V2V - A User Built Infrastructure for Video Distribution

Background Since the beginning freedom to communicate has been bridled by costs of production and distribution. Gutherberg, creator of the first modern printing press, was himself the first victim of media venture capitalism, losing his machinery to the financier Fust shortly after its completion. Books however required transportation and booksellers to distribute them, and especially where controversial materials were at issue this was a risky affair - twenty years prior to the liberation of the Bastille nearly 40% of those locked within its walls were serving sentences related to the booktrade. The twentieth century had its own form of controls, more tactful and becoming a civilised dictatorship of opinion. Distribution mechanisms were bought up and cartellized; alternative models such as cable or satellite required a level of investment that demanded commercial for-profit operation, all carried out under a state of artificial scarcity imposed by government through its management of radio spectrum. With the award in 1996 of a huge slice of the radio licenses to the incumbent television networks under the pretext fo the need to shift to High Definition Television the US government left no doubt that the synergistic utopia between the forces of media power and the political class remained intact.

Simultaneous with these developments however there was another: the formation of diffuse networks sharing files horizontally, parsing information for one another, recombining each other's data and forwarding it onwards. This tendency received a quantum boost in 1999 with the emergence of the first mass file sharing tool Napster that established the technical conditions for the massive point to point transfer of media files directly from one user to another using HTTP. This tool rendered clear to users what would later be articulated by network analysts as the fundamental characteristics of digital production. First both the inputs and the outputs were informational. As such they had what are known as 'public good' characteristics, namely that the cost of paying for initial production includes does is that of all subsequent copies. Furthermore the ability of one person to use the data does not hinder from the opportunity for any other to use the same data. Secondly, co-operation was made easy by a huge decline in communication costs, so that all one needed to know was whether a file was online at a given time or not, and this functionality was handled by the search interface. Thirdly, the ease of connecting the network provided a gigantic base of users with different types of files - elsewhere peer systems have succeeded by providing access to a panoramic range of living labour. Fourthly, all of these things had been rendered possible by the massive decline in cost of computational equipment capable of processing, storing and retrieving widely dispersed data - this apparatus provided both a means of production, and when attached to the network, a means of distribution.

As the jaws of the law closed in on Napster, and the latter attempted to weather the storm by becoming a commercial operation and initiating negotiations with commercial interests nominally owning the digital goods being shared, numerous alternative file-sharing systems arose and flourished. Most of these networks however contained similar content predictably mainstream in character, and so the process of user passivity to protagonism seemed stalled, locked into the prison of the imagination that had been constructed by decades of marketing, promotion and imagineering.

V2V V2V is conceived as an answer to several problems. The first is to make critical and creative work more widely available and familiar. Secondly to lay the plumbing of a network upon which people will be able to build their own gateways, according to their subjectivity. Thirdly to encourage users to make their to allow their materials to be used as building blocks for others. Fourthly to enable a space for users and producers for feedback and the development of relations.

The fundamental resource necessary for V2V are plentiful bandwidth and storage space. Many high-speed services now charge a flat rate based upon the presumption that users will only use a fraction of their notional capacity creating a surplus available for allocation to purposes other than personal data transfers. Likewise the dizzying speed at which hard disk space has grown means that many users have surplus memory that they do not need. These two factors combined with evolving peer to peer protocols satisfy the necessary requirements to begin building a user-based infrastructure.

Given the permeation of internet coordination into social radical organizing that community is already quite elaborately networked. Communications have emphasized organization of demonstrations and events, or the development of common analytical resources however rather than the collectivization of unused transmission resources.

Increasing amounts of our media consumption are digitally delivered while commodity process continue to drive down the price of equipment and connectivity such that what today appears as a service available only to limited sections of the population will be extended to the population as a whole. By assembling this infrastructure now we can anticipate these developments, refine our techniques and be ready to convey our meanings to a wider audience.

