Downhill Battle

[eclectica]

Downhill Battle (http://www.downhillbattle.org/). When did you first discover them? I learned about them for the first time when reading an article in The New York Times sometime around September 2003, when the RIAA first started its lawsuits against individuals. Since then I've been following their projects and music & p2p activism and have been impressed with what they've done.

Their site domain name was registered 2003-08-21 to Nicholas Reville. Also associated with their organization is the name Holmes Wilson. Those two are said to be its founders. For a while I thought the site was run just by those two individuals. But there are other people who work with the organization. Other names I've found is Tiffiniy Cheng, Nick N., and Tricia C.. I found an interesting page here (http://www.downhillbattle.org/plans/index.php/Meeting_Notes) titled "Meeting Notes" which looks like something that they didn't want to be made public. In case it gets removed, I saved the webpage as an html file and have posted it as an attachment at the bottom of this post. What concerns me about that document is that it suggests some kind of profit or business conspiracy going on, coming from what I thought was a nonprofit organization. In fact that is the point of this article.

Downhill Battle has done well and has shown vigor and energy towards p2p and music activism. They have lots of spinoff domain names and sites which they use whenever they undertake a new project, such as they did with Grey Tuesday (http://www.greytuesday.org/). It has given them attention and higher search engine rankings, since they link to their own sites through other sites of theirs. Judging by what Downhill Battle has done so far, I would say it's not just two people working as a hobby on the projects, but many people spending a lot of time and money.

For the most part, I've agreed with their causes and positions. One point of disagreement (http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=472) I had with their position was when they endorsed the EFF's proposal (http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php) towards voluntary collective licensing. Like anybody or any idea which is presented to you by an organization or an individual, you have to weigh everything that is proposed case by case rather than following whatever is proposed and letting them lead your ideals. So I support most of what they do but I am willing to draw the line when I have a disagreement with them or if they have a shift in their ideology in the future.

When it comes to the issue of p2p filesharing I am totally opposed to any commercialism in it. I also find that framing the issues in economic terms is unacceptable. It's quite common to talk about how CDs are overpriced or how the money doesn't go to the artists. And to talk about boycotting the record companies, is again an economic approach. Overlooked in the economic hype is how p2p filesharing comes from the drive in people to share what they love, such as their music, with others. It makes it no less significant or less meaningful that those within the international p2p filesharing community are located thousands of miles apart from each other. p2p filesharing is a major social movement that is not driven by economics. The heart and soul of p2p filesharing is a common brotherhood based on the love of music. In that regard it must be viewed as a religion and a way of life rather than from an economic perspective.

There are people who want to make a profit off of p2p filesharing. They are the ones such as Sharman Networks, the makers of KaZaA. Another organization is DCIA (http://www.dcia.info/), a secretive consortium of companies and organizations who are looking to profit from p2p filesharing. I see these people as the bad guys in p2p filesharing, who want to poison it with commercialism. For more information on the DCIA, see the following threads:
The DCIA Tries to Cozy up to the MPAA (http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5426) 2004-06-18
Interview With DCIA CEO Marty Lafferty (http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5718) 2004-07-02
TrustyFiles (http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=539) 2004-06-08

It is important for me to know who are the good guys and bad guys in the p2p filesharing community. I wouldn't want to support the bad guys, and I will do what is in my power to educate others and endorse those who really mean well for the community without any intentions of profiting. I thought that Downhill Battle was on the side of the good guys, but then I started noticing some disturbing connections between them and the DCIA affiliated p2p program TrustyFiles (http://www.trustyfiles.com/). There are three things which made me wonder about an affiliation between Downhill Battle and the DCIA. One is the endorsement of Downhill Battle in the past of an independent record label and DCIA member Go-Kart records (http://www.gokartrecords.com/) on their website. Another connection between Downhill Battle and DCIA I recently discovered was a mention on an endorsed and closely affiliated site of theirs, P2P Congress (http://www.p2pcongress.org/). On that site's page is a mention of recommended p2p clients, and one is the obscure p2p program TrustyFiles. I thought it was odd that they would endorse such a program. TrustyFiles is made by a company called RazorPop (http://www.razorpop.com) that is a member of the DCIA. Now here's the third thing that caused me concern for a link between Downhill Battle and DCIA. It was back in October 2003, when I first signed on this website here 3-3-3.org to be part of and affirm my support towards the Stop the RIAA lawsuits (http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/showthread.php?t=152) coalition. They asked for me to send an email from the domain name itself to verify that I was of authority to sign the website up. I used an obscure email address that I've never used before or after, and sent it to Downhill Battle. Several months later I received an email to that same obscure email address from "RazorPop Public Relations". It appears to me therefore that Downhill Battle shared its mailing list with RazorPop.

