# Academic research — topic map

Annotated bibliography and synthesis for GTM / privacy topics discussed in this
kit. Maps **your arguments** to what scholarship actually supports, where evidence
is strong vs. inferential, and how to cite in founder materials.

**Not legal advice.** Use peer-reviewed and law-review sources for credibility;
policy reports for empirical procurement facts; your moral framing where scholarship
uses different vocabulary (e.g. "authoritarian" vs. "mass surveillance").

---

## Topic index

| Your topic | Research support | Section |
|------------|------------------|---------|
| Ad/tracking data → government mass surveillance | **Strong** (law + empirical procurement) | [§1](#1-commercial-surveillance--state-surveillance) |
| Businesses failing duty to consumers | **Moderate** (business ethics, consent failure) | [§2](#2-corporate-duty-consent-and-surveillance-capitalism) |
| Piracy objections vs. asymmetric industry power | **Moderate** (copyright critique, less on "home stack" specifically) | [§3](#3-copyright-industry-rhetoric-and-personal-media) |
| Streaming viewing data as surveillance surface | **Strong** (VPPA, platform privacy law) | [§4](#4-streaming-platforms-and-viewing-data) |
| Local-first / self-hosted as privacy alternative | **Emerging** (practice + policy; thin peer-reviewed "Jellyfin studies") | [§5](#5-local-first-and-personal-media-infrastructure) |
| Chilling effects of known surveillance | **Strong** (empirical) | [§6](#6-chilling-effects) |
| Napster / P2P as cultural-economic frame | **Strong** (media studies history) | [§7](#7-napster-p2p-and-the-netflix-era) |
| Capability-based product launches (GTM) | **Weak direct fit** — use business strategy lit. optionally | [§8](#8-gtm-and-incremental-launch-literature) |
| Netflix disrupted Blockbuster on price; consumers now pay more (stacking) | **Strong** (industry surveys + media economics) | [§9](#9-streaming-economics-netflix-blockbuster-and-subscription-stacking) |
| Open source → unkillable / forkable resilience | **Strong–moderate** (OSS governance + policy; "unkillable" is rhetorical) | [§10](#10-open-source-resilience-and-unkillability) |

---

## Tagline + three arguments — evidence at a glance

**Tagline (not an arg):** *Napster for Netflix* — see [§7](#7-napster-p2p-and-the-netflix-era).

| Arg | Claim | Cite freely? | Caveat |
|-----|-------|--------------|--------|
| **1** | Surveillance asymmetry | Mechanism: **yes** (Tokson, CDT, Reviglio) | "Fascist states" = founder rhetoric |
| **2** | Budget asymmetry | Disruption + fatigue: **yes** (Bango, Simon-Kucher, Christensen) | "Everyone pays more" → trend, not universal |
| **3** | Open source → unkillable | Fork/sustainability: **yes** (Nyman, EFF PII) | Requires **actual OSS release**; not legal immunity |

Local-first design supports the product story ([§5](#5-local-first-and-personal-media-infrastructure)) but is **not** a numbered argument.

---

## 1. Commercial surveillance → state surveillance

### What scholarship says

The pipeline from **ad-tech / data brokers** to **government access** is well
documented in law-review and policy research — not only as theory but via
contract analysis and agency procurement.

**Core mechanism:** Firms collect granular behavioral data (location, app usage,
browsing, RTB bid streams) for advertising. **Data brokers** aggregate and resell.
Government agencies increasingly **purchase** the same datasets to bypass warrant
requirements — what Tokson calls **surveillance interoperability** between
commercial and state actors.

