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LegalTorrents Offers CC Works Via BitTorrent
Posted by
timothy
on Sunday July 06, @03:20PM
from the but-p2p-is-for-haxx0r-p1r@73z dept.
from the but-p2p-is-for-haxx0r-p1r@73z dept.
An anonymous reader writes "A site called LegalTorrents has just launched that hosts trackers and seeds for digital media licensed under the Creative Commons license. ('We distribute content with the full permission of the rights holders and use the peer-2-peer file-sharing technology called Bittorrent.') The site even provides a way to donate money to artists you like. (LegalTorrents takes 15% off the top unless you are a member, which costs $50 one-time during the beta period.)" It's always good to see "legitimate" content distributed in ways that make it hard to demonize the distribution system itself — something Lawrence Lessig in particular has been doing for years, and his book "Free Culture" is one of the audiobooks available through LegalTorrents. Note that LegalTorrents has been around for a while now, rather than "just launched," but the current beta period won't last forever.
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Firehose:LegalTorrents by Anonymous Coward
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First post (Score:5, Funny)
This post is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike license version 3.0.
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Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:First post (Score:4, Interesting)
How's this OffTopic? This is very relevant to the topic considering that this has happened once before [slashdot.org].
I'd mod you back up if I had the points.
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Bad name (Score:5, Insightful)
The name of the tracker indirectly spreads the notion that other torrents are inherently less legal. It's a content distribution platform. Much like with firearms, it's the people that use it that commit or don't commit crimes. Not the tools they use.
Other trackers are full of CC and open source contents as well. Just do a search for gentoo, ubuntu, slackware or some such on the pirate bay and you'll see what I mean.
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Re:Bad name (Score:5, Funny)
"The name of the tracker indirectly spreads the notion that other torrents are inherently less legal"
What about the name of the piratebay? does name of the piratebay indirectly spreads the notion that other torrents are inherently less piraty?
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Re:Bad name (Score:5, Interesting)
"The name of the tracker indirectly spreads the notion that other torrents are inherently less legal"
What about the name of the piratebay? does name of the piratebay indirectly spreads the notion that other torrents are inherently less piraty?
The Pirate Bay's case is more a matter of not being beaten down by epithets. If they call downloaders pirates, then the downloaders wear the name pirate with pride, and take the power away from the word, draining away negative connotations and whatnot.
It's the same method as homosexuals have used on 'fag' and black people on 'nigger'.
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Re:Bad name (Score:4, Funny)
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Our music is on LegalTorrents (Score:4, Interesting)
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Also check out The Internet Archive (archive.org) (Score:4, Informative)
Another good place to check for legally redistributable works is The Internet Archive [archive.org], one of the most important sites on the Internet.
They host a lot of things across a wide spectrum of interests. They are the place hosting the digital archives for organizations that frequently publish new work (such as news programs and audio labels). Big files are okay there as well: You might be interested in a copy of the DVDs for "Big Buck Bunny [archive.org]" (most of the material on the DVDs are licensed CC-BY 3.0 [creativecommons.org]), The Story of Stuff [archive.org] (my copy of this came with a signed note that said I should "Feel free to copy and share it freely for any non-commercial use".
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legal or not (Score:4, Insightful)
Depends on your definition of 'legal'. It used to be 'That which does not harm society is legal', lately it has come to mean 'that which special interest groups are unable to buy laws against'.
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It has not "just launched" (Score:4, Informative)
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Re:So wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the site becomes popular enough , it gives exposure to the artists.
There, that was not so hard to figure out.
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Re:So wait... (Score:4, Interesting)
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Re:So wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Unknown artists are not uploaded by anyone anywhere except by the artist , they are the only one with the file. Where will they upload it, somewhere they might get money from it or TPB? Sure if they get popular the file will end up everywhere but poeple looking for new stuff and people who love real music will go there instead sifting trough all the RIAA crap on the other torrent sites.
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Re:So wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
If the site becomes popular enough , it gives exposure to the artists.
There, that was not so hard to figure out.
Bingo!
And folks, it does (potentially) far more than that - it proves that the RIAA is out of their mind when they claim that P2P software is only for illegal sharing. It proves that software, like any other tool, is not necessarily good or bad - how it is used determines that.