I have in the last couple of months sent two emails to Downhill Battle with my concerns about their DCIA affiliation. The first was sent in June and I received a reply. The second was sent recently and I have not yet received a reply. I will now post them for you to read:

From: eclectica
Date: 2004-06-21 @ 22:31 GMT
To: contact @ downhillbattle.org
Subject: go-kart records and DCIA

You've praised go-kart records on your site, but in light of their membership in DCIA I suggest you reconsider or ask them for clarification as to why they are members. See this forum thread for more info:
http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=5426

-eclectica

From: Nicholas Reville
Date: 2004-06-21 @ 23:36 GMT
To: eclectica
Subject: Re: go-kart records and DCIA

Hey,

I don't have time to get into it right now, I think a lot of the posts we've seen about the DCIA are just suffering from people getting caught up in the acronyms, or trying to figure out who is on their team.

Sure, Kazaa is sketchy, and it's clear they'd love to start selling hollywood's movies and the major labels' music. But I think a lot of people fail to appreciate that when businesses are always sketchy like that, and that whenever they seem to be working in anyone's interest other than their own it's just a coincidence.

No business "cares about filesharers," for example, even though some are acting in the interests of most kids who do filesharing, in some ways. The trick to being effective in this kind of an environment is to not think of it as "Team A" "Team B". Know what I'm saying?

Anyway, even if you were worried about about accidentally giving money to the DCIA, I wouldn't worry about Go-kart, since they almost certainly are not a paying member.

Holmes Wilson
Downhill Battle

From: eclectica
Date: 2004-08-11 @ 22:25 GMT
To: contact @ downhillbattle.org
Subject: your relationship to RazorPop

Hi, I am the webmaster of a site 3-3-3.org, and I signed onto the stopriaalawsuits.com list last year in order to affirm my support of the cause. One of the things that you asked in order to sign onto the list was an email verification sent from my site's domain name so you would know the request was genuine. I normally don't use my site's domain name for outgoing email but only for incoming, so in order to send an outgoing email I used the email function in the site's cPanel. That sent to you an email from dionysus @ 3-3-3.org, which I've never used before or since as an outgoing email address. Oddly enough, on July 19 of this year I received an email from RazorPop (www.razorpop.com) promoting the TrustyFiles program to that exact same email address. I'm not mad nor do I feel that I've been spammed in any way. But that showed to me that there is some kind of link, which I wasn't aware of, between the RazorPop company which makes the TrustyFiles program, and you at Downhill Battle. Also I noticed on a site you endorse, p2pcongress.org, there is a listing there of the TrustyFiles program as well.

Regardless of all that, I am wondering what your stance on commercialism in p2p filesharing is. Do you oppose or support commercialized p2p organizations like Sharman Networks (maker of KaZaA) and the DCIA (www.dcia.info)?

-eclectica

[anon]

The dollar figures on that page a ridiculously low, certainly not those of a for-profit operation. It makes perfect sense for them run downhillbattle.org in a way which covers their living expenses. If they didn't work on the project full time it would most certainly be much less effective.

I agree that RazorPop is a scam on all levels and if they actually shared their email DB with them that would be something to investigate.

Working DCIA and similar "evil" organizations though is unavoidable if you want to have any effect on the real world. By refusing to include economic considerations in your analysis you lose all credibility with people who do not share your ideology about filesharing. Since these people are the ones who eventually make the relevant decisions you have already lost all influence.

"The heart and soul of p2p filesharing is a common brotherhood based on the love of music. In that regard it must be viewed as a religion and a way of life rather than from an economic perspective."

While filesharing may be some sort of religion to you the majority of people using filesharing applications to get their music have no such feelings about the concept. They use it because it is convenient. A lot of them are not even aware that they are sharing the music with other people.

[JiMiThInG]

hmm I remember seeing Trustyfiles listed on one of the downlhillbattle domains and wondering what was up with that too. I am glad you looked into this and will probally end up posting this on our portal at p2pforums in one form or another.

[tm.]

Yes, Trustyfiles/Razorpop appears to own a lot of the domain addresses dealing with P2P politics, activism, and news, in addition to the ones listed above. I wish I could remember the names of some of those other sites. Months ago, at the time when Trustyfiles came out, I noticed that on some of those news sites and P2P portals, they seemed to do an awful lot of plugging for the then-unknown Trustyfiles - an odd direction for supposedly independent (and equally unknown) websites. The connection to Razorpop was glaringly obvious.

Has anyone looked them up on whois.sc or other domain investigative sites?

