I have absolutely no problem with paying content creators. Torrenting makes me very uneasy when it's distributing cracks and work by small scale creatives who will be - sometimes have been - forced to give up because of piracy.
That's not a win. It simply isn't. No matter how you look at it or rationalise it, there is no way to make it a good thing.
Unfortunately the existing corporates are also very bad at paying content creators.
In fact they're criminally bad. Knowingly, deliberately, fraudulently bad. (See "Hollywood Accounting.")
Torrenting could have fixed this by providing a second informal distribution channel. The big torrent sites - which were making huge amounts of money at their peak - could have fixed it by becoming the new investors and incubators of talent.
They could have become the new music and film industry. They could have taken down Hollywood by offering real decentralised competition to the entire business process.
Instead a load of college kids and the odd activist said "Fuck that - I want my free music and movies" and that was as far as it went.
Now we're back with creatives earning less than they were before torrenting started, partly because torrenting set the bar so low it made the ridiculous streamimg deals offered by Spotify etc look a serious business proposition.
The reality is that most of the rhetoric around free/open stuff is bullshit. None of it works as well as it's claimed to, and some of it is actively destructive.
I really don't have a problem with alternative models of creation, contribution, and reward. But inventing new models that actually generate and reward high quality content would require dealing with reality, not just indulging in rhetoric and self-justification.
There doesn't seem to be much chance of that happening any time soon.
That's not a win. It simply isn't. No matter how you look at it or rationalise it, there is no way to make it a good thing.
Unfortunately the existing corporates are also very bad at paying content creators.
In fact they're criminally bad. Knowingly, deliberately, fraudulently bad. (See "Hollywood Accounting.")
Torrenting could have fixed this by providing a second informal distribution channel. The big torrent sites - which were making huge amounts of money at their peak - could have fixed it by becoming the new investors and incubators of talent.
They could have become the new music and film industry. They could have taken down Hollywood by offering real decentralised competition to the entire business process.
Instead a load of college kids and the odd activist said "Fuck that - I want my free music and movies" and that was as far as it went.
Now we're back with creatives earning less than they were before torrenting started, partly because torrenting set the bar so low it made the ridiculous streamimg deals offered by Spotify etc look a serious business proposition.
The reality is that most of the rhetoric around free/open stuff is bullshit. None of it works as well as it's claimed to, and some of it is actively destructive.
I really don't have a problem with alternative models of creation, contribution, and reward. But inventing new models that actually generate and reward high quality content would require dealing with reality, not just indulging in rhetoric and self-justification.
There doesn't seem to be much chance of that happening any time soon.