Quote:
Originally Posted by Moejoe
It's an almost impossible question to answer. The file-sharing sub-culture does have, in my experience, lots of hoarders. They download as a way to collect, but don't consume the media they download. There's also a significant portion who will grab something due to its popularity, whether that be outside the world of filehsaring, or within, and similarly won't consume. Then you have the casuals, they grab their TV shows and first run movies and after watching, delete. This is all within the public realm of file sharing.
Now, if you have any experience with the private, invite-only sites then you're talking about a very different kettle of fish altogether. These private sites are very pro-buying and have strict ethical codes and rules about what must be uploaded and the ratios kept. These private sites usually specialise in certain media types -- high-quality music files in FLAC, foreign and rare movies, textbooks etc. These sites also have a fair share of industry insiders, original creators of the music, and other creative types who are fed up of the industry's they belong to. One prominent example is Trent Reznor of NIN, who belonged to Oink before it was closed down. He uploaded all of his bands material, including rare videos and other 'for sale' products over the life of that site. These are some of the modern venues of the file sharing world.
Top sites
Usenet
Private BT Sites
Public BT
Centralised P2P applications.
IRC
The Top Sites are very secretive and closed off and belong to the SCENE. They have no intention of spreading the material to anybody but within their own closed circle. They pirate for the 'Reputation' of who's the first and who's the fastest to release. There are lots of rules and lots of in-fighting. No SCENER wants their material to go beyond the SCENE itself. They are not interested in Sharing and despise BT and P2P.
Private BT sites have a mixture of user-generated content and trickle down from the TOP-SITES. They, for the most part, do not allow their content to go out beyond their own site. They rely heavily on ratios and standards. They have a sizeable population of original creators and industry insiders who are fed up of the industry and release their material here.
Usenet is one of the oldest methods and has a mixture of SCENE, Private rips and public rips. Quite anonymous, no strict rules overall, some groups have rules but nothing like the SCENE or the private BT sites.
Public BT - Mixture of SCENE and personal rips. Lots of ripping groups who release material like TV shows, and personal rippers who have gained reputation for their rips. Ratios are not enforced. Quality is variable.
Centralised P2P apps. Flooded with fakes, viruses, porn and very low quality releases. These are used by newbs who have no idea what they're doing, and also a big portion of teenagers who are new to file-sharing. There's only one in this whole group that still has any credibility, but I won't mention it, as I'm not here to promote, but point out what's going on.
IRC - also vying for the oldest form of sharing with Usenet. No ratios, files are a mixture of SCENE and other personal rips. Some reputation in this, but it's not something I've investigated too heavily.
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And don't forget the big and increasing DDL sites, which use rapidshare, megaupload, netload and many other filesharing sites. Pure leeching (no worry for keeping ratios, fakes/virus are extremely rare, etc).
Anyway, piracy is very common. It doesn't matter talking if it hurts, helps or whatever. We could only talk about morals and ethics, but who cares about that these times? We just have to aknowledge piracy and learn to deal with it.