[Justice]

Interesting reading...

The question I suppose... is DownHillBattle.org selling their contact lists to this scamster or are they in cahoots with him?

BTW

$1,000,000 (cdn) pay off Thomas George Whitehouse Rogers

WTF?!?

Isn't that you eclectica?

http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-373.html

Now buy me an iPod!

=)

Damn those whacky publicly editable files!

[notbob]

Interesting reading...

The question I suppose... is DownHillBattle.org selling their contact lists to this scamster or are they in cahoots with him?

BTW

$1,000,000 (cdn) pay off Thomas George Whitehouse Rogers

WTF?!?

Isn't that you eclectica?

http://www.3-3-3.org/forum/archive/index.php/t-373.html

Now buy me an iPod!

=)

Damn those whacky publicly editable files!

just pointing out how a wiki isn't as very good source to base an article on

anybody can put anything they want on there, it doesn't need to be true

[nottim]

interesting

[eclectica]

The one activist site that is closely related to TrustyFiles is Donate My Music Check! (http://www.donatemymusiccheck.com/), and is also owned by Marc Freedman of Texas, the owner of RazorPop. A lot of those activist sites such as P2P Congress (http://www.p2pcongress.org) or Click The Vote ! (url=http://www.clickthevote.org) are registered to Alan Smitheee in Los Angeles. Another activist site is Barbie-in-a-Blender (http://www.barbieinablender.org/). The whois information for that site it is listed as Nicholas Reville of freeculture.org. The whois information of FreeCulture.org (http://www.freeculture.org/) lists a "Nelson Pavlosky". That is the guy who got in trouble for putting information about Diebold election machines on the internet, as you can read about here (http://www.commondreams.org/headlines03/1103-04.htm).

Those editable wiki pages make for good laughs after having been edited, and I'm not saying they prove anything. It's just more smoke without any fire. Prior to my linking to that page it had been viewed about 8 times but now it has been viewed 90 times. I saved the original unedited page as an attachment in the first post. You can see other interesting documents in their directory downillbattle.org/plans (http://www.downhillbattle.org/plans/).

I want to say that this article is not to condemn Downhill Battle for what they've done in the past but instead to question what their long term plans and goals are. No organization should be supported unconditionally and without doubts. This affiliation of theirs does give me more scepticism of their organization, and causes me to view their projects in a different light. I wonder how much of their activism is really just self-promotion.

[tm.]

Another trustyfiles/Razorpop related site is www.Diariaa.com - but it plainly lists its ownership on the front page.
Copyright 2003-4 Marc Freedman. All Rights Reserved.

[Drake]

just pointing out how a wiki isn't as very good source to base an article on

anybody can put anything they want on there, it doesn't need to be true


The information on the wiki page is just a small part of the story and, as eclectica pointed out, all of those changes were made after he published his story.

[Holmes Wilson]

Hi everyone,

Holmes here from Downhill Battle. Tom from Slyck pointed me to this thread, and I guess I was a little bit surprised at first, but then I suppose I can see how some of these misunderstandings happened. Anyway, I'll try my best to clear it up. We're super-busy these days so I don't have a lot of time for this, but I want to make sure everybody has the right idea about us. If this post leads to a lot of other questions, I think the best way to handle this would be to make a time for a conference call, for everyone who's interested. There's a site freeconference.com where you can do that for free. More on that at the bottom of this post.

So, looking through his post I see three reasons why eclectica thinks we're supported by or connected to the DCIA:

1) We're doing too much (awesome) stuff to just be hobbyists; we must be getting paid by somebody.
2) We list our (extremely low) living expenses on a webpage.
3) We have stuff on our site about Go-Kart records and they're a DCIA member.
4) P2PCongress.org has a plug for TrustyFiles, some sketchy proprietary p2p app put out by RazorPop, a DCIA member.
5) He got an email from RazorPop to an address he gave us back in the fall.

So lets take it item by item. The last one is weird-- and I'm sorry that I don't really have a good response for you-- but the first four are pretty simple (the second one has already been responded to by someone else in this forum, really). Here goes:

1) We're doing too much (awesome) stuff to just be hobbyists; we must be getting paid by somebody.

We aren't getting paid by anybody, unfortunately. Our only income for Downhill Battle has been from donations, t-shirt / sticker sales, and Google ads. We sell the t-shirts so cheap that we barely make any money off them (plus they're 100% Made in the USA so they're expensive). And we just started making money off Google ads last week (from sp2torrent.com). So that leaves mostly donations.

