LegalTorrents Offers CC Works Via BitTorrent 129
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.
So wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
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.
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 :)
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.
And the quality is ...... (Score:2, Insightful)
..... most likely almost universally dismal
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%.
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.
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.
Re:Our music is on LegalTorrents (Score:2, Insightful)
Normally I dislike people shilling their wares here but it got me to thinking that it might be interesting if there was one thread where that was *all* that people posted. Everyone has a pet project or knows of one that could use some exposure.
Best of luck to ya.
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'.
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?
Re:So wait... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the best idea ever (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 not sure if a torrent tracker for free or CC stock photography would be useful. It would be stuff on the level of the free sites -- that is, generally bad.
istockphoto is empowering a lot of pro and serious amateur photographers. At a buck a download, the royalties can add up really quickly. If I were a pro or serious amateur photographer, if I had the choice of posting to istockphoto or giving it away on a torrent site, I'd go with the former. Yes -- I know that information wants to be free, RMS is god, and every time you pay for copyrighted material a kitten dies, but the bank that holds the note to my house tends to be a little more rigid about making money than many Slashdotters.
Re:So wait... (Score:2, Insightful)
I guess promotion is going to cost, though.
No it's not, just post a few /. articles or something.
Re:So wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:First post (Score:5, Insightful)
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
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.
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).
Re:So wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
With about 10 music files they are a long way from reaching that goal.
You have to start somewhere.
Re:So wait... (Score:3, Insightful)
I believe the *artist* gets something like 7%? It was a subject of some discussion a year or two back, so you can probably find some good details still.
Re:So wait... (Score:3, Insightful)