Transcript
Page 1: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

Michelangelo Magasic & Dr. Kate Raynes-GoldieDepartment of Internet Studies, Curtin University

What  about  BitTorrent?  Rethinking  Web  2.0  and  the  

promise  of  a  par;cipatory  culture  

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 2: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 3: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

“We are creating a world that all may enter without privilege or prejudice accorded by race, economic power, military force, or station of birth...where anyone, anywhere may express his or her beliefs, no matter how singular, without fear of being coerced into silence or conformity.” John Perry Barlow – The declaration of the independence of cyberspace (1996)

“... this space might be called the "interconnected estate" -- a place where any person with access to the Internet, regardless of living standard or nationality, is given a voice and the power to effect change” Eric Schmidt & Jarad Cohen (2010)

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 4: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

• Utopian, revolutionary

• Level playing field between big media and citizens

• Participatory culture

The Promise of Web 2.0

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 5: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

In reality

• Unpaid digital labour

• Privacy issues

• Status quo is maintained

• In many ways, more exploitative than empowering

(Allen, 2008; Allen, 2009; Allen, 2011; Scholz, & Hartzog, 2008; Scholz, 2008; Marwick, 2010; Scholz, & Hartzog, 2008; Scholz, 2008; Marwick, 2010; Zimmer, 2008a; Zimmer, 2008b).

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 6: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

The forgotten (?) Web 2.0 technology

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 7: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

Fiske’s (1989) Popular Culture

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 8: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

l Before With BT

“BitTorrent thus demonstrates a key Web 2.0 principle: the service automatically gets better the more people use it “O'Reilly (2005)

Napster BitTorrent

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 9: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 10: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

Streaming services turn the Internet back into a read-only medium in order to restrict the consumers ability to interact with media and to produce their own media.

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 11: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

"Society is the biggest competitor for Hollywood...The law has been consistently changed in the past 12 years...in order to prevent society from becoming the producer of culture in itself for itself." Lemos (2007)

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 12: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 13: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

“Sharing is the nature of culture- it doesn't happen in isolation. No-one creates in a vacuum, everything comes from something else.” Gil (2008)

BitTorrent is a free speech tool

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 14: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

“As a gay man, the gay p2p community isn't just a community of file sharers, as there is content and discussions related to social and political issues. The members of the community are from all over the world, and [are] a melting pot of ideas, thought and opinion. The fact that they have gay themed films, television shows, and pornography is almost an after thought. Years of social and political derision and pressure holds the gay torrent community together. There are large online gay communities all over the web that do not have the p2p component, so I don’t believe it solely reflects p2p file sharers. Most people in the global gay community remain obsessed with the government sanctioned discrimination we experience daily, regardless of whether you live in the US or Djibouti..... There are kids in Ghana inspired by Glee, and lesbians in Latvia livened by episodes of the L Word, and for them p2p file sharing is the only way they can access this content. If one person in our global community can endure the oppressive political regimes and bigoted social climate, and finds some inspiration from positive role models in films,television episodes, and music that these p2p services provide, I say AMEN to that!” (Caraway 2012)

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 15: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

“I don't know about everyone else but I'd be happy paying royalties for every sample on the record...but in a theoretical world if I could clear every sample on there and I had a million dollars or a billion dollars or whatever to do it, it would still take me probably 50 years to go through the legal hassle figuring all of that out and that's just absurd.” - Girl Talk (2007)

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 16: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

The increasingly burdensome application of copyright law to uses that were previously given a blind eye, such as quick clips of other videos in documentaries or songs with 3-second samples from others, stands to pose serious burdens to creators, while the fear of potentially getting sued has resulted in the stifling of creative work...If the laws of today had been exercised twenty-five years ago, hip-hop, among other genres, may very well not exist today as we know it (Stark 2006)

Friday, 5 July 13

Page 17: What about BitTorrent? Rethinking Web 2.0 and the promise of a participatory culture

Friday, 5 July 13