If this site makes it and becomes popular, it is perfect proof that the laws that the **AA are lobbying for are really for getting/keeping control over online media - and not about piracy.
Of course, the **AA's next step will be trying to pass a law ensuring that royalties and profits for these types of services go to one of their organizations (like SoundExchange) for them to control funds distribution (ie: the **AA keeps the money - just like the recent Internet Radio bullshit that passed).
But, that's a few more miles down the road - first, this site (and similar sites) must prove that BitTorrent can be and is being used for legal purposes to help prevent the **AA (and others') attempts at laws making P2P software illegal.
Oddly, someone above posted about the upcoming "accidental" attack on this service by the **AA - and was modded OffTopic... dunno why. I surely wouldnt doubt that such a thing will occur, and I definitely find it on-topic to a discussion about LegalTorrent offering legal BitTorrent downloads - as such a situation would potentially cause two issues directly related (assuming the **AA find open servers)... (1) LegalTorrent would be "offering" illegal torrents, and/or (2) LegalTorrent wouldnt be offering anything once the **AA's server farm pummelled them into nothingness - just like they did to Revision3).
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Re:So wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Currently:
LegalTorrents - about 70 files
ThePirateBay - about 1.2 million files
Ok.
If you looking for CC music which of these 2 sites will make it easier for you?
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Re:So wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
15% isn't all that outrageous when you consider that the credit card and banking fees are included in that total. They are providing a value-added convenience... you don't have to track down the artist's site, the artist doesn't have to contract with a payment service, etc.
Plus, since it isn't mandatory, I'd say this is a perfect example of the free market at work. Unlike, say, the record company system where the only way to compensate the artists is through their record company. May the best distribution model win! If people don't like this, it will go away :)
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Re:So wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Right, you're always able to freeload off LegalTorrents in order to find and download the music you like, and then you can always donate to the artist separately if you so choose, and then LegalTorrents ends up having to foot the bill for their servers (however minimal it may be).
So in order to recoup the costs of all the freeloaders, they have to charge the good samaritans 15%.
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Re:So wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
If we REFUSE to give any money to the people who put effort into publicizing artists, music might as well as be dead. I don't buy the record studio's argument that we need them, but in their absence the grassroots movement needs some funding.
If you are too cheap to tack 15% on top of your donation, just go to the artist's page and donate directly.
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Re:So wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:So wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
15% is kinda expensive considering they don't do much
Whatever. I'd like to see random Slashdot dudes build a website that is still up and responds in under a second through a holiday-weekend front-page Slashdotting, attached to a storage system built to scale out to terabytes of hosted data with dedicated BT seeds, integrates several different programming languages and toolsets, supports multi-file uploads over the web with full Unicode support, has a Facebook app, backups, load balancing, memcached, and on top of all that also aims to build a community of real people who support and give their time and energy to help build it because it's such a cool idea.
Go for it, really. Maybe in your spare time.
I know some of the people building this... and they are working their assess off
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Re:So wait... (Score:4, Informative)
Where did you get the idea that you get to tell people how much money they can make? If you don't think the service LegalTorrents provides is worth 15% of your donation, shut the fuck up and donate somewhere else. It's that simple.
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Re:So wait... (Score:5, Insightful)
15% is not a bad 'payment' for a seed that will be there as long as the torrent is available.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Which is true of both CC and legit stuff, BTW :)
In all seriousness, does anyone know what percentage of traditionally produced IP is even watchable? I don't even buy cable anymore because the pickings were so slim... and don't even get me started on radio.
I'll be the first to admit that most of the CC stuff that I've downloaded is pretty shitty, but I've found some songs (and one Star Trek spoof from Europe) that are keepers.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
"Way better than paying like $30 per full res image at rip off stock photo libraries."
Where are you paying $30? The hi-res images at istockphoto are around $8, and the web-res versions (which I use the most) are under a couple of bucks.
With stock photography, you typically get what you pay for. Corbis, Getty, et al tend to have the best quality, but they're pricy. istockphoto is really cheap, but you often have to sift through a lot of crap. And the "free stock photo" places tend to be awful.
That's why I'm