I can see how you'd be suspicious: Nick and I have put an enormous amount of time and energy into Downhill Battle (40-60 hour weeks for almost a year now) and in this country it's not exactly normal for people to spend that much time on something without getting paid. Without getting into a bunch of politics and philosophy about life, the short/broad explanation is we really think filesharing has the potential to make mainstream culture more participatory and way better-- and that's something we really care about. We have low living expenses: I don't have a car, or health insurance, or college loans to pay like a lot of my friends do. As long as I make a little money I can spend my time doing things I care about. I also spent a good part of the year working on a community computer lab: worcestercoop.org.

Eclectic noticed that we now have a few more people working on this project, and that's true too. Nicholas and I started the thing in August, and did it pretty much ourselves until spring. Then Jacob Berendes started helping us with mailorder stuff, and Nick Nassar with software. Tiffany Cheng has been helping too, but mostly on a related project where we're building activist web tools. When Jake started slacking, our friend Tricia started helping with mail order stuff. Over the summer, we also had an intern, Ian Callahan, who was getting paid by a grant from his school, UMass Amherst. We have a pretty tight group of friends here in Worcester, so we're always getting involved in each others' projects.

Right now we're looking into getting funding to build activist web tools, and that might happen, but if anyone knows of anybody who wants to pay us to do Downhill Battle, please email me! I've heard from more connected friends that a big part of the reason we aren't getting funding from groups like the DCIA or P2P United is that we sometimes explicitly advocate copyright infringement as civil disobedience (like in the Grey Tuesday protest, for example).

In a way I'm kind of psyched that Eclectic is suspicious of us receiving funding because we do so much. It's sort of like when a teacher accuses you of getting help on a paper because its' too well written :) One half of me is pissed off but the other half is flattered...

2) We list our (extremely low) living expenses on a wiki.

Yup, at the beginning of the summer we had to figure out the bare minimum we needed to live. We haven't really even been making that much from donations, so we've been dipping into savings. As somebody already pointed out, the amount of money we're talking about here doesn't even approach the low-end salary for a single person working at a nonprofit. Again, if somebody would like to give us money with no strings attached, just send us an email :)

3) We have stuff on our site about Go-Kart records and they're a DCIA member.

This one's easy. We interviewed Go-Kart about half a year before they joined the DCIA. Check out these three links:
http://www.openp2p.com/pub/a/p2p/2003/09/25/gokart.html
http://www.downhillbattle.org/interviews/gokart.php
http://www.dcia.info/News/newsletter_2004-05-24.htm#Welcome

The first is an interview with Greg Ross from Go-kart in O'Reilly OpenP2P. They interviewed him because around the time the RIAA started suing families, he was making a bunch of awesome statements about how their actions didn't represent independent labels. We wanted to interview him too, so we emailed him (sometime in October I think) and then we finally put the interview up in November--it was our first interview. In the last link (to the DCIA newsletter), you can see that Go-Kart didn't join the DCIA until 6 Months later, in May of 2004.

So, for the sticklers out there, we put all of that stuff about Go-Kart up way before they joined the DCIA. Again though, like I said in that email to Eclectic, I wouldn't worry about Go-kart records, they seem pretty legit to me.

4) P2PCongress.org has a plug for TrustyFiles, some sketchy proprietary p2p app put out by RazorPop, a DCIA member.

The short answer: we didn't put up that link to TrustyFiles, and we always encourage people to avoid ad-supported clients, since--as you know--they usually suck. The long answer: P2PCongress.org was a collaboration between Downhill Battle and ClicktheVote.org, which is run by John Parres. Nick from Downhill Battle did the design for the page (looks nice, right?) and I wrote a draft of the text, but John did the final draft of the text. To be honest, I think he didn't do the best job. Have a look:
http://p2pcongress.org

The phrase "Patriot-to-Patriot" and "For shame!" are tacky-as-hell, and some of the sentences are pretty sloppy. On the right, the "eDonkey Magnet Link" isn't even a link. If you've got an eye for stylistics and grammar, you'll probably be able to tell the difference between that text and the writing on the sites we do. We also try our best not to put up links that aren't links (though I might have done that in this email a few times :). My purpose here isn't to diss on John Parres--I think he was really pressed for time when he put that page together -- but it should be clear to folks who know our work that we didn't do the text.

The TrustyFiles thing wasn't in the draft we sent, but I wasn't going to bug him about it. John Parres started the Pho list, which is a huge email list about digital music issues, and so he knows everybody in the whole digital music business scene. I'm not sure, but I expect that Marc Freedman of RazorPop fame asked him to put in a plug to TrustyFiles, and he didn't think twice about it and did it just to be nice.

5) Eclectic got an email from RazorPop to an address he gave us back in the fall.