### Key sources

| Source | Type | Finding relevant to your argument |
|--------|------|-----------------------------------|
| **Tokson, Matthew** — *Government Purchases of Private Data*, 59 Wake Forest L. Rev. 269 (2024). [PDF](https://www.wakeforestlawreview.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/10/Tokson_Final.pdf) | Law review | ICE/DHS/local police buy location data from brokers (e.g. Venntel); Fourth Amendment should apply; app consent is often meaningless; **commercial markets undermine constitutional privacy**. |
| **Rahbar, E.** — *Laundering Data: How the Government's Purchase of Commercial Location Data Violates Carpenter and Evades the Fourth Amendment*, Colum. L. Rev. (2022). [PDF](https://columbialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Rahbar-Laundering_Data_How_The_Governments_Purchase_Of_Commercial_Location_Data_Violates_Carpenter_And_Evades_The_Fourth_Amendment.pdf) | Law review | Post-*Carpenter*, buying location data from brokers is an end-run around warrant doctrine. |
| **Carpenter v. United States**, 585 U.S. 16-402 (2018). [Justia](https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/585/16-402/) | SCOTUS | Seven days of CSLI is a search requiring a warrant; foundational for "digital data reveals privacies of life." |
| **Center for Democracy & Technology** — *Legal Loopholes and Data for Dollars* (2021). [Report](https://cdt.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/12/2021-12-08-Legal-Loopholes-and-Data-for-Dollars-Report-final.pdf) | Policy / empirical | ~150 public documents on federal LE/intel **purchasing** broker data; ECPA loopholes; misleading "open source" labels in contracts. |
| **Reviglio, Urbano** — *The untamed and discreet role of data brokers in surveillance capitalism*, Internet Policy Review 11(3) (2022). [DOI](https://doi.org/10.14763/2022.3.1670) | Peer-reviewed | Brokers sell to **advertisers, insurers, police**; industry opacity; ties to Zuboff's "markets for future behavior." |
| **Brennan Center** — *Closing the Data Broker Loophole*; *The Government Can't Seize Your Digital Data — Except by Buying It*. [Reports](https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/research-reports/closing-data-broker-loophole) | Policy | Legislative framing; scale of broker-government market. |
| **EFF** — *Adtech Surveillance and Government Surveillance Are Often the Same Surveillance* (2023). [Link](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2023/10/adtech-surveillance-and-government-surveillance-are-often-same-surveillance) | Advocacy (expert) | Plain-language synthesis of broker pipeline for LE. |

### Ad-tech specifically (RTB)

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Ryan, Johnny** — *Adtech and Real-Time Bidding under European Data Protection Law*, German Law Journal. [Cambridge](https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/german-law-journal/article/adtech-and-realtime-bidding-under-european-data-protection-law/017F027B4E78EBCAE1DCBC1E12B93B9D) | Law journal | RTB broadcasts bid requests containing rich user data to hundreds of parties — structural privacy harm. |
| **ICO (UK)** — *Update report into adtech and real time bidding* (2019). [PDF](https://ico.org.uk/media2/migrated/2615156/adtech-real-time-bidding-report-201906-dl191220.pdf) | Regulator | Systemic special-category data leakage in RTB; industry-wide non-compliance. |
| **Olejnik, Łukasz** — RTB privacy analysis. [PDF](https://lukaszolejnik.com/rtb2.pdf) | Technical / policy | How bid streams enable reconstruction of browsing/profiles. |

### Citable sentence for founder materials

> Law reviews and procurement studies document that agencies from ICE to local
> police buy the same commercial location and behavioral datasets the ad industry
> collects — often explicitly to avoid warrants (*Tokson*, 2024; *CDT*, 2021;
> *Carpenter*, 2018).

### What scholarship does **not** automatically prove

- That **streaming studios** specifically operate the same broker pipelines as
  ad-tech (often **adjacent** — same ecosystem, different entity; tie via
  platform/data partnerships carefully).
- Your term **"fascist states"** — academia more often says *authoritarian
  regimes*, *mass surveillance*, *intelligence agencies*. The **mechanism**
  (commercial data → state access) is well supported; loaded political labels are
  **founder rhetoric**, not citations.

---

## 2. Corporate duty, consent, and surveillance capitalism

### What scholarship says

**Zuboff (2019)** frames surveillance capitalism as extraction of **behavioral
surplus** for prediction markets — a structural critique of business models, not
merely bad privacy policies.

