This doesn't shock me at all. I recall a while back reading how Spotify allegedly started their service with downloads from The Pirate Bay: https://torrentfreak.com/spotifys-beta-used-pirate-mp3-files...
They used to be peer-to-peer, and they'd give "free" service to employees of certain big tech companies because they could take advantage of the upload bandwidth of the big tech offices.
They culled the P2P tech in 2014 and went to a standard server-client model.
https://techcrunch.com/2014/04/17/spotify-removes-peer-to-pe...
The overbearing copyright propaganda has given BitTorrent a bad name, even though it has so many other uses.
For example I understand the reason Facetime calls don't go phone-to-phone and instead go through a server is because of a patent [troll]. I'm curious to see how WebRTC fits into that.
P2P scales great at a slightly larger scale, especially with larger chunks of data.
As someone whose PhD touched this: it is actually ok because it stabilises towards using the most available paths.
As someone who set this up at an ISP: you can QoS the hell out of P2P and keep everyone happy. That's unless you tried blocking it and now find yourself in a stupid arms war, against folks with more free time than yourself.
There only issue I can think of is upload speed, which is improving for many, and would improve more prevalently if more average users had a clear need.
I think the BitTorrent company and/or community were studying this issue at some point and so they may have come up with alternative algorithms that prefer at least AS-locality or something.
As an extreme case, imagine that there are two seeds, one being another computer on your LAN and another being a host in Timor-Leste (which at one point in the 2000s reportedly had a single T1 connection for the entire country). It will be nicer for you and for the Timorese if you can somehow arrange to simply download the file from your LAN seed.
Here's one example of someone trying to improve this property: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TopBT
I don't want to sound like a Bellhead here, but the packet switching infrastructure that's been built out has embodied some assumptions about its likely patterns of use. To change those patterns of use a lot (which I'd like to see too) probably needs more infrastructure. Even things like ADSL are a problem here. I agree that path asymmetry doesn't feel at all healthy for the Internet -- it feels like it's baking in producer and consumer roles -- but there are a few counterarguments that may give us some pause:
* It's never been cheaper for people who specifically want to provide services to others to rent servers in colocation facilities. It's getting cheaper every year. So, maybe people who care to do so could just rent some servers. (Of course, this might give them less autonomy because there are more people who can decide to kick them off or shut them down, and they might still not have the infrastructure to distribute media that they produce at home to the servers they rent. On the other hand, running things at home may make anonymous publishing harder because the associated broadband service is usually tied to a physical address by the ISP.)
* There's never been a huge amount of expressed demand for symmetric network connections, even when they've been available as an option. (Maybe this is different in different countries?) The economic division of network operators into "eyeball networks" (major net traffic sinks) and "provider networks" (major net traffic sources) seems to be getting sharper over time. The network operators themselves might have an economic incentive to try to get their users to equalize the traffic in both directions -- especially in terms of arrangements around settlement-free peering -- but they haven't managed to change most users' habits very much this way.
* I think of myself as a very pro-decentralization Internet user, yet whenever I run "ifconfig wlan0 | grep bytes", my download volumes consistently dramatically outpace my upload volumes, even though I have a symmetric broadband connection both at home and at work! So apparently I'm not being the change I want to see in the world.
As for points two and three, decentralization does not mean 100% symmetry, just relatively more.
I have a symmetric connection, and can forward ports without any fuss, and rather enjoy those advantages. Even so, I download quite a lot more than upload. I don't expect that to change much, even with significantly more P2P traffic.
There are a few things where I am really frustrated with other's inability to forward ports, especially video games and VOIP.
There is a pretty good write up here: http://www.hyperorg.com/blogger/2009/10/03/why-up-is-slower-...
Not particularly. Symmetry is totally arbitrary. It's having the same amount down as before, while having more up that is the problem.
> and the large players in the existing system -will- have economic motivations for fighting any change.
That's the real problem. The solution is to give them an economic incentive to change. Average users wanting more bandwidth/symmetry is an effective way to do that.
That won't happen until there is a fiscal incentive for them to do so, so let's not be afraid to give them one.
Also, if you asked the average person if they want Spotify to be peer-to-peer + use more bandwidth vs centralized + use less bandwidth, do you think they are in a position to care much beyond the bandwidth difference? Especially on mobile devices?
I certainly would choose the latter. What do I care about making Spotify's operations cheaper at my own expense?
