Thread: What will piracy look like in 30 years?

Gather around children. Let grandpa Redacted tell you a story...

Around 1993-1994 I had my first computer. I got files BBS systems. I was able to get one number, and I cannot even recall how. But once I connected and found that I could download doom wads, 256 color porn images with European phone number BBS's advertised on them, and play door games -- I was hooked! I found a list of other BBS numbers in my area code from that one. Selection of files was very limited. It could take many hours to acquire one file on my 2400 baud modem.

I also traded floppies at school.

Then, around 1995 I got files from Usenet. Usenet was a hairy business and sometimes you couldn't find all the parts. You had to download a list of all the topics and then manually select all the parts for the file you wanted. I uploaded occasionally to usenet up until 98 or so. This was harder than it is now, with primitive usenet readers. I also got files from internal ISP Email attachments, the trades for which were arranged in ISP provided chat rooms --- This got me banned!

Then, around 1996 I got files from IRC DCC servers: You had to go into a channel, initiate a direct chat with a bot. You would navigate the file system by chatting with the bot, and then put in your selection. The selection on each bot was limited to one person's personal connection. Because of limited bandwidth you would then be put in a queue. And you would have to wait. I ran one of these for a while on efnet.

Then, in 1997 I got wise to some very well run personal FTP sites. These were mostly advertised on IRC. Selection, again was one person's stash. I ran one of these for a while.

Around that time there were websites that cycled up and down constantly. You could usually keep track of these sites by the index in their web ring. Usually the files were split and put onto several different free hosting accounts 1mb-10mb in size. These files would get taken down all the time so getting all the parts was an annoyance. I actually ran an abandonware site (Share the Juarez) for a while, but it was too much of a hassle keeping my content up. I often contributed to web ROM repositories (The Dump).

Also I was a CD Burner early adopter. I got a cheap 2x Ricoh CD burner ($500USD) by busting my ass doing yardwork all over the neighborhood. I traded CDs at school. I even traded them through the mail(!). A postage stamp had a better transfer rate than dial up!

Then, around 1999 I got files from Napster. This changed everything. You had access to everything that everyone on the network had in their share folder. No longer did you have just 1 person's collection to pick through, but many.

Then, around 2000 I got files from DC++, This served me a long time. You connected to a server, then you could download from anyone's share on the same server. Some of the better private servers had minimum share folder size requirements (like 60gb or more). This is where downloading movies finally became possible due to the new bandwidth that came about around this time.

Then, around 2001 I got files from Kazaa. Same as Napster, quickly turned to crap. But in its prime you had damn near everything!

Then, sometime around 2003-2004 I discovered torrents. Early on I mostly used small niche and forums-borne trackers. You might say its heyday has passed (Suprnova? TPB's prime?), but it is still the most effective distribution tool we've got. BT has been around this long, and I think it will last for quite a few more years. If you look at the history of trackers, there has been an evolution. Back in 2005, I am pretty sure there wasn't any huge, well supported private trackers like there are today. All the big trackers were public.

Recently you can get stuff on Rapidshare/Megaupload/Mediafire/etc. All right there on the web! Complete with throwbacks like passwords on the archives. Some things do come full circle. I know some people still swear by Usenet.

The authorities and service providers are getting wise to BT. To the point that using a public tracker is borderline legally dangerous. Many have been cloistering themselves away in increasingly private and exclusive trackers -- this will only buy a little more time.

What I hope will happen, and eventually will happen, is a greater encryption, distribution, and obfuscation of transfers to the point that what has been transferred and how much cannot be determined even by the ISP. Maybe a solution using multiple connections per user so no piece can be attributed to one source. This is all theory and I am no expert.

Anyway, this has been pretty much the history of my life of piracy. The point I set out to convey is that there will always be something new that comes along. Look at how many evolutions I went through over 16 or so years!

Piracy will never go away, unless media suddenly becomes free. It will only evolve.