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The political argument is irrelevant for as long as the technology and payment (economic) models are irreparably flawed, as I explained above.
I am proposing a solution.
1. The DHT (a distributed database keyed on file hash that returns a list of repositories of the file) should be an orthogonal protocol to the storage repositories protocol. The DHT can be stored on users' computers operating P2P over the users' home ISP connections. This is a low bandwidth protocol, so won't violate the asymmetry of upload versus download bandwidth physics for home ISP connections which
I explained dooms Bittorrent.
2. Creators of files must have a means to record their policies (and also perhaps/optionally their verifiable identity). I have suggested that before they publish the file, they create a record in a block chain. Policies could include for example the crypto currency payment per download expected (this record could be updated on the block chain by the signer of the original record). To record a verifiable identity, I suggested including a SSL/TLS enabled URL and signing it with the public/private key of the site certificate, so that governments can blame the site owner for copyright infringements. If the URL is taken offline, then storage repositories should remove the file if they want to be compliant with government edicts (of course decentralized providers can do what ever they want). The protocol for the DHT could either honor (or not honor) the URL removals, so perhaps there should be two versions of the DHT so that at least the one that honors government edicts won't be banned by ISPs. Users could run both versions (if they can). Note afaik DHT consensus is like a block chain in that all have to agree (c.f.
David Mazières' work on Steller's SCP consensus protocol and the venerable Kademlia DHT), or if not the DHT could be combined with a longest chain rule of a block chain to enforce a global consensus on DHT policies.
3. Of course payment policies can't be enforced on decentralized storage providers and it is impossible to prove that files have been served and the crypto currency payment to the creator wasn't enforced by the storage provider, but content creators can't stop download theft by decentralized repositories any way. Note that any storage provider that advertises that it violates policies can thus be prosecuted by the State (and note this new design encourages storage repositories to be hosted not run from users' computers), so in reality the warez shit will remain non-mainstream same as for Bittorrent (e.g.
fraudster MegaFatKimDotCom shit will always be shut down by the State) because also note my point that the DHT can honor policies and thus without advertising the theft-oriented provider can't be located by users. The storage provider might also be charging a crypto payment for serving the file (and to fund its operation including the storage). So that solves the issue of how to pay for this system, because the irreparable concept of proof-of-storage/retrievability is discarded.
4. As for IPFS's concept of moving the cache of immutable content closer to the request (to reduce bandwidth consumption × distance), I think this can be handled by algorithms running on a layer on top of the DHT.
So this provides the best of all worlds. We also stop the asymmetric consumption of upload bandwidth
which Bittorrent is fucking up the internet with as I warned them in 2008.
Note afaik that none of the decentralized file systems currently proposed (and in development or near release) are implementing the above correct design. That includes MaidSafe, Storj, Sia, IPFS/Filecoin, etc..
I have emailed to Juan Benet, the creator of IPFS, a link to this.
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The political argument becomes relevant when it is proposed to incorporate the failed business models of big copyright into the Maidsafe blockchain. My take is that the Maidsafe community will have enough common sense to not make this mistake.
By the way ThePirateBay is alive and well after over 12 years despite the failed efforts of big copyright and one can type
GNU
into the "Pirate Search" and download all sorts of perfectly legal and non copyright infringing content.