Sustainability & Scalability Our history is littered with the contradictions of independent media structures and few have managed to retain their integrity. The reason for this has been the cost-sustainability nexus. As a magazine's readership grows printing costs increase, the level of commitment required of the writers rises and deals with commercial distributors become difficult to avoid. Typically two outcomes emerge. The first is dependency on external forms of funding from foundations, arts councils or private individuals. As anyone who has failed in a grant application is well aware, this reliance introduces distortions, both obvious and subtle, in purpose and self-perception. This tension is accentuated as the project expands and the discrepancy between external funding and internal revenue generation grows.

Professionalization is the other path that often awaits sometime critical endeavours. Daily newspapers such as Liberation and Tageszeitung in Europe are good examples of this, as are the various free-sheets in the United States such as Village Voice. Over time this commercialization eviscerates the critical quality of the work and imposes a 'mainstreaming effect'.

Peer to peer forms have the potential to scale through these difficulties without imposing financial burdens. As a network widens, its new participants bring additional resources so that the 'load' is distributed over a greater number of machines. The programme that we recommend for downloading files "Bit Torrent" illustrates this point. the performance of file sharing protocols such as Gnutella and Fast Track (Kazaa, Grokster) is handicapped by the fact that there are many users who only download files and do not contribute resources to the network. This is the problem economists classically refer to as 'the tragedy of the commons' or 'free riding'. In short the refusal of some to share inhibits the functioning of the system as a whole. Bit Torrent distinguished itself from these protocols by hardwiring in the code the obligation to share a file as one downloads it. The initial source of the file is known as a 'seed' and it distributes different components of the file to requesting clients. Each client is also connected to a 'tracker' that monitors which users are active and which elements of the file are in their possession. Via the tracker the clients then begin a coordinated exchange of packets between one another, gathering data from multiple sources simultaneously in a swarm formation. The result is that the higher the level of demand for a file, the more sources exist and the better the performance of the system.

Modus Operandi Submitting materials to the network requires the following steps. First the file should be compressed with the codec of your choice. If pressed we commend VP3 and XVid because of their non-proprietary character or DivX because of its efficiency and ubiquity. Ultimately however such technical determinations are not the province of V2V. The file should then be renamed following our naming convention, which means simply the addition of v2v_ before the file name. This convention makes it easier for users to search for independent files within the larger sea of music and video files.Basic data about the file must then be provided by filling in a form at v2v.indymedia.de that provides a summary of the genre, length, size, format, description, language and license type. When completed this file downloads to your desktop. Both the media file and the .info metadata form should then be placed in a folder with same name as the file and the uploaded via FTP to a V2V server. This means that the load of the initial wave of demand is spread over the servers and the time required to transfer is reduced.

The servers are set up with a scrip that proliferates the file through the server ring and generates three links. The first is a 'magnet' link and is commonly used by Gnutella Clients. The second is an eDonkey2000 link for clients of the eponymous network. The last is a torrent file, which must be downloaded and then opened to commence the transfer. Finally the news of the file's release appears on a V2V site/RSS containing both the basic metadata and the p2p links.

A Syndicated Network and No Exclusive Gateway V2V is a protean group composed of many diverse subjectivities. To try and capture them all in a definition of political purpose or cultural hue would be reductive and futile. The characteristics of the network also make it unnecessary. V2V is an infrastructure project to which each can build their own gateway. Files uploaded are published to an RSS (really Simple Syndication) wire that can be integrated into any page alongside one's own content or links. We urge others to form their own release groups, digitizing and making available files that reflect their interests. Individual Bit Torrent files and edonkey links can easily be copied and added to pages or emails.

