Intellectual Property Law

Waffles! Hydra! Pink!

By paul

OiNK’s new home page is now hawking waffles—and links to a Google search on”what to use instead of oink.” (The first result is brokep’s (of The Pirate Bay) blog post, appropriately titled, “What to use instead of Oink (waffleswaffleswaffles and jam).”)

This seems to be a message to the world to support the “hydra” model of seeding and leeching content: Use lots of little sites instead of gravitating to a couple of big ones. The beast should be a many-headed hydra, and when you cut off one head, two more grow to take its place.

brokep was the first to herald this idea:

?So public message to people - start up your own torrent sites, make the internet the hydra it is and needs to be. If there?s hundreds of sites, they can?t all be shut down. And well, if they shut down the few that are today, there will be hundreds of sites, I?m sure, but let?s start them before so we can spread the word of them easier.?

Here’s another write-up on the OiNK and brokep talking about the hydra concept.

What a fantastic, rich concept in such a fascinating application. Decentralize for stability. But also specialize to serve the market better. On top of it all—globalize to protect international civil rights.

So while in this current context, it’s just about sharing music, it points down to deeper core principles about how these types of movements need to operate.

Full post as published by BC Law Intell. Prop. & Tech. Forum on October 30, 2007 (boomark / email).