So I saw this post here a couple days ago about music piracy and got interested in soulseek. I’ve installed nicotine in a docker container and started searching for some music. I’ve found some pretty hard to find music and this album my father used to have in vynil when I was a kid. Cool. But the files had PRIVATE written on them… Tried to download but the user did not share them with me. My question is: what’s the point of sharing folders in a p2p program and denying access to these folders? I mean…just don’t share it if you won’t let anybody download it. Am I missing something in order to download this album?
I’ve asked many of them, including one who wanted not only a vinyl for a vinyl but one with an equivalent number of tracks. They never answer me, because they never arrived at their absurd position using reason to begin with. They fundamentally misunderstand p2p filesharing, in that they believe it’s a zero-sum game.
Your best attack: polite annoyance. Ping them when you see them. Hi x. I want to download from you. My files are available - Soulseek is for sharing. Please give me access, even if it’s temporary/capped transfer. It would be great to see more people use private chat to wear them down and call out poor behavior. Even if they block you, that’s still a bit of overhead they’re having to contend with.
Your best defense: modeling the behavior you want to see. Traders are still very much a minority. Keep online over the long term, keep your shares available, and they’ll stay that way.