A Community of Produsers "...where the gift is concerned, goods circulate in the service of ties. Any exchange of goods or services with no guarantee of recompense in order to create, nourish, or recreate social bonds between people is a gift. We intend to show how the gift, as a form of circulation of goods that promotes social bonding, represents a key element in any society." Jacque Godbout

Cultural workers are standardly used as source of moral authority by the copyright lobby as if the production of capitalist culture was not also a matter of exploitation of artists. Despite common adversaries little meaningful dialogue has taken place between cultural workers and p2p users. Users are depicted in a parasitic light -- when not portrayed as 'pirates' or 'criminals' -- as their activity is presented as consisting only in the unsanctioned consumption of the work of others. The lucrative rewards of mass culture are available however only to a handful, those whom the entertainment magnates have decreed will receive millions of dollars of promotion. For the rest there is the work of the journeyman, debt or the part-time job.

What keeps most independent culture alive is the rich fabric of community that makes the uneconomic possible, the myriad DIY film showings and concerts, the small magazines and distros, the tapestry of email lists that provides a conduit for feedback, response, and engagement with the meanings produced. And of course there are the beds and couches to sleep on all over the world, the curious packages and letters received in the post. To this list of 'benefits' provided by users and peers we can add two others. The first is the actual physical and telecommunications platform upon which works can be hosted persistently and served at speeds that make viewing convenient rather than just feasible. Secondly the release of the material takes place into a crowd of potential emissaries, from individuals to independent film theaters and public access television.

Collaborative software allows commentary to be added directly to the notice of the film's release so that dialogue between users and producers occur, a dialogue which could relate to the substance of the film, the technique behind a shot, and offer of assistance or an invitation to present one's work. As the costs of equipment fall further, and video-editing skills proliferate, further inflections in literacy occur and more people will write audio-visually, Garage TV and Belles Images. Every user will also be a producer, and these categories will cease to have any salience in the age of the produser. This promiscuous mixing of images is anathema to copyright lovers and the interests behind them, but disturbs others as well, who have seen their work exploited, decontextualised and appropriated. Yet we know that copyright infringement makes no sound in cyberspace, and that such cries can serve to legitimize the fashion for extending control, monitoring and police-ware in the network. Away from the clumsy vice of the law space for reciprocal respect is fundamental. The licenses we attach to our achievements are signals about the way we want to be treated, appeals for fair attribution, for the protection of the subject, for protection against unjust profiteering. Mutual parasitism is possible but requires that we are all careful not to kill the host.

1. SETI example

2. Visibility

There's No Such Thing as Free Beer Limits of freedom: commodity form; sharing of mainstream media products contributes productively to maintaining mainstream preferences. Payment may be lacking but the formula upon which the media companies relies remain intact: popularity of their archive produces revenues to control contemporary production and marketing, guaranteeing their dominance over the future.

Product placement: millions of dollars are the evidence of the value producing capacity of media products as mirrors refracting our world, encouraging and fashioning consumption.

Distinction between free infrastructure and the affective effects of media in the production of exchange value. The first is the basis for the potential assault on the other, the possible platform for a self-determined reverse engineering of the mind. Without the second aspect the first loses its political significance, but it is necessary, it at least affords us the chance to make our own mistakes. When we counterpose free to proprietary, we are really talking about the problem.

path dependency

Some Consequences 1. Law 2. Censorship 3. Space of politicization created by repression of file trading laws.

joolsyp@blueyonder.co.uk Negri doc

I cycled passed many a broken demesne wall, once the sign of entrenched ascendancy, now the symbol of a passing order. The walls were built when the day's labour of a tenant was tuppence; bullock's blood had been added, it was said, to bind the mortar, and the people's blood, too. The Big House might be spruce, or gaunt in decay; weeds on the avenue and families without issue. Virtue and strength was going from the leeches who had sucked life from the people. The arid brittleness or the harsh brilliance of the ascendancy mind remained. I made the men manouevre in demesne land to rid them of their inherent respect for the owners.

On Another Man's Wound 85

Fragmentation and patchy organization provided the leitmotif for the demonstrations against the G8 Summit that took place in Evian at the beginning of June. Given the spatial decentralization of the actions between Annemasse (France) and Lausanne and Geneva (Switzerland) such a situation was predictable. This account derives from my experience in Geneva as part of the Geneva03.org live stream and is necessarily coloured and partial.