But P2P doesn't require more bandwidth. It requires more upload bandwidth, which is arbitrarily constrained.
> if you asked the average person if they want Spotify to be peer-to-peer + use more bandwidth vs centralized + use less bandwidth, do you think they are in a position to care much beyond the bandwidth difference? Especially on mobile devices?
Of course not. Spotify is already tailored to the current state of internet infrastructure, which heavily favors centralized content delivery.
Spotify can afford to foot the bill for their content delivery network. That is why it is no longer "better" for them to use peer to peer networking.
> What do I care about making Spotify's operations cheaper at my own expense?
For Spotify or Netflix, or any other site that already has a centralized CDN, there is no advantage.
For everything else, however, P2P is a great way to scale distribution, and the more we do to incentivize ISPs to increase upload speed, open ports, etc. the better.
Also, connecting doesn't work with NAT, carrier grade NAT and firewalls. They need a client-server model with a server that is accessible.
in every circumstance.
Just because ISPs love to skimp on upload speed does not mean that it is reasonable to do so.
Infrastructure is reactionary. If users need more upload speed, they will pay for it, and ISPs will update the infrastructure accordingly.
> Also, connecting doesn't work with NAT, carrier grade NAT and firewalls. They need a client-server model with a server that is accessible.
That's another arbitrary issue caused by overbearing ISPs. There is an awful lot that people would be able to do if they had reasonable control over their ports.
ISPs - especially the 6 massive incumbents - build the absolute minimum infrastructure they can get away with. That is simply their fiscal incentive. We shouldn't be afraid to give them new incentives.
If Taylor Swift lives until she is 80, her songs will be free in the year 2140 - maybe even later if someone like a composer lives longer. Isn't this just absurd?
I am open minded but, with all due respect, it appears you might not be aware of some critical truths of how art gets made.
Either way, what do you suggest?
We probably generally agree on the topic at hand. I am saddened seeing many early films eroding which have yet to be digitized because they are not accessible.
That wasn't my reading of the parent at all.
Snow White the animated film wouldn't have been made if copyright was perpetually inherited and some distant Grimm relative refused to give Disney permission to make the film. This is relevant to your original point - that "I find complaining about someone’s artistic endeavors not being free to be absurd in it’s own way." You may find it absurd, but if it were not so, a work you seem to admire might never have been produced.
There is a cultural component to art. It draws from the culture and gives back to the culture. Long copyright terms - and I find current copyright terms very long - prevent future artists from drawing on the culture to produce new, transformative works.
Disney was able to draw on cultural material from the prior 100 years to make Snow White. But if the current copyright-extension-cycle continues, it seems plausible that Disney films - and all works created in the same period - may never fall into the public domain in the USA, and future artists will not be able to enjoy the same free use of cultural source material as Disney itself has done.
Of course, my point was about distribution of original works, not inspiration or even creative appropriation. Maybe I needed to specify that? Or maybe this was well implied by the wider conversation around Spotify’s distribution of original works. Either way, it’s a separate discussion.
To be clear, Disney did not publish and distribute copies of Grimm’s Fairy Tales.
And let’s consider what Disney would have done if prevented from using the Snow White tale for his animation project? Would he have just given up?? Let’s not kid ourselves. He would have done what great artists tend to do: be creative and find another solution. There were mountains of hurdles in making this film and that would have been a mole hill. It would have been a different film, sure. It may have been better. We do not know.
The modern Disney corporation is a separate entity, to be sure.
You open up a new basket of issues here. For example, films are commonly produced from narrative works in other domains, personal accounts, etc. The royalty system allows for more than simply profit. In films, it also protects from the original authors, or storytellers and their families from what can be something like libel. It allows them to deny permission when accounts are exaggerated for audience appeal, when it may unjustly disgrace their reputation. This is only a basic example of why these things exist. It does sort of sometimes suck for artists but artists but they tend to better understand the issues at hand.
Compare it to female counterparts in, say, Hayao Miyazaki cartoons where women are proactive and actually have character development.
It was consistent with filmmaking tradition when Snow White was made. It's not anymore because the previous century's worth of work is locked up behind essentially perpetual copyright.
Disney used public domain works as inspiration but then pulled up the ladder behind them so that future artists can't do the same.
In the US, money = speech.
Huge media corporations like Disney have deep pockets, and therefore have deep influence.
Increasing copyright length only benefits these corporations.