Like I said, this one is weird and I don't have anything close to a good explanation for it. We've never given our email lists to anybody; we know how strongly people feel about privacy and we have no desire to fuck with that. I can only think of two possibilities.

One: it's a coincidence.
If you run a p2p site then it's totally in RazorPop's interest to contact you to try to plug their stuff. If they knew a bit about Greek mythology they might've guessed. I know that's unlikely, but as far as I know right now it's just as unlikely as the other possibility, which is:

Two: somebody who volunteered for us dicked us over.
Because we didn't have any CMS going at the time, we needed to find a volunteer to help maintain the list of sites on stopriaalawsuits.com, since more and more people were joining each day. He had access to the email account, so he could have dumped all the addresses. He didn't at all seem like the kind of guy who would do that, though. If you want, we can look into that possibility. It seems like the best thing to do would be for us to email some portion of the people on that list and see if they also received emails from Razorpop.

Sorry I don't have more for you on this. I'll try emailing some of the people on that list to see if they also got your Razorpop email.

So anyway, there it is.

We work on Downhill Battle because we think it's a hugely important fight and because we've been able to make a difference. We only get money from donations, the money we get is barely a salary for one person, and there are four of us, so this is definitely not a money-making venture. We interviewed Go-Kart and linked to them way before they joined the DCIA, and the many problems with the final text on P2PCongress.org--including the cheesy stuff, grammar problems, and the plug for TrustyFiles--weren't our fault because we didn't do the final text. I have no idea how that email thing happened but we're going to check with other people whose emails we have for stopriaalawsuits.com and see if they were also contacted by RazorPop.

As for a connection between us and the DCIA? There is definitely a "connection" but we don't make relationships with anybody that would compromise our independence. I spoke with Marty Lafferty at the DCIA on the phone two or three times last spring, and we met both him and Adam Eisgrau from P2P United at the "Future of Music Summit", which is a big get together of independent music folks and music policy types (http://futureofmusic.org/). *We talked to a lot of people at that Future of Music meeting-- Nick even had a pretty relaxed conversation with Cary Sherman, the filesharer's anti-christ himself (I wish I had a picture!). When you're trying to be an effective activist you have to talk to everybody. And both Marty and Adam are a pleasure to talk to, really, since they're both extremely smart and understand how to fight these legislative attacks on filesharing (like the INDUCE Act) better than anybody.

**okay, the messageboard software says this post is too long, so see the next post for the rest of this message.**

[Holmes Wilson]

This post is a continuation of the previous one, since the board software said it was too long

Eclectic- you said it yourself about us in your first post: you like lots of the stuff we do, but you don't agree with our endorsement of the EFF's VCL proposal. Well, we like most of the work Marty Lafferty does lobbying Congressional representatives to vote against awful bills like the INDUCE Act and we support that, even if we're a bit sketched out by DRM and by Kazaa's obvious ambitious to become an online distribution channel for Hollywood and the major labels. (Really though, we're not especially worried: we think DRM will always be a huge failure and that hell will freeze over before Hollywood gives Kazaa a penny).

We've never accepted money from the DCIA, or advertising, or any material support. *And the only time I've accepted money from P2P United was when I went out to lunch with Adam Eisgrau and a few professors at the Future of Music conference--- when the check came Adam insisted on paying. *I think my pasta was about $8 ... if I'd known he was paying I would've ordered more!

If they wanted to give us money to do stuff we're already doing I might not have a problem with that, but they've never offered. *I've heard (but not from them, so this may not be true) that they're uncomfortable funding us because we sometimes explicitly advocate copyright infringement as civil disobedience (as in the Grey Tuesday protest, for example). Any p2p company needs to stay squeaky-clean legally otherwise it could come back to kick them in the ass in court.

Like I said before, we are always super-overwhelmed with work and I don't have too much more time I can spend discussing this online. If people are interested, I think the best way to handle this would be a conference call sometime in the evening, when lots of people will have free calls on their cellphones. I definitely want everybody to be satisfied on this, but talking is a ton faster that writing. If folks can decide on a good time some weekday evening, we can all use freeconference.com. Then maybe somebody could summarize that call for everyone else on this messageboard. How does that sound?

And Eclectic, as for your other set of questions I'll have to save that for a later message, because I'm way out of time for today.

Holmes Wilson
Downhill Battle

[eclectica]

Holmes thanks for replying to the questions and allegations.