Swiss borders were already tightly controlled several days prior to the summit. Due to the time required to set up the studio we arrived on May 26th, but not before being subjected to extensive search and questioning by the zealous Swiss borderguards. White lies were repeated each time they sneakily tried to have us admit that we were going to the G8, but no dice, we denied all! Eventually they let us on our way and we took the road to Lausanne. There a small demonstration organised by high-school students was in course and the police made manifest their enthusiasm for overkill by posting a cop on the corner of literally every street in the centre of the city. But the demo was a serene affair and concluded on the central square, home otherwise to both the town hall and the incipient indymedia centre. Whispers suggested that Lausanne would be the focus of action for the more radical groups although local dynamics were to upset this prediction somewhat. Local authorities had put an official campsite at demonstrator's disposal, but it was essentially boycotted. Instead a rather beautiful lakeside location was selected, a campsite cheerfully called 'Oulala' autonomously installed, and a small media centre established.

Geneva is a mere half hour journey by car from lausanne so we moved on to rendez-vous with the others from our group. 'L'Usine' cultural center hosted our base of operations. Originally squatted in 1985 during the wave of struggles over space that swept Switzerland, l'Usine was subsequently purchased by the city council and legalised. A vast space the centre contains two large concert halls, a theatre, a beautiful cinema, restaurant, bar and numerous studios and offices, some of which are used the city council.

Thursday That evening we began the live stream with the broadcast of a public meeting organised by the No Border network on the joint themes of freedom of movement and freedom of information. The purpose was to promote the discussion of new political themes and attempt to tease out possible analogies between the application of management and control methods in these two very different areas. Practically the meeting also set out the reasoning behind the organization of the first International demonstration in Geneva, scheduled for the following day. This unauthorised demo targeted the institutional zone on the city's right bank, where the United Nations organizations are quartered, visiting the institutional homes of the World Trade Organization, the International Organization on Migration and the World Intellectual Property Organization. The meeting/broadcast outlined the background behind these institutions, discussed the relative autonomy of migrants and independent communications infrastructures, the political economy behind intellectual property expansion and its impact on everyday life. The centrality of migrant subjectivity, the force of their creative movement, was emphasised in opposition to traditional perceptions of migrants as victims to be sympathised with or ostracised.

Friday Shortly after 11.00 on friday morning we made our way to the Place Wilson which was the departure point for the demo. Several hundred people were already there and their numbers grew quickly with the arrival of large contingents from Annemasse and the Genevan campsites, swelling the numbers to a couple of thousand.

The WTO HQ was the first stop, the scene at this holy place for economic fundamentalists was quite surreal. Fenced off from the street the building is set back from the road with a lawn in front. The gates were closed and lines of police stood before the building itself. Two vans of cops were also stationed behind grills in what seemed like a small garage. This thin mesh was all that separated them from the demo and it seemed that they were placed there for sheer provocation, but apart from taunting and insult they were left unmolested. Speakers addressed the crowd on the delinquent urge to commodify everything that defines the WTO, and specifically attacked the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights annex to the GATT. This treaty is the basis upon which patents, copyrights and trademarks are coercively enforced worldwide with the threat, to those who do not abide by its cannon, of retaliatory trade sanctions on the agricultural and textile products that form the central part of developing economies. Using this mechanism, these countries are compelled to participate in the reinforcement of the system of structural economic injustice that keeps them in their abject poverty and dependence. As the speeches came to a close parts of the crowd bust open the gates of the WTO and began to attack the police and throw bottles and stones at the building. The No Border network however had been clear that the objective of the demo was not the physical assault on the buildings themselves but rather to develop the intelligence of our critical assault in general. Appeals were made to people to rejoin the demo and as the first volleys of tear gas drenched the air people regrouped and moved on to the next destination.

