Interactive map of hostilities around copyright

In the spring of 2013, the Hungarian explorer Bodo Balazs presented his next work. He has been interested in this field for a long time, and this time he considered the life of pirate communities and their relations with other participants of the “copyright wars”, as he described the current situation.

The work is interesting not so much by the content as by the presence of a visual interactive map , which he did on the prezi non-linear presentations engine. You can get acquainted with the original (in English), or with the Russian version , which I did with the permission of the author.
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I'm not quite sure about some of the terms and calculations of Bodo Balazs, it was especially difficult to understand the quotes of his colleagues in the workshop, so if there are mistakes or additions, I will correct it. You can also do it yourself by making your own copy - the presentation is open for editing.

To navigate the map along a route previously determined by the author, arrows are used right-left, you can also explore it yourself by moving the mouse, zooming the wheel, and clicking the left button performs “smart” focusing on individual elements.

ps on the map I hid a little secret. Who will find - please do not disclose in the comments where he is.

Under the cut is a short text translation of his article, where, in general, everything is the same.

Types of pirate communities

The author begins the study with an analysis of various types of pirate networks and the rules that arise in them. He argues that this diversity is a direct consequence of the tireless efforts of rightholders to eliminate piracy in recent decades:

It would be logical to assume that if it were not for the copyright, one large world torrent tracker would have been formed (well, or several). Constant attacks of all kinds of organizations crushed file-sharing culture into many very different communities.

This torrent, the most common today, and other file-sharing networks, and ordinary forums in which participants communicate, and the content is transmitted through file sharing or another network, for example, eDonkey. Among all types there are both open and closed communities. In Russia, closed trackers are not of much interest to anyone, but in Europe and in the USA they are, for obvious reasons, very popular, it is about such trackers that are discussed in the work of the Hungarian scientist.

Although there are usually no more than a hundred participants on closed trackers, the number of hands (torrents) supported by them is estimated at millions, that is, comparable to the number of torrents on open trackers, where there are millions of participants. The author lists the tables with figures for the largest closed and open trackers for 2012, sorted by the number of torrents and by the total number of peers. He highlighted open in green and closed trackers in red. As you can see, in the sorted lists they are distributed evenly. From this, he concludes that closed communities play an important role in global piracy.


Further, he examines the characteristics of these communities based on his own observations and research of his colleagues:

The main purpose of the closed pirate community is to expand, improve and maintain its collection of content, even if it (significantly) makes it difficult for individual users to access it.

The most important difference in closed communities is the ability to form their own set of norms and their own management mechanisms.

Rules and regulations

These mechanisms are known to everyone who uses torrents: downloaded / distributed rating, additional bonuses for distributing old, less popular, rare content, for creating their own distributions, selective freelich, gold distributions (without rating), and so on. The remaining rules define the internal administrative hierarchy, decision-making and conflict resolution processes, in other words, they form the basis of a self-governing community.

With all this, it is possible to maintain the most diverse collection, including rare materials. On the other hand, such rules limit (sometimes strongly) the freedom of participants to download everything they wish. Although the logic and technology of file sharing implies the absence of rarity of intangible objects (content), in the case of the mentioned restrictions we see the appearance of artificial rarity.

On some of the trackers, he also found rather unexpected rules, such as voluntary file sharing restrictions, something like his own copyright, with his informal hand-closing processes.

He spoke by email with the administrator of one tracker and said that the authors and producers turn to them with requests not to distribute the film until a certain date, or until it pays off. There were also cases when they were “paid by rating”. That is, the author or rightholder himself is registered on the tracker as a user, and in exchange for the fact that his film remains on the tracker, the admins assigned him a rating, that is, they were given the opportunity to download more pirated movies.

The editors of torrentfreak, who made an article about this study, talked to the admins of another music tracker and found the same thing: they have deals with several dozen musicians and employees of various labels who agreed not to run into them in exchange for a rating.

The researcher is trying to understand the reasons for this strange situation. He concludes that this is the result of the natural evolution of ethical norms within pirate communities.