I was looking more into that email issue in order to see if it was a mistake on my end that caused it. I sent you the email to sign onto the coalition (http://www.boycott-riaa.com/article/8445) of sites 2003-10-14. I received three emails from Stop RIAA Lawsuits sent to everybody in the coalition. The first was sent on 2003-10-14 titled "A Wonderful Start", the second on 2003-10-20 titled "It Has Begun", and the third on 2003-10-29 titled "The Boycott Continues". But the one sent on October 20 had all on the email list available to see, while the other ones had the recipient list surpressed. So that's how it seems I got on the RazorPop mailing list. It does not implicate Downhill Battle as having secretly shared a mailing list with RazorPop. And you know what, that's not a problem for me. Also I checked again and I've gotten three emails from RazorPop. The first one was sent on 2003-10-20 just 3 hours and 52 minutes after the unsurpressed Downhill Battle email, the second on 2004-06-07, and the third on 2004-07-19. The one on July 19 caught my attention particularly because it was addressed specifically to that obscure email address of this domain rather than having a supressed list.

[tm.]

I always hate it when I give someone my email address and then it ends up on a cc list distributed to many people getting the same copy of email.

One of Downhill Battle's supporters is ES5, and Steve Cohen is said to be a professional spammer - though since spammers typically handle address lists with users numbering into the millions, for Steve to incorporate your mail address into his spam engine would barely be worth the bother.

[eclectica]

There are three major players in the filesharing and music industry debate. The first one is the big record companies, as represented by the RIAA. The second group is the musicians who make the music. And the third group are the listeners and fans who like the music, as represented by unrestricted p2p filesharing.

The musicians have lately been represented by advocacy groups such as independent record labels, the Future of Music coalition, DCIA, EFF, Downhill Battle, and P2P United. Yet while those groups all claim to take up the cause of p2p filesharing not one of them supports it fully and freely. Every one of those so-called "music" or "p2p" activist groups really isn't about freedom for music or p2p filesharing. They support some kind of model which would compensate musicians financially. For example, from the EFF's Voluntary Collective Licensing proposal (http://www.eff.org/share/collective_lic_wp.php), is the following statement:
"First, artists and copyright holders deserve to be fairly compensated."
And from the Future of Music Manifesto (http://www.futureofmusic.org/manifesto/) is this:
"The Future of Music Organization is founded on the belief that creation is valuable and should be compensated. Our work will encourage the development of innovative Internet music business models to guard the value of musicians' labor and ensure that artists will continue to be paid for their compositions and performances despite drastic changes in methods of distribution."

The musicians would like to tap, harness, and restrict the power of p2p filesharing to their own benefit with adware or DRM. But the revolution calls for the music to be set free beyond even their control. The changing of the masters of music from big record companies to musicians is hardly revolutionary. The real revolution would be to set the music free for the people, and the only way to do that is through unrestricted p2p filesharing. Stripping the commercialism and profit motive out of music will be the real revolution. There are plenty of artists who create music without any hopes of financial reimbursement. The real revolution is going on, and it is through p2p filesharing, unlocking the music and giving it to the people and the listeners who give it value by appreciating it. Without the listeners, music has no value.

We in the p2p filesharing community ought to be careful of the intentions of these activist groups who we've been led to believe represent us. They are cashing in on the power of the people when they say they are working for the interests of p2p filesharing or music. Their benevolence is merely coincidental. We are both intent on weakening the power of the traditional business model as represented by the RIAA and the big record companies. But for them it is not to set the music free, but to simply change hands from one master to another.

The day that artists recognize that there is no money to be made in their works, yet they continue to produce because it is in their nature, is the day that we have succeeded and then the music will truly be set free and belong to us, the fans. That is the real revolution that p2p filesharing will bring about. Artists don't have a birthright to be millionaires and shouldn't expect to make any money off of their product. What makes them artists is their expression of creativity and passion. Anyone who creates art for the sake of making money is not a real artist.

[Drake]

We are both intent on weakening the power of the traditional business model as represented by the RIAA and the big record companies. But for them it is not to set the music free, but to simply change hands from one master to another.


I agree.



The day that artists recognize that there is no money to be made in their works, yet they continue to produce because it is in their nature, is the day that we have succeeded and then the music will truly be set free and belong to us, the fans. That is the real revolution that p2p filesharing will bring about. Artists don't have a birthright to be millionaires and shouldn't expect to make any money off of their product. What makes them artists is their expression of creativity and passion. Anyone who creates art for the sake of making money is not a real artist.

I think that artists will always be able to make money, even if copyright infringement would cease to exist. Some people will always prefer to buy a CD, rather than download music. Music fans will always pay to go watch their favourite bands perform in a live concert and they will continue to purchase merchandise.

