donating to filesharing sites

Now I've never been the one to give money away. I don't typically donate to people begging on street corners. I pass when RIT hits me up for alumni money most times. I won't donate to causes that don't appropriately justify their work. I make Girl Scouts explain why I need to buy their cookies and high schoolers tell me why I need to buy their chocolate bars. So when LokiTorrent (now a MPAA billboard, bastards) declared they were being attacked by the MPAA and the site was looking for donations to mount a legal defense, I didn't cave. I didn't give a dime. Why? Because they weren't going to win. They were breaking laws and had no hope of winning. Did I take part in their thievery? I plead the fifth. But they were knowingly helping others share illegal files.

So I read on Slashdot that the whole suit may have been a hoax. While reading the allegation, written by another file sharing community, I began to think "Yep. Good call on that one Dave. If they're willing to so openly break the law they may just be scamming you on this one too."So as I continued reading I was convinced it was a hoax. I was happy. Yay.

But I kept reading on into the readers' comments. And I found the truth is probably somewhere in between. It sounds like an agreement was made quickly once the MPAA contacted the site owner. After the agreement was made, LokiTorrent then proceeded to publicly ask for donations to "mount their legal campaign." HA!

I guess what bugs me most about the whole thing is that BitTorrent sites are based on a community of (illegal) sharing. It policed itself. It supported itself with (other people's) donations to keep servers running. And when the bottom bricks began to be pulled out from LokiTorrent, the owner decided to take it out on the community by taking advantage of them. And I think that's a shame.

So I guess the moral of the story is: don't buy Girl Scout cookies. No... I think the moral is apparent. It's just a shame that things like this happen. I'm at least reassured in knowing the owner didn't make enough in donations to cover the MPAA penalty.