The Future: A Paradigm Shift

The dissipative system of the world wide web relates to the larger context of ideas and intellectual products as they reside within the free market economy.  More ideas demand a greater selectivity of the consumer within a self-proliferating environment.  As a result, firms and organizations may be finding vast demand shifts that will unapologetically grind all subjective progress to a halt as consumers "jump ship" to newer, more valuable products or ideas.  Our increasing interconnected society will only create more of these rapid market swings more rapidly as newer ideas are brought to the service by intellectuals, field leaders, and trendsetters.  Such is the way of entropy: either jump on-board the boat or fall into the swift current.

Allegorically, within the context of art production, tools, ease of use, and general understanding (via the proliferation of knowledge) are all factors which are shifting the paradigm from a consumer-based economy to a producer-based economy.  This unmistakeable paradigm shift is the first step in stripping industry from the idea that there is a consumer base for anything!  It is to my mind that there are fewer and fewer consumers in the world as production is becoming a maxim for society.  Memes including "be the change you want to see in the world" are ubiquitous amongst social networks, and could be cited as one of the many influences leading to such behavior.

Once again referencing the ideal of dissipative systems, as more artistic content is flung (either vicariously or cautiously) into the shared informational network, more jewels will inevitably forge just as more garbage will collect.  The fact here is that, increasingly, individuals are creating such content (albeit more garbage than jewels), NOT larger companies.

If you have managed to make it to this point in my relatively esoteric diatribe, I applaud you; but what I'm going to propose next might be a bit extreme (as even I consider it so).  Firms, companies, traditional factors of both material and intellectual production must, if they are concerned with the comparatively trivial matter of monetary success, abandon all stock in intellectual property.  The amount of consumers willing to and able to be tricked into buying into whatever it is a firm might have to sell is going to dwindle--quickly.  The future will hold a fruitless endeavor for all who hold complete stock in the one file that will make them a fortune on it's own.

As society elevates to a more developed frame of consciousness, the selectivity and proliferation of ideas will push firms to the edge of productive capacity.  You, the reader, might find this perspective to be resourceful in determining how your own ideal work will fit into the larger contextual frame of society, and in turn the universe.

The Future: A Proliferation

It is clear now more so than ever that file-sharing is not going anywhere.  In fact, peer to peer is becoming ubiquitous not only amongst creative types to support their endeavors, but by individuals to support their personal development and ideals.  Never before in human history has our species been able to interface so efficiently and freely without any apparent boundaries.  Piracy is the very manifestation of such phenomena, allowing for fewer financial resources in regards to idea expansion.  Put plainly, one does not necessarily need to purchase a book, a resource used ideally for personal development, but the digital native is now able to simply do a google search and download a chemistry reference source.

Attempts to quell such expansion of liberated thought from the bounds of monetary expectation is, to my mind, an injustice upon humanity.  You probably expect me to cite one of the many misappropriated Enlightenment Era mantras from the great minds of prophetic thinkers such as Locke or Hobbes at this point.  Rather, I would invite you to consider the aggregate benefits of such intellectual, digital symbiosis that is currently occurring within our society.  The advent of such free ideas is inherently supporting individuals, and in turn societies, to become the best versions of themselves in one way or another.

Dissipative systems theory supports the idea that out of great entropy, much order condensates.  Consider the internet in it's increasingly complicated cyberspace to be such a dissipative system full of ideas and energies beyond comprehension.  Mankind has created this great entropy, and out of it mankind benefits via the condensation of the strongest mimetic functions.

(Terence McKenna, prophetic visionary and systems theorist)

You may be thinking, well this is all well and good Dakota, but who is to benefit from this increase in aggregate intelligence despite piracy?  My unpopular answer lies in part two, saddle up.

The Fall Of Megaupload (Part Four)

Citing the initial indictment of Megaupload once more, it appears that the prosecution was simply looking for something nefarious out of intelligent website infrastructure, using legal concepts and hearsay to back their flawed intentions.  What's more, the indictment proclaimed the website's lack of search function to fall under criminal intent; however in other copyright cases such as Atari vs. Rapidshare lacking a search feature was seen as a way to prevent users from accessing such materials.  This classic catch twenty-two which worked paradoxically against the persecution during the case.