Is your argument that if I can't make money off my own creative work in 20 years, anyone should have the right to give it a shot after that, even if I'm still around?
That sounds pretty shitty to me. I'm all for copyright expiring, but I'd hate to lose the rights to my own work while I'm still living.
That sounds a lot more "shitty" to me than the alternative.
Patents cover independently developmed products and can cover fundamental methods or products. Inventions are often nearly developed by diffrent people. If the Wright Brothers didn't invent the airplane, someone else would have within ten years.
Someone else wouldn't have written To Kill a Mockingbird. Some other novel may have captured the same fame and critical praise, but that copyright doesn't stop that novel from exisiting.
I can get behind the "the information wants to be free, man" line when we're talking about overpriced textbooks and academic journals and bytecode for tractors, but when it comes to entertainment, I have a hard time caring. I don't think producers have a fundamental right to control recording, performance and distribution, as granted by the gub'mint, but I also don't think the consumers have a fundamental right to consume any cultural artifact for free.
But I do think that people should obey most laws, even ones they disagree with, until some ethereal line has been crossed, simply because it is the law, and I think "I want to be entertained for free" is way too low a bar, so I get kind of disgusted when pirates try to take a high-and-mighty stance.
The "an unjust law should be obeyed" rhetoric works... never.
There are a lot of definitions you could use: a law which denies fundamental rights; a law created by an illegitimate government; a law which makes the world worse.
But if your definition is basically "any law I personally disagree with", you're just advocating for simple anarchy.
I am denied the fundamental right of expression by copyright.
I am denied the fundamental right of security by DRM.
I am denied the fundamental right of privacy by DRM and copyright enforcement.
The United States bullies other countries like New Zealand and Sweden to enforce its copyright.
Now that Spotify exists, and can afford royalties, all innovation must be done by Spotify, and a select few other incumbents; who are all more likely to favor stability. To do as Spotify did originally (P2P file streaming) is illegal.
Section 1201 of the DMCA prevents lawful security research on anything that includes any form of DRM, making the world less secure, making actors less trustworthy, and seriously degrading privacy.
It is law that I adamantly disagree with for very real reasons. I am sharing my disagreement with anyone who will listen, and hoping for change. That is not a slippery slope to anarchy: it is democracy.
If you can't find a way to make your entertainment profitable without legal protectionism, maybe you don't deserve too.
I do care about rule of law. If copyright laws are the law of your land, I think that is sufficient reason to follow them, even if you are actively working to get them changed, either because you don't like them specifically or because you don't believe the government should be engaged in unnecessary activities. I don't believe that the existence of copyright law abrogates a fundamental right or denies a fundamental need, so I don't believe there is a legitimate basis for "protest" non-compliance.
Look at how the interpretation of copyright as it pertains to sampling and mashing etc absolutely stifled innovation and continues to do so.
For visual art look at how ambiguous the law is around collage, which definitely stifles innovation.
Ignoring a few ancient parody/satire acts like Negativland, samples are made, used, cleared, and paid for with no serious negative consequences. Likewise remixes.
There's some extra paperwork, money changes hands, and on the whole everyone is happy.
What's been far more damaging is Spotify's insanely exploitative model, which sees its officers making millions while the artists who provide the content get pocket change - if that.
That's not just Spotify's model; it's music labels' model.
For example, a signed artist would have to stream 1,117,021 songs to make $1,260 in a month (what the attached infographic says is minimum wage for a month). However, an independent artist who owns their work only needs to stream 180K to make the same amount [1]. This data is in 2015, but is the best data I've seen in quite a while. FWIW, they would have had to sell ~100 (~450 for signed artists) albums in a month to make this same money vs. streaming.
At this point, affiliating with a label is only worth it when you know you're going to break out.
Most musicians, even niche ones, have learned how to use the system their confined in, and do well off of a royalty-based model vs the traditional selling-CDs-at-a-show [2].
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2015/apr/03/how-much-...
[2] http://diymusician.cdbaby.com/music-promotion/im-well-way-pa...
Also it seems a bit unclear whether Spotify’s payouts are as egalitarian as they claim. It may be the case that a bunch of cash went towards getting existing catalogues signed up.
I’m all for Spotify btw, I just think it may not be as idealized as we like, and has some structural problems that make it infeasible for certain types of artists to make any sort of living.
