How to reconcile file sharing and copyright

Once back in 2003, I thought about the possibility of legalizing file sharing in p2p networks. I wanted to find a solution that would suit both file sharing and copyright holders. It is clear that this will require a compromise and both sides will have to make some concessions.

First of all, I defined a restriction, without which further progress did not make sense at all. This restriction is the very nature of file-sharing networks, their basic principle: everyone can receive, everyone can give. For the legalization of file sharing within the current copyright laws, one cannot do without including money in the network turnover of files, because it must be possible to deduct the copyright collection to copyright holders.

If we are talking about money, then we will have to basically replace the words “receive and give” with the word “buy and sell” in the basic principle of file sharing. We will get a new rule already for the file-sharing market: everyone can buy, everyone can sell. Such a modified principle served as the basis for building the P2Market system, which I would like to tell the distinguished assembly in this article.
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Rules for the new p2p market.

There are several actors in a potential market: users of file-sharing networks (let's call them “file sharing” for short), copyright holders (“rights holders”), file sharing software developers (“developers”) and the P2Market system itself, which provides market infrastructure. The interests and roles of these actors are different and we will take this into account in the future.

To implement the principle “everyone can buy, everyone can sell”, it is necessary to consider each transfer of a portion of data as a purchase and sale transaction. In this case, one of the file sharing (downloading) is the buyer and the second (giving) seller. The transfer of a portion of data is accompanied by a parallel transfer of money from the buyer's account to the seller’s account. The price of the file is assigned by the seller, he also receives money for the shipped file. So, if I have a file, I set a sale price on it and get money from other file sharing services for each piece of file I downloaded.





Now we need to determine how the author's collection will be deducted to the copyright holder. Such deduction occurs right at the time of settlement of the seller and the buyer, immediately from the amount of the transaction some part is transferred to the account of the copyright holder. What exactly will be the deductible part decides the right holder. To do this, it is given the opportunity for each file to set 2 parameters: the minimum price and the percentage of excess. The minimum price will go completely to the pocket of the right holder, but if the transaction is completed at a price higher than the minimum price, then the right holder also receives a percentage of the extra price (the difference between the real price of the transaction and the minimum price).

Let me explain by example. Suppose there is a file for which the copyright holder has set the parameters: minimum price = 1 ruble (it is impossible to sell for less than 1 ruble), a percentage with excess = 10%. If file hosting service A has set the sale price to file at 10rub and another file hosting service B has downloaded this file from him, then the calculation will be as follows:
minimum price of 1 rub. goes to the copyright holder
percentage of excess = (10 rubles - 1 rubles) * 10/100 = 0.9 rubles also goes to the copyright holder
Total holder receives 1 + 0.9 = 1.9 rubles. and the file sharing distributor A receives 10-1.9 = 8.1 rubles.

Perhaps this scheme of trade parameters will seem at first glance somewhat cumbersome, but it gives the right holder a fairly flexible tool for various sales strategies. For example, the copyright holder sets both parameters to zero, and then all proceeds go to the distributing file sharing service, in this case, the strategy of the owner is to encourage the distribution of his product as much as possible, without looking at the profit.

Thus, in the P2Market market, the copyright holder sets certain trading parameters for a specific file and after that the file sharing users themselves determine the real market price. For example, if you liked the movie, then most likely the majority of file sharing file distributors will set the price for the file higher. Buyers are also involved in pricing. When the buyer starts downloading, he receives information about the number of transactions (downloads) and the average price per transaction. Then the buyer himself sets his purchase price, which will be a limitation when searching for sources for downloading. If the film has received good reviews, then the buyer will probably set the price even higher than the average in order to get the file as soon as possible and thereby raise the average transaction price. Conversely, for a dubious film, the buyer will set a minimum price - there is no hurry.

To ensure the infrastructure, P2Market will have to do a lot of preliminary work and incur some expenses, so a corresponding 10% fee is charged on the total transaction amount in favor of P2Market, so in the end, the real earnings in the example above will be 10% less.

Of the 10% received, P2Market will give a certain percentage to file-sharing software developers in order to motivate them to include P2Market support in their programs.

So, having a clear understanding of the task, I have broken the plan. Here's what I got.

What it looks like

The website allows file sharing services to register, replenish your account, see statistics. From the site you can download versions of file-sharing programs, adapted to work with P2Market. Also on the site there is a section for owners. They can also register, set trading parameters for files, conduct financial transactions.



I redid a couple of file-sharing programs (Lilewire and Azureus) to include P2Market support. Both of these programs are written in Java and the licenses of both programs allow them to be modified. Therefore, I chose them. Here I will give a few pictures explaining simple operations in one of the modified programs - Limewire.

The list of files available for downloading reflects the average transaction price and the minimum price.



In order to start downloading a file, you need to specify the maximum price you are willing to pay. In a special window also shows the important parameters of the price and the number of downloads.

When the file is downloaded, you can set the sale price for it:



as well as in the list you can see the trading parameters of each file:



At first, I was absorbed in programming, but over time, when the system was already operational and I was able to confidently demonstrate working tests, I spent more and more time promoting this project.

Promotion

The P2Market project is an attempt to compromise a long-standing dispute between file sharing and copyright holders. In order to somehow reconcile any dispute, it is useful to consider the positions of all participants, their ability to take steps in a positive direction. For this, I spent a lot of time and came to some conclusions, which I will discuss now.