The devil is in the details here, as the warrants for said raid were not even valid as ruled by a New Zealand High Court Judge.  Furthermore, the pace of the raid was found to be unjustly swift, not allowing Kim Dotcom to defend himself in any way, shape, or form.  The USDOJ used charges of racketeering and money laundering to expedite the arrests, however this was in reference to the paid website hosting which Megaupload offered--an inherently legal activity.  How are we, as citizens of the United States, supposed to respect authorities trying to enforce copyright laws that can't even play by their own rules?  This has all shot the notion of copyright enforcement's credibility to shit as authorities' guerrilla, headstrong, and lobby-induced crackdowns become less meaningful, completely misplaced, and largely fruitless...

I hate to use this all-too ubiquitous card among those enraged about government musings, but it seems all of the other stops have been pulled already by the executive branch of our 'beloved' government...  How many tax payer dollars were wasted in the United States government's pursuit of the Megaupload case?  It is to mind that even a penny spent on harassing this business man was unjustly spent, as he was clearly only such.  Just because one provides a service that is effective in it's goals of spreading and sharing information does not mean that he should be persecuted for it's user's misuse of said service.  As I mentioned in the first part of this elongated diatribe, the internet was designed in such a fashion that encourages, no, demands the proliferation of all ideas whether they are protected by a now largely obsolete and archaic law or not!

While this section of The Fall Of Megaupload was distinctly fact-oriented, there is still more philosophical content to come, believe it or not.  Onward to the epilogue!

The Fall Of Megaupload (Part Three)

Let us remember that Megaupload is not alone in the world of pirate hunting within the digital age.  Rapidshare has similarly come under fire from a number of major record labels for allowing illegal content to be hosted.  Guess who?  That's right, Metallica's Death Magnetic record was leaked on Rapidshare for whatever reason, causing the metal monolith to become involved in shaping yet another business' policies (or so they thought).  While Rapidshare was forced to give away the details of those that leaked the files, they publicly vowed to never again spy on their users the next year, shiesty rhetoric at best, I say.

Whether or not Rapidshare has stuck to their statement is beyond the scope of you or myself; however you may be interested to know that in the very same year (2009-2010) Atari's case against Rapidshare was found to be unjust as an appeal from Rapidshare lead to the Dusseldorf higher court acquitting them of all charges.  To elaborate, Rapidshare was unknowingly distributing the then newly released game "Alone In The Dark" on their servers.  Atari suited a case against the company, imploring that the company must be held accountable and therefore screen to remove such illegal uploads.  However, the counterargument won out as the appeal that such removal would strip away a great deal of legally distributed or backed up material that paying users benefit from.  Indeed this is the polar opposite of Megaupload's case, in which the government sided with the hosting service: way to go Germany!

The Fall Of Megaupload (Part Two)

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) demanded that Kim Dotcom and his constituents be extradited on the grounds of a racketeering and money laundering charge; all of which was effectively acquitted during the trial, by the way.  The indictment statement also alleged that Megaupload offered no attempt in screening content for copyright protection.  The fact that the site's revenue was based off of advertisement coupled with the download allocation and prioritization of popular uploads offered the prosecution cause to allege that Megaupload was deliberately hosting copyright protected material for profit.  However, the defense was on relatively stable ground in the sense that they were not responsible for user activity, nor did they encourage such larceny outright.  The decision regarding the foundation of his extradition has been continually appealed, but currently Kim Dotcom has run out of money to support his legal council.  Currently, the appeal court ruled that the raids were legal, but the taking of evidence was clearly unauthorized.  He is still to be extradited despite the unauthorized copying of data by the FBI, but is currently at home.

It was January 20th, 2012 on Kim Dotcom's birthday that the New Zealand Police force raided Dotcom's 30 million dollar compound.  The founder of Megaupload was denied bail, deemed a flight risk as he had a helicopter in his front yard.  Considering the rhetorical context of the raid security camera footage the arrest would have one thinking that Kim Dotcom was an international arms dealer.  What with helicopters being flown around the compound, policemen armed with assault rifles, bullet proof vests, and canines, it is apparent that this massive action taken against an owner of a private firm was a bit overboard--almost anti-terrorist in nature.

To what end are we to hold service providers accountable for copyright infringement if it is the users that are the ultimate offenders?  What legal discourse is appropriate to deal with situations?  My answers to all of this come, within some capacity, in the final installment of this five-part series: stay tuned!