I’m not advocating for touring being better. I hate touring. But the streaming amounts we’re discussing are really tiny in the end. The guitar player you linked to is making less than a tenth of what someone should hope to make to even think about calling their music income a success.
I'd surely hope $7000/month is considered a success. A passive $700/month from streams would be considered a success around here.
This is the assumption the stream counts continue, of course.
The new way doesn't require this. And is purely gravy on top.
I was just giving numbers, not condoning their payout scheme as something to move forward with.
There will always be weasels and bottom feeders that seek to exploit but do you really believe copyright has somehow held back musical innovation? It was this copyright that enabled a business model that brought recorded music to the masses.
There will always be weasels and bottom feeders that seek to constrain every other individual in the world from extending an artistic work or idea, even generations after his or her death; but do you really believe copyright/patent law has somehow pushed forward innovation?
Do you really believe that an artist who makes good money licensing their music for use in TV or movies views copyright as "more of a detriment than its worth"? The only reason that revenue stream is possible is because of copyright and the sync royalties paid out on them.
>"...but do you really believe copyright/patent law has somehow pushed forward innovation?"
That's not the point I was making, my point was that it hasn't prevented musical innovation creatively. Not every instance of copyright usage is automatically detrimental to society.
Enforcement is not a requirement to possibility.
Quite a few people make money with copyleft works. Even so, it is difficult, because strongly enforced copyright, and propaganda have created a culture that tries desperately to require copyright.
> Not every instance of copyright usage is automatically detrimental to society.
Of course not! But many are:
I can't watch Netflix in 1080p using Linux because of DRM.
Security research is illegal because of DRM.
I can't start a P2P music streaming service like Spotify did, because I don't have the capitol to pay for licenses. Any innovation in this sector must be done by incumbents; who have already found success, and are more content with stability.
I can't upload a video with fair use copyrighted content to Youtube, because Google has been bullied to/shows off their "capability" to weed out copyrighted content. That also sets an unfeasible precedent for competitors; who will never have the resources to do anything similar.
s/I can't/Practically no one in the world is allowed to/
Something need not be 100% detrimental to be more detrimental than it is worth. Copyright is a clear example of that. It began somewhere near middle ground, but has since drifted extremely to the benefit of media corporations, and the detriment of everyone else.
That statement is gibberish. Today an artists are able to get paid because their creative output becomes an asset by virtue of a copyright. An artists can and many do start their own publishing and record companies are fully in control of their copyright regime.
>"I can't watch Netflix in 1080p using Linux because of DRM." DRM and copyright are orthogonal.
>"I can't start a P2P music streaming service like Spotify did, because I don't have the capitol to pay for licenses."
No you can go to Media Net and get your streaming service up and running pretty quickly for as little as $1K a month only increase royalties as your service grows. See:
It's not clear to me that streaming music has actually resulted in better music or a better listening experience. It's just resulted in more plays. This benefits Spotify and advertisers the most.
There is an awful lot of innovation being held back. You are likely unaware, since it is not you who wants to innovate, and you aren't experiencing those innovations.
Vinyl has made a massive comeback. Probably growing at a rate faster than Spotify at this point.
I’m really not sure what amazing “innovation” is being held back. The vast majority of social music applications just create “value” by taking revenue from someone else, not by creating new value of any kind. Not really what I think of when I think innovation.
The CD was innovative. The iPod was innovative. Spotify was just the last man standing in a long line of music streaming applications that came after music piracy hit its peak. I never found it unique or innovative. They all offered the same damn thing. Most of Spotify’s growth came from spam on the Facebook newsfeed when that was still allowed.
The whole social <whatever> app is a bit of a farce. It’s mostly based on quasi-legal theft. If that’s what counts for innovation these days then I don’t want to innovate anymore.
They replaced everything in phases, because I remember all the URI:s to songs kept breaking in my playlists before they implemented auto-matching of your songs to new location once a specific album was rendered unavailable.
No affiliation to Spotify, just a long time user.
I have an enormous collection of lossless audio and noticed it using lots of bandwidth. The desktop versions insist on loading when the machine boots, and use subsantial amounts of bandwidth/memory at idle.
I've also long shunned the spotify "deskop apps" and stuck to the website because firefox can contain the damage a bit, and ublock origin can make a surprising difference in the cpu usage of spotify! The ads are crazy javascript sometimes, and I'm guessing the same crap is loaded into the desktop electron apps.