back to
the artists.

~~~
orng
It would be very interesting to see what happened if TPB were to start
distributing their revenue to the rights-holders without asking for their
permission though. Maybe it could work in a similar vein to flattr, where the
recipients have to claim their money?

Perhaps the future of torrents is a Spotify-like model where anyone can upload
anything, and if you can prove that you are the owner of something you get
your share of the revenue?

edit: minor change to phrasing

------
ry0ohki
"The Pirate Bay, on the other hand, requires you to type in a search term,
click on a download button, and wait a little while"

This is basically how it works at my local library, I search on their website,
click "Request to my local branch", wait a while, and then it's there for me
to pickup. I can't imagine the NY Public library is much worse.

~~~
cwkoss
Unless you don't have to put on pants, I'd still call the Pirate Bay more
efficient.

------
ripperdoc
This is all a very nice philosophical discussion. People argue that libraries
do pay rightholders - whatever amount, it seems to be less than $1, and that's
nice. BUT, why can't we just agree then that we pay a couple of dollars
straight to the rightsholder and in exchange we get to download it with one
click and use it as we like? Is it really that difficult?

------
benologist
Why stop the hyperbole at public libraries? TPB is the world's most efficient
Walmart too because Walmart has per-item and per-person overhead that will
never compete with "click this link".

It's the most efficient two way mission to Mars as well when you really think
about it: no rockets, no loss of life, and all the latest movies!

~~~
morsch
Who is being hyperbolic now? It's easy to see that TPB accomplishes few things
that Walmart does (such as distributing groceries) and almost none that a Mars
mission does (other than serve as entertainment). It's also easy to see that
TPB _does_ accomplish many of the things that a public library does, such as
offering access to copyrighted works and helping in finding the work you're
looking for by maintaining an index. Did you really not see this or were you
being disingeneous to make a point?

