I’m fascinated by the new sites that have popped up to replace shut-down P2P music piracy centers oink.cd and demonoid.com. These sites are still all invite-only and while a few snoopy leechers like myself have managed to drum up an invite, the vast majority of people there seem to be heavy file traders already.
These sites all attempt to encourage sharing by mandating that users maintain a certain ratio of music uploaded to music downloaded – failure to do so results in account deletion. Often, these sites offer additional privileges for users achieving a high ratio of music uploaded to music downloaded.
The cutoff for account deletion is usually specified as a ‘ratio’ of music uploaded to music downloaded – for instance, one might not be allowed to be below 0.5 for over a short period of time. These ratio schemes could just as easily be converted to a straight limit-based system, where downloads deduct from the amount available to download while uploads add an amount equal to the ratio of music downloaded to music uploaded (in other words, the inverse of the ratio as it’s usually expressed on tracker sites today.)
To illustrate, posit an imaginary pirate music community (capybara.fm, say) with a cutoff ratio of 0.5. A user that has downloaded 1 GB of music and uploaded 750 MB of music has a ratio of 0.75 and is good, a user that has downloaded 1 GB of music and uploaded 500 MB has a ratio of 0.5 and is borderline, and a user that has downloaded 1 GB of music and uploaded 250 MB has a ratio of 0.25 and will soon cease to be a user.
Now, let’s convert this to a limit-based system. Downloading a MB of music takes a MB off the user’s limit, but uploading a MB adds 2 MB (since the inverse of 0.5 is 2.) So the user that’s uploaded 750 MB and downloaded a GB still has 500 MB of limit to download, the user that’s uploaded 500 MB and downloaded a GB has no limit left, and the user that’s uploaded only 250 MB and downloaded a GB is running a negative balance of -500 MB (if the system even let him go negative to begin with.)
See? The ratio system and the limit system are functionally equivalent. However, a limit-based system has an advantage – it lets you compare user-to-user with a single number. After all, two users, both with a ratio of 1.0, might have contributed massively different amounts to a community – one might have uploaded and downloaded 1 GB, while the other might have uploaded and downloaded 10 GB. Under a limit-based system, the first user will have 1 GB of limit saved up, while the second will have 10 GB. Instantly distinguishable.
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