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The ugly side of file sharing: honor among thieves By Michael C. Guilmette Jr. Originally published on June 3, 2004, in the Bay Mills News.
File sharing allowed listeners to download only the songs they wanted instead of having to purchase a CD that may contain 15 songs they do not want with the one or two that they do. Furthermore, it gave the listeners the ability to find obscure B-Sides without having to spend a Saturday afternoon and a tank of gas searching through specialty music shops. File sharing leapt into mainstream popularity in 1999, thanks in large part to Napster. College students with access to high-speed Internet connections gleefully swapped music files, referred to in the business as mp3 files. Schools reacted quickly and harshly to stop the onslaught of music clogging their networks by simply banning access to Napster. Since the music swapping service was served out of one location, this was pretty easy to accomplish. Enter the heavy metal-turned-alternative band Metallica. This long-haired quartet was the first major act to take exception to new listeners hearing their music without getting a cut of the action. To summarize, Metallica sued, Napster blinked, and the era of online music swapping came to a grinding halt. Or did it? In short, no. Napster may have disappeared, but they opened a Pandora’s Box in regards to file sharing. Several other services, such as Kazaa, WinMX, LimeWire, Morpheus, iMesh and many more have popped up to fill the void. The Recording Industry Association of America, desperate to maintain it’s ability to sell CDs that cost 50 cents to make for $17.95 each, entered into the fray, suing individual downloaders — kids as young as 12 — to recover damages for copyright infringement. Even with all the strife, solutions are on the horizon. The cheap pay-per-download sites, such as Apple’s iTunes, are becoming popular, and payment schemes are being devised to compensate the artists and the industry, similar to the way that the Motion Picture Association of America is given a cut from the sales of blank VHS tapes. With music sales actually on the rise, file sharing really does not seem to be hurting the business. File sharing, however, does have an ugly side. Users realized early on that music files were not the only types of files that could be shared, and soon, photographs, expensive software packages and even entire movies began showing up on the peer-to-peer networks. The file sharing debate brought to light what was once an underground network of software and movie pirates that was tough to find and tough to enter. However, the rise of this back-alley source of ill-gotten software has created a rather ironic subculture — thieves with honor. Well, honor may be an overstated description, but the file swappers do have a set of rules that they viciously defend. For example, a downloader may want the newest version of Microsoft Office, so he will get onto his chosen service, search for the file and then attempt to download. Those who have the file will often question the downloader as to what his connection speed is and what he has to give in exchange, and if these conditions are not satisfactory, the user cannot download. What is particularly ironic, though, is how vehement the file sharers are about these rules. Several online forums exist where the sharers discuss ways make sure files are downloaded properly. They will strongly object to “leeches,” or downloaders who do not contact sharers or offer anything in trade. They even create software applications to keep leeches from downloading. File sharers will offer a variety of rationalizations to justify what they do, saying things like ‘we don’t sell software, so we’re not pirates,’ or ‘trading software doesn’t hurt the software companies because they’re all rich,’ or even ‘if I couldn’t download the software I want, I wouldn’t buy it anyway, so I'm not hurting anybody.' Considering the amount of hostility against Microsoft that exists on the Internet, some sharers take a ‘Don Quixote’ attitude, in that they are happy to hurt what they see as an evil big business. A small segment of downloaders will say that they are merely downloading the software so that they can try it out before they buy it, and some of them will actually go and buy the software. However, with so few taking such an altruistic approach to file sharing, the software industry is forced to enact a variety of protection schemes which only slow down the sharers and hassles the honest consumer. Protection costs money to develop, and these costs are passed on to the consumer. Furthermore, software downloading does cost the software companies, to the point of putting some companies out of business. File sharing is likely here to stay, as will these ‘honorable thieves.’ The Internet gives plenty of opportunities for small people to feel big and important, even if they are only simple crooks. • Mike Guilmette is a freelance columnist and the layout editor for The Daily Advance in Elizabeth City, N.C. His website can be seen at http://www.sigperl.com/. |
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Copyright © 2004, Michael C. Guilmette Jr. |
One of the most hotly-debated issues relating to the Internet these days is file sharing — particularly, sharing and downloading music files. And honestly, this is not a surprising development. Sharing music online is a very convenient method for music connoisseurs to hear the music they want to hear.