The International Organization on Migration, despite its typically technocratic title, is the foremost international institution treating migration as a 'management question', tweaking migrant fluxes so as to contain them within the demands of the economy and the power of the state. Their activities range from running seminars to discourage migration in some places, recruiting desirable labour in others, organising forced deportations, the erection of new border control posts in places such as the Ukraine and the administration of prison colonies such as the little known Island of Nauru in the Pacific. This tiny state otherwise devastated by phosphate mining is the location for what is styled a 'detention' and 'processing center'. While their work was being described windows were smashed at the back of the building bringing on another attack by the police, more gas and a couple of arrests.

Thus we made our way through the desolate but verdant roads to the final destination which lay on the fringes of downtown: the World Intellectual Property Organisation. After TRIPS had been rammed though the GATT, business interests together with their allies in the US, EU and Japanese governments shifted their focus to WIPO as a vehicle for the advancement of their interests. WIPO administer the Berne and Paris Treaties that govern copyright and patents/trademarks respectively, and it too is a UN organisation. Notwithstanding the numerical superiority of developing countries WIPO has only ever functioned to push the interests of the elitist cabal. Whilst supposed to provide 'technical assistance' to developing countries in the area of IPL law, they in fact see their mission as the expansion of private property interests everywhere. An example of this is their failure to encourage countries to take advantage of compulsory licensing provisions in patent law. The concrete effects of this can be seen in the area of pharmaceuticals; patents last 20 years during which time the manufacturer can charge whatever price they like because competition is ruled out. Compulsory licensing allows production despite the patent, and has been the means by which countries like Brazil have been able to tackle the AIDS epidemic. Anti-retroviral treatment - the main reason why the numbers dying of AIDS in the west have plummeted - originally cost 10-15,000 dollars a year under patent, but under compulsory license the same treatment can be acquired for $300 a year. In sub-Saharan Africa and the Caribbean this is the difference between life and death for tens of millions of people. Elsewhere, WIPO's 1996 copyright treaty mandated the introduction of laws to forbid the evasion of copyright management systems, electronic locks that seek to control our every use of media and condition it upon payment to the owner. Breach of these laws is to be punished with criminal sanctions.

At WIPO the speaker described the way that intellectual property laws consist in alienating workers from their own immaterial labour just as happens in the factory. What's more he stressed that the tendency to obscure the functioning of production through trade secrets and other forms of IP saps workers potential to be able to self-manage production themselves. The example of the occupied Zanon factory in Argentina was evoked: if the workers don't know how to keep the machinery turning, how could they ever take back control over production. He finished with a call for 'an army of ideas' to re-appropriate knowledge and turn it to good use - for our side.

The demo then continued through the city towards the Parc des Bastions - informal site for many discussions during these days. On the way a car showroom, petrol station and the offices of the International Chamber of Commerce had their windows broken in a rather systematic way, but things remained controlled and oddly calm.

I have described this event in some length as it has been overlooked in the accounts of others. As stated above, the purpose of the action was to introduce people to some new ideas and make them aware of less obvious sources of political power. All involved agreed that it was a great success, but in order for its ramifications to be the reasoning and content needs to be inserted into the communications circuit of our struggles.

No time to keep a journal these days, hectic and clamorous as they are, so just some stolen snapshots. Here's a piece lifted from Cory....

Let's take pictures at Starbucks! Lessig's got a great idea: let's all go commit "contributory trade dress infringement" by taking pix in Starbucks this weekend (maybe next holiday weekend we can do Toys R Us or one of the many other retail chains that ban photo-taking).

Story one: Last month while visiting Charleston, three women went into a Starbucks. They were spending the weekend together and one of them had a disposable camera with her. To commemorate their time with one and other they decided to take round robin pictures while sitting around communing. The manager evidently careened out of control, screaming at them, "Didn't they know it was illegal to take photographs in a Starbucks. She insisted that she had to have the disposable camera because this was an absolute violation of Starbuck's copyright of their entire �environment'--that everything in the place is protected and cannot be used with Starbuck's express permission.