Neither the RIAA nor DCIA truly care if artists are compensated properly. The RIAA is trying to maintain their stranghold over the huge revenue being generated from music sales and the DCIA is trying to get some of that mulla.

[Holmes Wilson]

Okay, so the mysterious RazorPop email issue is resolved. It actually only happened because we were idiots about using BCC. Our bad.

Holmes

[Holmes Wilson]

We in the p2p filesharing community ought to be careful of the intentions of these activist groups who we've been led to believe represent us. They are cashing in on the power of the people when they say they are working for the interests of p2p filesharing or music.

A little bit of honesty and perspective, please.

First: we aren't "cashing in"--and thanks to that non-public but unsecured page you posted from our website-- you know it. At this point, we're just about close to breaking even on the money we've sunk into the project and we haven't even begin to cover our living expenses. Be honest.

Second: no one has "led you to believe" they represent you. We don't claim to represent you. We lay what we do on the table and if you want to be effective you just have to decide whether the best way to do that is by supporting our plan, making your own plan, or settling on some combination of the two. If you want to to keep free filesharing networks alive, I'd argue that we're doing a way better job promoting your interests than you yourself are. The same is probably true of the DCIA, unless you're up to some secret shit I'm not privy to. But whatever, it's your decision whether you want to work with us, somebody else, or do your own thing.

And I know I'm being firm here, since I take this stuff seriously. But I have no doubt you could get something going on your own if you spent the time on it. There's tons of work to be done and you don't have to be a rocket scientist to make a pretty big difference.

[eclectica]

we aren't "cashing in"--and thanks to that non-public but unsecured page you posted from our website-- you know it. At this point, we're just about close to breaking even on the money we've sunk into the project and we haven't even begin to cover our living expenses.

When I used that specific phrase "cashing in" I was referring to the power of the people rather than to money.

I like p2p filesharing and I don't expect to ever get an income from it. I think that in order to do it properly one has to expect to lose money. The reward will be for me that I'm doing something that I like to do, like a hobby. People lose money off of the pursuit of their hobbies and leisure activities. I think artists ought to be the same way and not expect their art to be an exclusive source of income.

Holmes, you founded the Downhill Battle site a year ago, but I'm wondering what you were doing, say two years ago, and what made you decide to make a full time career out of "p2p activism". I don't know anything about your history before Downhill Battle.

[Drake]

If you want to to keep free filesharing networks alive, I'd argue that we're doing a way better job promoting your interests than you yourself are. The same is probably true of the DCIA, unless you're up to some secret shit I'm not privy to.


The DCIA promotes P2P for the purpose of commerce, they have no interest in free file sharing networks.

[Holmes Wilson]

Holmes, you founded the Downhill Battle site a year ago, but I'm wondering what you were doing, say two years ago, and what made you decide to make a full time career out of "p2p activism". I don't know anything about your history before Downhill Battle.

Eclectic- that's totally our fault for not putting up more biographical information on our site. Actually, we're working on a draft of bios for the site right now--I pasted it in below. The short answer is: two years ago I was starting my last year in college. Exactly two years ago today I was in Florence, Italy, preparing to come home after a year studying there. The year after that I finished college (here: http://holycross.edu), and started the Worcester Computer Co-op (http://worcestercoop.org) because I'm also really interested in the free software movement and community building work.

In terms of what motivated us to start the site, it was mostly the feeling of reading the press coverage on the filesharing issue and just pulling our hair out at how much the RIAA had been able to twist the debate. We just intended to put up a website reminding everybody how worthless the major record labels were, and that if filesharing was making them go extinct, that was a good thing. As we started to get more involved in the issue, we realized it went a lot deeper than we thought, and realized that music was on the front lines of a much larger war about copyright, corporate power, and culture. If you asked me 8 months ago (maybe less) I would have told you I'd be working on the U.S. election right now. But that happens sometimes: you just get sucked in.

Speaking of sucked in, I think I've gotta make this my last post to this board. If you want to be in touch, feel free (both email and phone are on the website).

Anyway, here's that bio:
Nicholas Reville
He received a BA from Brown in Public Policy. Before co-founding Downhill Battle, he did Political Consulting work in New Mexico, New York City, and Providence and has also taught English in China.

Selling points:
Plays guitar, was in a band in highschool, whose name we can't reveal. Ran #1 trafficked website in 1997 after Yahoo and a few others. Semi-professional photographer. Reads many newspapers, magazines. Erudite and warm.


Tiffiniy Cheng
She received a BSE in Urban Planning from the Cooper Union.
Previous to DHB, she did Urban Planning and Community Development work in New York City, Philadelphia and Worcester. She is currently writing an Urban Planning curriculum for a Philadelphia high school and works on participatory culture projects.