To assess the mood of file sharing, I conducted several surveys in several large forums and, to my surprise, did not find the full and unconditional non-acceptance by file sharing services of ideas of fair pay for downloaded files. It turned out that most of the respondents are more for than against. If we assume that at least 30 percent of file hosting services will become involved in P2Market, then we get a market of the order (according to various estimates) of 40-60 million users. Potential considerable. Next, you still need to take into account that many people do not use file sharing for fear of copyright infringement. If a “legal” alternative appears, and the average user finds out about it, this can increase the size of the market by several times. I considered that the preliminary agreement had been received from the file sharing service and moved on.




The next market participant are the developers. I also found no fundamental difficulties with this group. Firstly, many developers themselves are trying to make money on their programs, and this means they will not refuse to include the P2Market module in their development. Secondly, many programs are developed under an open license, which allows the source code to be modified, so if the developers themselves are not interested in a cooperation offer, you can include the P2Market module in the file-sharing program yourself.

It remains to deal with the mood of the owners.

In file sharing, the main media file types are music, movies, and programs. It must be said that there is a significant difference in the degree of organization of the right holders in different types of media. If we talk about the international music market, then the so-called “big four” of large recording corporations are almost exclusively monopolistic. These corporations own the rights to the vast majority of modern music. For other types of media, the situation is completely fragmented. There are some organizations that unite producers of films and programs, but they have no influence on decision-making, but rather serve to coordinate common interests. Therefore, the music segment seemed to me more "easy prey" - all you need to agree with the four corporations. However, in reality, all my attempts to somehow convey my ideas to high-level decision makers were unsuccessful. I am amused by the hope that the main problem was precisely the inability to personally communicate with key people. I base myself on the fact that I was able to explain the meaning and perspectives of the P2Market solution to people who were initially very critical. But it did not work out to reach the heights, and without having the support of at least one of the "big four", there is nothing to be done in this segment.

Theoretically, there is still a second (longer) way to attract real rights holders to the file sharing market - an independent copyright management system. But this path is in principle impossible without major financial opportunities, and therefore without the participation of a serious, interested investor.

Approximately at this stage of project advancement I had significant changes in my life, which required all the time and effort from me, so I had to freeze the P2Market project until better times, but I managed to do quite a lot and actually bring the system (including client programs for some p2p networks) to working condition. Next, I will briefly discuss the technical aspect and the degree of availability of the components.

Architecture, Status

To implement the described scheme, obviously, you will need:

- a central service where information about copyright holders is stored, files and conditions for their distribution, and where all participants in the transaction are registered
- client programs must include a special P2Market module that will communicate with the central service in order to authorize the user, control data transfer and carry out mutual settlements
- website for
a) copyright holders: registration, management of trade parameters of files, financial transactions, etc.
b) file hosting services: registration, account replenishment, statistics, transfer of earned money
-Auxiliary robots to collect information about files



Communication of client programs with the central service is defined by a specially developed protocol, which includes user authorization, receiving trade parameters for a specific file and performing settlement transactions. Of course, the most sensitive moment of protocol functions is mutual settlements, so special attention was paid to this part. I tried to make the functions for cash transactions safe according to the logic of the operations performed. Based on the fact that none of the 3 parties to the transaction (the seller, the buyer, the central service) does not trust anyone else. In this approach, the approval of one of the parties is double-checked by two other participants, for example, if the client-seller program claims that, say, 2 MB of data from such a file is shipped to such a recipient, then the server waits for independent confirmation from the client-buyer and only with full agreement of the parties micro payment is carried out.

To implement this architecture, the following system components were made:

P2Market protocol (based on SOAP)
database
server software (java)
Web site
robot for gnutella
client for the Gnutella network: Limewire (modification of existing open source software)
client for BitTorrent network: Azureus (modification of existing open source software)

Conclusion

Despite the abundance of various proposals, the problem of legalizing file sharing has not been resolved. Copyright holders continue to attempt to strangle file sharing, investing in it a lot of money. On the other hand, the number of file sharing services is constantly growing, thereby increasing the "loss" of rights holders.

I believe that a compromise is possible. To do this, copyright holders need to look at the situation in a slightly different light. P2P is certainly a progressive technology, convenient for countless hordes of users who exchange files on huge file-sharing networks. You can try to slow down progress, but historical experience hints that this is a hopeless matter. Instead of trying to stop a racing train, it is much more useful to jump into it and move forward. You can look at the hundreds of millions of file sharing services not as a bunch of criminals, but as an unorganized market that needs to be offered fair rules of the game, to offer reasonable alternatives.

Of course, file sharing in this case will have to reconsider their views, but on this side the situation seems obvious to me: these hundreds of millions of people are not at all eager to violate any laws by any means. File sharing users use what they have. There will be an alternative, there will be a fair file-sharing market, many will use it. Not all, of course, but at least only in case of legal file sharing, the right holders will be able to reasonably accuse p2p users.

As you know, every war ends with negotiations. The solution I proposed was obtained with the minimum necessary change in file sharing. Another change either throws out copyright control from the system, or destroys the very essence of file sharing. Therefore, I think P2Market may turn out to be the very platform on which the conclusion of peace in this long war is possible.

This site publishes articles including very large companies, and often such companies write about finding new, promising projects. Perhaps my project will arouse the interest of some serious company, which is well suited for the scale of “legalizing file sharing”. I myself, as you see, could come up with something, could write a bunch of programs, but then tasks arise in a completely different order and, apparently, only large capital can cope in this area. I will be glad to any questions, I will answer both in the comments and on private messages. E-mail: info <a-s-tail> p2market.org

In conclusion, I will give a link to the site, but I’m warning you right away - the site is not set up for a large load for obvious reasons, so a large number of visitors are more likely to drop it. In addition, some functions such as recharge, etc. are now disabled. So please come in, but neatly: www.p2market.com