Story two: At our local [North Carolina] Starbucks, a friend's daughter, who often has her camera with her, was notified that she was not allowed to take pictures in any Starbucks. No explanation was given, but pressed I would think that the manager there would give a similar rationale.

I wonder what would happen if hundreds of people from around the country experimented this holiday weekend by taking pictures at their local Starbucks �

Video Sharing

- This is what democracy looks like IMC based system of archiving - drop-off box - people parsed and logged - make copies now at the university in washington

- lots of spontaneous drop-offs; multiple angles; most footage used was from vvideo collectives;5 paper tiger/deep dish whispered media changing america bnf freelancers with whom there was a relationship james and penny (name forgotten)

michael eisenmenger, eric goladis, rick met at an autonomist media conference in texas wanted a general media space

*didn't anticipate how many people 110 people's used - informal, trust based network; no discussion about the terms of use. - tear gas, rubber bullets; nightly programme on deep dish (reason to collecdt, reason to contribute) - TIWDLL new idea, people enamoured, on a high - all contacted again - formal waivers - contracts - some collectives asked for money (2) flat rate and xtra if - those who looked for money had an experience of licensing footage previously - attrbution at the end of the film - cbc - waivers vital prime time before Quebec City - 500 hours off footage to go through

DC Breaking the Bank April 2000 (60 mins) - collaboratively edited tv programme - same protagonists from showdown in seattle - to go out over deep dish - 10,000 dollars, 5000 deficit (CBC) - no payment and no E&O for freespeech - BTB made not during afterwards - two days following protest, edited in new york - 5 groups + youth group plus owned media, sleeping giant (split from changing america) - no archive - not such a sophisticated tape collection system, not as many people to go through the materials - what - felt that SiS didn't cover enough the uissues adequately; which issues should be covered, overall look, committed to doing sections. - BNF did beginning end/end and bb segement - self selting; they chose them - BNF had done intros for SiS - people used mostly thgeir own footage but editing in the same space; rough cuts exchanged, footage that could supplement would be offered, or requests made for footage shot elsewhere and necessary for illustration - less hectic - less isolating - in seattle archive existed but didn't get used: deadlines, shot and post - pre-existing relationship - all the rest are really free standing - confversation about distribution; each group wopuld distribute on their own; money pooled to print tape covers and cover first batch of tapoes, and agreed on a standard price. - somewhere in the hundreds - not as many screenings as it was made for tv - made available on the web straight away - no contractual relationship - some criticuism of BtB from people of the 'openness of the process', wanted access

- edited in Changing america - limited equipment - guidlines circulated at meetings

Attempt by indymedia collectives lesewhere to assume control of democracy, breaking the bank, wanted to be able to use it for fundraisers, alienated many of the orignial collectives - boston IMC fundraiser incident

Prague - tried to make something similar; modularised; didn't work - longer

Quebec - Stefan Wray proposal - copyleft - no interest in making a film, no plan to make a television program - quebec city video mailing list (sharpie co-ordinating video contyributions) - not orghanised, no waiver - just gave footage to him; editing process dragged on for years, editing to produce a final product - people treated badly; urgent emails, fedex etc., false sense of urgency - no vision, jusrt a document, no group dynamic, no collective present in Quebec city, post-hoc, low level of communication and feedback.

Genova 2001 - november meeting - footage going somewhere - no updates for those who contributed - no indication of how the fottage would be used - no knopwledge about films coming out of it - no access to archive (was supposed to be circulated) - Sam, Hamish - no request for waivers - no clear understanding about how the footage would be treated - quid pro quo - assumed accreditation - zona rossa; tape arrived (footage used in crappy way, technically poor, shameful presentation, no credit)