The Fall Of Megaupload (Part One)

The internet was designed under the intent that users would BOTH send and receive bits of information, especially in the early days where computers were multi-million dollar machines.  There was no hierarchy, and no one was in control.  Much to the dismay of the World Trade Organization (WTO) such is still the case as net neutrality has remained relatively intact despite the efforts of governments such as the United States to influence the global network otherwise.  Historically, sites including The Pirate Bay, Kickass Torrents, Megaupload and Limewire have taken this maxim of the world wide web and extrapolated it into both cloud-based sharing and peer to peer file sharing services.

Ever since the seizure of Napster in 2001, there has been a never-ending quest to protect copyright holders' rights to distribute and monetize their own content.  More recently, Megaupload, the brainchild of Kim Dotcom, was seized in 2012.  The Motion Pictures Association of America (MPAA) along with the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) worked in cohorts to take down the site; alleging that Megaupload was costing copyright holders an estimated $500 million in revenue.  Shocking, that a large industry headed by media moguls, who are in bed with both sides of the political isle, would be able to effectively enact a swift strike to the free information enterprise.

(MPAA Logo)

My concern is largely out of the premise in which Megaupload was able to be shutdown.  The indictment of the site as a criminal enterprise seems a bit discontinuous to me, as the site itself was structured in a rather logical frame for any public file-sharing site to be constructed.  Was Kim Dotcom punished for his genius?  What right did the United States have in policing a company based in Hong Kong?  And what does all of this mean for the larger context of cloud-based and peer to peer file sharing giants in regard to indictment?  Stay tuned for part two for my musings on the issue.  Fair warning: it's going to get philosophical pretty quickly, so tighten your seat belts.

My Favorite Service (Down The List Part Seven)

Here it is folks, the moment you've all been waiting for...  If you have had the patience to read through my various diatribes regarding the less popular and successful file-sharing websites featured on eBizMBA's extensive list, then you have probably noticed my standards for what I consider proper file sharing to be rather high.  To my mind, a file sharing service should be intuitive, flexible, secure, have decent free features, and be crystal clear in what they provide to those who wish to support the site financially.  Until this point, website after website has fallen short in one or more of these categories, making what is currently my favorite file sharing service sit on it's prestigious pedestal.

MEGA is one of the newest and most impressive services as it has risen out of the ashes of the monstrously controversial site, Megaupload.  Kim Dotcom, the creator of Megaupload, was forced to shutdown the site after the United States Department of Justice (USDOJ) worked in cohorts with the New Zealand government to arrest Dotcom and seize his servers. All of this was on the grounds that Dotcom was allegedly intentionally hosting material protected by copyright; barring any investigation, the USDOJ had Megaupload shutdown overnight after they raided Dotcom's private compound in New Zealand.

VICE did a report on the controversy, albeit a bit over-dramatic at times, which cover's Dotcom's perspective on the case as well as the events of the raid.  In this report Dotcom also details the specifics of MEGA; full end-to-end encryption, a whopping 50GB of free storage space, and exclusive user-based connection.  What's more, MEGA aims to be more than just a file sharing service; for around the price of $10/month, users will be able to chat and video call utilizing end-to-end encryption (a feature not even Skype offers).

In this post, I have decided to stick to the basics and lay the groundwork of the controversy.  However, next week I will dive even deeper into the MEGA conflict, challenging the epistemology and processes of governments regarding copyright and privacy in the post-modern, digital age.

Down The List (Part Six, Six, Six)

One anecdote seems to have stuck in my mind; it takes the human brain only seven seconds to determine whether or not a website is interesting, user-friendly, and engaging.  Zippyshare is most certainly not any of the latter, somehow making it's way to rank number nine on eBizMBA with 6,250,000 unique monthly visitors per month.

My guess is that the unlimited file storage size has something to do with the longevity and meager popularity of this service; the one caveat being a maximum upload size of only 200MB.  Clearly, bandwidth is an issue with this site, however storage is not whatsoever.  Such is a trend I am seeing more and more with the variety of services saturating the file sharing market.

Fortunately for its users, Zippyshare has a blog which, though scarcely updated, describes site progress as well as maintenance and other issues.  Additionally, Zippyshare is completely free!  There is one catch, however, as files that have not been accessed in over thirty days old will be deleted to conserve server space.  The site's user capabilities seem to be new as well; Zippyshare used to use a URL based access, however now it appears you are able to create an account on the site.  A feature some would assume to be ever-present, it seems the site is more of a pet project and less of a file sharing service.  This is only reinforced by the broken link to the FAQ section which is typically very helpful for new users such as myself.