Formation of pirate ethics

The shared library of files, which is the core of the community, is a vivid example of a regulated, created by equal participants in the system. It is the participation in the community that makes a lonely anonymous file sharing part of this system, with its own hierarchy, habits, rules and concepts about “proper” piracy.

Rocking do not care about the community. He wants to just go to the site, find what he needs, download, and turn off the torrent as soon as the download is over. He is not interested in anything else.

The committed members are driven by a sense of community. Starting from seeding torrents as long as possible, before commenting and taking part in the life of forums, communication. The collective mind is what ensures the long-term survival of not only the community, but also the practices that support it.

The author argues that the sense of community is often overlooked in studies of file sharing motivation. He cites a large list of jobs, emphasizing that most of them focused on micro / individual level factors, such as pressure from classmates / classmates, family / friends, anonymity, individual socio-economic background and other motivations. There have also been a significant number of studies on macrosocial influences, such as global economic inequality, market crises, widespread lawsuits, sources of intellectual property norms, and mechanisms of the gift economy. But at the moment, very few people understood that online communities with their own notions of intellectual property and ethics are the most important groups that shape the individual's norms regarding copying.

Modern tightened legislation could not prevent massive copyright infringements. Despite this, it definitely creates a climate in which the individual feels the need to decide for himself what is good and what is bad.

The researcher visually places the existing practices in the plane of ethics / legality, which in the case of copyright not only diverged, but became orthogonal:



Different file-sharing communities have come to different conclusions, which they consider the right and acceptable use of the results of intellectual activity. However, in all cases, both users and authors participate in actions that are obviously illegal, but they are considered correct. This is due to the fact that participants view them as ethical, and this is more important for them than legality. The ethics of such practices are perhaps contextual and ephemeral, but they are all deeply based on a basic ethical view of copyright.

The basic ethical expectation of copyright is that the authors and the public respect each other and are found in the market. Authors behave correctly when they create and offer works that enrich the cultural and intellectual life of the public. The public behaves correctly when it offers sponsors the financial support required for creative work.
The exchange is commercial, voluntary on both sides and mutually courteous.

The scientist deeply and verbally analyzes the situation and concludes that apparently over time, these closed communities, as practically independent entities, established a regime similar to copyright, with the difference that its “laws” are built in the interests of not the individual circle, but the entire community.

Conclusion

The Hungarian scientist makes 3 conclusions from his work. I do not know for which audience he gave a presentation, but for some reason he decided to include only the third one in it - the most incredible conclusion. I included all three in the Russian version, especially since it was in this form that they were identified in the study itself:

Conclusion number 1

In the near future, the main issue of the intellectual property sphere will not be how to make people obey the law, but rather under what conditions they will respect the wishes of the authors and contribute to the prosperity of various cultural backgrounds.

The survival of various social practices will be a factor in their ethical disposition, not legality. In other words, those closer to the basic ethical view of copyright will enjoy the support of society, even if they are illegal. And those that do not meet ethical expectations will meet with strong resistance, even if they are violently implanted.

Conclusion number 2

How to restore the social contract in the process of cultural production, distribution and consumption, which has become medialized, industrialized and conjoined?

The global media conglomerates that followed copyright are focused on their financial returns, and not on any cultural mission. Their interests diverge from the interests of the authors who create the market, and with the interests of the public that they serve. Until now, it is these conglomerates that have incorporated their interests into the formal framework of copyright.

Both consumers and authors should understand that there are no “own” and “enemies” in this conflict: the authors, copyright holders and all other intermediaries are also part of the society, as are users, customers and buyers.

Conclusion number 3

File-sharing communities have developed a means of social control in areas where copyright has proved impossible. The efforts of law enforcement agencies to destroy them destroy not only the communities themselves and the libraries of content that they have collected, they also destroy the social mechanisms that exist there.

Perhaps such pirated communities could be allied to the owners. After all, they have common interests: a stable cultural ecosystem.

From the point of view of philosophy, his work may be interesting, but I strongly doubt that in practice it will somehow help to resolve the existing “military conflict”. The question posed by all of this research, and especially the ethical / legal pattern, remains unanswered. Will the “official” copyright ever get closer to the ethical views of society, or are these arrows gone forever?