[Reader-list] Fwd: <nettime> The schizo-politics of The Pirate Bay, Inc.

[Jeebesh]

Begin forwarded message:

> Resent-From: nettime at kein.org
> From: Rasmus Fleischer <rasmus at piratbyran.org>
> Date: 1 July 2009 10:09:25 PM GMT+05:30
> Resent-To: Nettime <nettime-l at kein.org>
> To: nettime-l at kein.org
> Subject: <nettime> The schizo-politics of The Pirate Bay, Inc.
>
> ?YOU FUCKING CORPORATE SELL OUT RATS!? Users of The Pirate Bay are  
> raging.
> About a thousand comments were posted at The Pirate Bay?s blog  
> during the
> first day after the news, probably 90-95 % expressing sadness or  
> anger over
> the supposed sell-out. Some mainstream commentators in Sweden, on  
> the other
> hand, greeted this as a step towards the abandonment of digital  
> piracy.
>
> We are used to imagine The Pirate Bay as a legendary entity fighting  
> an epic
> battle, on behalf of the millions of file-sharers. However, it is not
> exactly a legendary entity that is being sold. It is something  
> different. So
> what is about to be sold?
>
> ?The Pirate Bay? is today, among other things:
>    * A domain name
>    * A web site
>    * An ad selling business
>    * A blog
>    * The world?s largest bittorrent tracker
>    * A clothing store
>    * Three persons
>    * A swarm
>    * A symbol
>
> ?The Pirate Bay? must be defined as an assemblage. Any of the listed  
> parts
> would, on its own, be powerless. Only through its connections, the
> assemblage becomes so powerful. However, all the parts are not  
> needed all
> the time. Two are enough to make up the practice of bittorrent file- 
> sharing:
> a swarm of file-sharers, and a tracker to connect them.
> Many file-sharers are using The Pirate Bay?s tracker services  
> without even
> visiting the website. Other indexing websites, like Mininova, are  
> using The
> Pirate Bay?s tracker. Technically speaking, The Pirate Bay?s website  
> has
> always been rather redundant. But the website is a platform for  
> connecting
> two other parts: The commercial part of the ads, which are needed to  
> finance
> the large costs for bandwidth and hardware, and the political part of
> linking to current side-projects and publishing sporadic blog posts.
>
> This assemblage is now being disassembled and reassembled, in one  
> way or
> another. That means something else than a ?sell-out? of all the  
> parts. All
> the details of the affair are not clear yet, but to clear up the  
> picture, we
> should first consider each part for itself, and ask three simple  
> questions:
> 1) Is it ownable?; 2) Is it sellable?; 3) Is it copyable?
>
> * The domain name, www.thepiratebay.org, is definitely part of the  
> affair.
> It is ownable and sellable, but not copyable given the current DNS  
> regime.
> The web site that the visitor of the domain is directed to could be  
> said to
> be ownable, in the sense that any new owner can change its contents.  
> But it
> is also copyable, meaning that the ?original? version can pop up  
> again at
> another domain name. Actually, it is very simple to copy. You can  
> fit all of
> The Pirate Bay, including the software and every torrent, on a USB  
> stick.
> * The ads have a value only as long as people visit the web site  
> (and do not
> know how to use Adblock). The blog derives its meaning from the  
> personal
> activity of the three persons involved, and could be hosted anywhere.
> * The three persons (Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm  
> Warg) are
> especially interesting, as they can definitely not be copied. But  
> can they
> be owned and sold? Yes, theoretically. In earlier cases of ?P2P sell- 
> out?,
> individuals have signed contracts regulating their future  
> involvements in
> other projects. This is not the case here. The trio is free to do  
> what they
> want, including political activism and even exact copies of The  
> Pirate Bay.
> * The tracker consists of hardware and (open source) software,  
> possible to
> copy but not to uphold without financing. This part will not be part  
> of the
> incorporation. Instead of being sold, the tracker service will be
> transferred to a separate entity, that provides the service freely  
> to any
> index wanting to use it, and supposedly does not even have the  
> information
> about files it is tracking. This essentially would mean a small step  
> towards
> decentralisation of the file-sharing infrastructure. It probably also
> undermines the whole case the prosecutor made against The Pirate Bay  
> in
> court. Questions about the financing of and control over this new  
> third
> party tracker remains to be answered. However, it should not be  
> assumed that
> control goes to the buyers of ?The Pirate Bay?.
> * The swarm of millions of file-sharing humans and machines can not be
> owned, nor sold, nor copied. It can, indeed, be fooled. Usually,  
> that?s what
> cases of ?P2P sell-out? aims for, without much success. This time  
> chances
> are even smaller that the swarm would keep using a service if it  
> began to
> filter torrents or demand money for downloads. The Pirate Bay?s  
> tradition of
> strong principles have educated people to be wary even of small
> restrictions. If such would occur, the swarm is ready to move on.  
> However,
> nothing at this point (except some vague formulations in a press  
> release
> from the buying company) indicates that there are any such plans.
> * The (visual and ideological) symbol ?The Pirate Bay?, finally, is
> fundamentally transformed by the act of selling ?The Pirate Bay?. It  
> does
> not really mean that the symbol can be sold. Rather, any attempt by  
> the
> owner of the domain name to change what the symbol stands for, would  
> mean
> that the symbol is dissolving and its associations re-projected at  
> multiple
> other symbols. This could have quite interesting results. Even if  
> The Pirate
> Bay and its associated projects have been able to use the power of one
> singular symbol, there has also been an awareness of the problem  
> with The
> Pirate Bay?s oligopolic status.
>
> File-sharing was never about leaning behind and letting other people  
> do the
> work. The act of selling ?The Pirate Bay? (which really means  
> selling some
> of the components in a larger assemblage) could work as a wake-up  
> call.
> Ideally, the anger of some users will transform into action, so that  
> more
> open bittorrent indexing website, maybe even trackers, will be set  
> up. That
> would mean that The Pirate Bay, finally and paradoxically, reaches  
> its goal,
> which is to be copied. The Pirate Bay never asked to be the sole
> representatives of file-sharing. When large parts of the world?s  
> internet
> traffic depends on whether Fredrik is too drunk to fix a server  
> error, a
> radical diversification is needed to maintaing the power of P2P
> file-sharing. Dissolving the centered subject, abandoning a  
> trademark to
> multiply what it stands for. That?s the implicit schizo-politics of  
> The
> Pirate Bay?s recent move.
>
> RASMUS FLEISCHER
> (Me = co-founder of Piratbyr?n. Cooperating with, but not involved  
> in, The
> Pirate Bay. No financial connection whatsoever with the current
> incorporation plans.)
>
>
> PS. Also read Jonas Andersson?s great analysis:
> http://liquidculture.wordpress.com/2009/07/01/the-pirate-bay-two-important-speculations/
>
>
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