While I can't really see myself or any other media professionals using the site, Zippyshare seems to be directed towards a more casual user base.

Down The List (Part Five)

Uploaded places at number ten on eBizMBA's top fifteen popular file sharing sites with 6,000,000 visitors per month.  Rightfully so, this website kicks the living crap out of DepositFiles as it's sleek and lean front-page invites (rather than begs) one to create an account and try out the service.  The promotional video is a bit ambiguous, though, as the animations do not reveal anything about the service other than securing the site's obvious status as a file sharing website.

Their offers and services are rather confusing in regard to specifics as well.  The site appears to be all based off of a point system in which one-time fees allow users to expand their download speed, capacity, and file size.  However, there is no obvious grading system for the allocation of said points to the outside user.  I'd hope that the service clearly outlines point to file size conversion for those users that decide to join this mysterious point-based website. 

For those that do decide to invest, premium accounts allow for unlimited parallel downloads with no restrictions which is a huge benefit in terms of bandwidth allocation.  Additionally, premium accounts are free of ads which apparently exist within their downloadable client.  While it is great that the service offers a syncing client that will keep your files up to date, it seems reasonable that such ads are featured within it for free users.  To my mind, it seems the only plausible approach to be profitable in the free realm, especially if the client is the only way in which files are managed, which I would hope it to be. 

All in all, aside from the ambiguity in premium services, Uploaded seems a bit more competitive than other sites I have reviewed thus far in terms of appearance.  However, you can't judge a book simply by it's cover (unless it's a file-handling gerbil, I mean come on!)

Down The List (Part Four)

Deposit Files comes next down the list with 4,750,000 estimated unique visitors per month according to eBizMBA.  Frankly, this site confuses me as visitors are greeted by a hamster or gerbil type of rodent carrying what I assume to be a satchel of files in a bag with a cloud logo on the front.  The site looks like someone's final project for an HTML programming class, it may be minimalist, but seems to lack any elements to draw you in (minus our black and white cartoon gerbil friend).  The developers appear to be goading visitors to upload a file upon loading the homepage: declaring in fine print that uploading a file implies agreement to the terms of use (not that anyone reads through those anyway).  The site just seems exceedingly tacky to me, but aesthetics aren't everything...

After a minute or so of getting my bearings, I found that the free service Deposit Files offers is competitive, indeed.  Free users are offered 10GB lifetime storage with unlimited file size and number per account--pretty sweet for a majority of media professionals.  Though it is a bit disconcerting as their "about" page states some of the obvious details of file sharing including the following:

• Password protection for your files download.
• Let us know when to delete your files.
• Downloading files at any time.

All that comes to mind for me here is uh...no shit?  That's how the internet works, ya dingus.  Their grammar/framing of sentences could use some work as well, but what else do you expect from a nationally ambiguous website?  Their contact information only provides emails, leading me to question the overall credibility of this site.  While their numbers might be somewhat attractive, nothing screams unprofessional like a linguistically inept hamster who might ultimately be responsible for your creative content.

An Example of Collaboration

This week I am posting an example of media creating using filesharing on my Soundcloud.  The example features one of my projects, Caecus, in which I hold the position of producer, engineer, and bassist.  Enjoy!

Down The List (Part Three)

Hightail is another one of the many file sharing sites featured on the continued eBizMBA list, placing at number twelve with 4,500,000 monthly visitors.  This service features a free "Lite" edition of the use of it's infrastructure which allows users to upload files up to 250MB with a maximum of 2GB total storage.  Compared to other services, this is lame at best!  However, Hightail's presentation makes me believe that it is not too concerned with a free user base.

Hightail stands out among the sites I have previously reviewed and mentioned simply due to branding.  The design of their main page is impeccably clean and image-based, two aspects of design that internet consumers seem to love, for good reason.  As we are living in a more image-based online society, it is clear that Hightail has done their market research to stay ahead of other services such as Sendspace.  The sleek and professional design, along with Hightail's variety of plans, makes the site a rather attractive option for professionals in any industry.

Hell, they even have a "Professional" plan which will run you $15.99 per user per month; benefits include the ability to share files up to 10GB in size, unlimited storage, and unlimited e-signatures for credential-based documents.  At $15.99, no wonder they call it professional--only people with salaries can afford that crazy price!  There is also a "Team" ($24.99/mo/user) and "Enterprise" (unlisted) plan, both of which are similar to the professional plan, but offer the ability to customize branding in the site's interface and manage a variety of users.  With their flagship plans offering user management, it seems that Hightail is geared towards firms rather than individuals, which would work in the context of media, assuming there enough work internationally to support the rather steep subscriptions.