Selling points:
Last year, was in a two-women band called Pinkerton. Reads books and newspapers. Amazing dancer and almost tame.

Holmes Wilson
He attended the University of Chicago, couldn't stand it, then went on to receive a BA in Italian Literature from Holy Cross. He studied Italian and culture in Florence Italy for a year and has done some Italian translation work. He worked at a community development group in New York City and founded the <a href="http://worcestercoop.org/">Worcester Computer Co-op</a> with another friend prior to founding Downhill Battle.

Selling points:
Promoted outlaw dance parties. Got sick of the internet in 1996, got back into it after 9/11. Articulate and funny-looking.

Nick Nassar
He received a BS in Computer Science and International Studies from W.P.I. and grew up in Winslow, Maine. He worked with UNESCO in Bangkok, Thailand. Founded Global Action Justice Club at the almost all-male (joke: I hear they're going co-ed next year), mostly science-oriented WPI.

Selling points:
Dabbled in home electronics, built a robotic arm, connected it to a computer. #2 in his home state of Maine for wrestling--has taken down everybody in Worcester. Reads the internet. Clark Kent look-alike.

Rebecca Laurie
Attends Sarah Lawrence College and interns at Team Love. She's from Northhampton, MA. She also interned at Matador Records, last year.

Selling points:
Ran the #1 Foofighters fan website. Formally idiosyncratic and loyal. Incredibly connected and connectable. Reads magazines.

Jake Berenedes
He runs Fujichia Records and makes a ton-shit of music. As a musician, he does electronic and punk stuff. He hand-screens all downhillbatle t-shirts. He is currently in Jacob Berendes, and Puzzled Panther, a band which includes Holmes's younger sister and two young children.

Selling Points:
Largest record collection. Folklore-ish and tame. Only one in group with an iPod--iPod purchased for him under strange circumstances by friends' wealthy dad. Reads magazines, zines and books.

[nanook]

When it comes to the issue of p2p filesharing I am totally opposed to any commercialism in it. I also find that framing the issues in economic terms is unacceptable. It's quite common to talk about how CDs are overpriced or how the money doesn't go to the artists. And to talk about boycotting the record companies, is again an economic approach. Overlooked in the economic hype is how p2p filesharing comes from the drive in people to share what they love, such as their music, with others. It makes it no less significant or less meaningful that those within the international p2p filesharing community are located thousands of miles apart from each other. p2p filesharing is a major social movement that is not driven by economics.
The heart and soul of p2p filesharing is a common brotherhood based on the love of music. In that regard it must be viewed as a religion and a way of life rather than from an economic perspective.


excellent information, especially since i've been out of the "p2p" loop, lately.

i have to agree with the bolded text. as for a religion, well, to each their own.
as John Lennon once wrote, "maybe i'm a dreamer...", yes, it is good to dream, but i don't ever see your particular dream, eclectica, becoming a reality.
money is what makes the world go around, and an ever increasing, young population has seen this greed, first-hand, and wants it as well, if not more. that is the future i see coming...commercialism in the fullest-of-swing.
and p2p won't be left out in the cold.

but let us toast to the dream, nevertheless. cheers!

[eclectica]

money is what makes the world go around, and an ever increasing, young population has seen this greed, first-hand, and wants it as well, if not more. that is the future i see coming...commercialism in the fullest-of-swing.
and p2p won't be left out in the cold.

Adding commercialism to p2p filesharing is not inevitable, though it was to be expected that someone would try it.

Say NO to p2p prostitution; the best things in life are free.
:eatout:

[Drake]

Adding commercialism to p2p filesharing is not inevitable, though it was to be expected that someone would try it.

Say NO to p2p prostitution; the best things in life are free.
:eatout:


It's been happening for a while now. The FastTrack network used to be completely free, but file sharers can now purchase files on that network.

Eventually, the MPAA or RIAA will agree to do business with the DCIA and we'll be seeing a lot more files for sale. But there will always be free P2P networks and we should all continue to inform people about how restrictive DRM is.

[nanook]

Say NO to p2p prostitution; the best things in life are free.
:eatout:


Well said!



It's been happening for a while now. The FastTrack network used to be completely free, but file sharers can now purchase files on that network

Eventually, the MPAA or RIAA will agree to do business with the DCIA and we'll be seeing a lot more files for sale. But there will always be free P2P networks and we should all continue to inform people about how restrictive DRM is.


And, Drake, I didn't know this fact about the fasttrack network. I don't use it and as I said to eclectica, I've been out of the p2p loop for awhile now.
I agree, there will always be free p2p on the net.