Some Background..

Personal Facebook
Personal Soundcloud
Personal Youtube
Clocks Facebook
Clocks Bandcamp
Caecus Facebook
Caecus Bandcamp

Down The List (Part Two)

In this continuation of "Down The List", I am exploring some of the most popular and most visited file-sharing sites than content creators have easy access to today.  At number thirteen ranks Sendspace.com with approximately 4,000,000 unique monthly users.  This site allows users to sign up for free, enabling them to send files via the sendspace servers to other users at a maximum file size of 300MB.  There appears to be a limited amount of space for free accounts, but unlimited lifetime storage if you subscribe to the site's Pro or Pro Plus plans.  Once subscribed to a plan, users can send larger files  (4GB for Pro and 10GB for Pro Plus) at a limit of 100GB and 300GB per month, respectively.

To me, this service seems a bit steep in terms of cost, with the Pro plan being $8.99 per month while the Pro Plus plan is a whopping $19.99 per month.  Sure, once subscribed, the disappearance of ads, unlimited lifetime upload limit, and upgraded down and up speeds might seem to be well worth it.  However, the larger context of file sharing services currently available make it a bit obvious that this somewhat steep price is not the most effective.  What demographic requires 4GB per file to work effectively?  In my mind, it would seem that filmmakers would be best suited for this service as individual, uncompressed footage can get quite hefty, especially if said footage is shot at a higher resolution such as 1080p or 4k.

I will be continuing my "Down The List" series each week, detailing and exposing you all to the larger context of file sharing sites.  Stay tuned!

Down The List (Part One)

Among the file sharing giants, it is important to recognize the most popular options to understand how and where on the internet people are sharing their creative content.  Luckily, eBizMBA.com tracks insights for some of the most prominent services over the past few months, allowing for a benchmark of traffic.  This week, I will examine some of the less popular approaches, speculating on why they might not be as popular as others based on their current quality of service.  Let's get started.

At number fifteen we have filecrop.com with an estimated 3,000,000 page views per month. this service is closely tied with Rapidshare, a more familiar service to myself, which is barely ahead of filecrop with approximately 3,250,000 unique views per month.  Filecrop allows it's users to peruse the shared Megaupload and Rapidshare public libraries which hosted an array of information, unfortunately including pirated content from around the globe.  Recently, the creator of Megaupload, Kim Dotcom (yes, he changed his last name) was accused by the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) of allegedly hosting and embedding over 500 million dollars worth of copywritten content on Megaupload.  I plan to talk about this conflict for another series of posts, however for now just recognize that the RIAA is responsible for the take-down of Napster, Grokster, Limewire, and EACH of these site's users who were responsible for uploading the content.

I find it interesting that the sites at the bottom end of this top fifteen list are more of less carcasses of what was previously one of the most popular websites in file sharing history.  Unfortunately, current intellectual property laws can get lawful content creators' services shutdown in the fight against privacy, a worthwhile discussion that I will touch on at a later date.

An Exposition

Content creators require flexible, secure, and user-friendly file sharing services that both seamlessly and effectively integrate into workflow in order to consistently complete projects in a timely manner.  Whether these professionals in the media industries are separated by city blocks or vast oceans, there is a proper expectation to have access to all of your project-based files wherever you go.  My plan is to expose you, the reader, to the vast variety of services in this ever-saturating market of either peer-to-peer or cloud-based file sharing.  Media professionals require peer to peer file sharing applications to both effectively and efficiently transfer files not only between professionals, but to clients as well.  There are a myriad of services available currently including Mediafire, Dropbox, and Google drive; however, these current services are not created equally, varying in both their security and connection strength.

On a personal level, I can attest to using a variety of file sharing services to facilitate collaboration, feedback, and continuity for various projects.  Given that I am, at any one moment, hundreds of miles away from my band-mates, these services are imperative for my continued creative involvement.  Due to my circumstances as a college student, I have also continually utilized free file sharing services: allowing me to compare and contrast the ease of use, security, download speed, and other aspects of these free, often cloud-based services.  Though my experience with file sharing is vast, I will try to maintain an objective and unbiased perspective as we explore the file sharing options that independent content creators have today.