Business ethics literature extends this: **consent is broken** (privacy paradox,
dark patterns), creating **duty-of-care** arguments without always using that
phrase.

### Key sources

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Zuboff, Shoshana** — *The Age of Surveillance Capitalism* (PublicAffairs, 2019). [HBS summary](https://www.hbs.edu/faculty/Pages/item.aspx?num=56791) | Monograph | Behavioral data → prediction products; "instrumentarian" power; markets in future behavior. |
| **Zuboff** — *Surveillance Capitalism*, *Journal of Information Technology* (2019). [ORU PDF](https://www.oru.se/contentassets/981966a3fa6346a8a06b0175b544e494/zuboff-2019.pdf) | Peer-reviewed article | Condensed theoretical framework. |
| **Journal of Business Ethics** Vol. 168(3) — special issue on surveillance capitalism & ethics (2021). [Springer](https://link.springer.com/journal/10551/volumes-and-issues/168-3) | Peer-reviewed | Corporate responsibility, harm, democratic implications. |
| **International Journal of Advertising** — ethics of surveillance capitalism (2022). [Taylor & Francis](https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/02650487.2022.2114700) | Peer-reviewed | Advertising industry ethical breach framing. |
| **ACRL** — *Dark Patterns, Surveillance Capitalism, and Business Ethics* (bibliography). [Link](http://sandbox.acrl.org/library-collection/dark-patterns-surveillance-capitalism-and-business-ethics) | Scholarly bib | Curated academic entry point. |
| **Hoofnagle, Chris Jay** — early data broker privacy work (2003+). Cited in Reviglio (2022). | Law | Foundational broker critique; consent inadequacy. |
| **McDonald & Cranor** — cost of reading privacy policies (~201 hours/year). Cited across broker literature. | Empirical | **Consent failure** as structural, not user fault. |

### Mapping to your "failing duty to consumers"

Scholarship supports:

1. **Asymmetric information** — users cannot meaningfully consent to broker chains.
2. **Harm externalization** — downstream government access is rarely disclosed in ToS.
3. **Democratic cost** — surveillance capitalism literature links commercial
   tracking to **weakened autonomy** (Zuboff; business ethics special issues).

Scholarship rarely says **"enabling fascist states"** in those words. Press-safe
upgrade: *"Commercial surveillance infrastructures are documented procurement
sources for government tracking programs, while consumers receive neither meaningful
consent nor protection from downstream state use."*

---

## 3. Copyright industry rhetoric and personal media

### What scholarship says

Copyright scholarship distinguishes **enforcement campaigns** from **consumer
practices** — often critiquing **moral panic** framing and **platform control**
over personal use/remix.

Direct academic work on **"self-hosted Plex-like stacks"** as piracy response is
thin; stronger lanes are **copyright overreach**, **personal copying**, and
**infrastructure control**.

### Key sources

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Lessig, Lawrence** — *Free Culture* (2004); *Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace* (1999/2006). | Books | Copyright + code/architecture as regulation; personal remix culture vs. permission culture. |
| **Patry, William** — *How to Fix Copyright* (Oxford, 2009). | Monograph | Industry enforcement often disproportionate; reform-oriented critique. |
| **Litman, Jessica** — *Digital Copyright* (2001). | Monograph | How copyright law drifted from consumer expectations. |
| **MPAA/RIAA campaign studies** — search term: "copyright moral panic" in media studies. | Variable | Industry frames copying as crisis; scholars note **rhetorical asymmetry** (less empirical on home servers). |

### Mapping to piracy objection response

**Supported:** Incumbents advocate **restrictions on general-purpose tools** while
operating data-intensive businesses — a **hypocrisy / asymmetry** argument aligned
with Lessig's "code is law" (architecture of streaming lock-in vs. local files).

**Unsupported as academic conclusion:** That any specific home-library app is
**legally** or **morally** insulated from infringement claims. Keep product fact +
user responsibility.

**Useful cite in debate:** Lessig — platforms encode policy in technology;
streaming UX as **controlled environment** vs. **owned files** as user-controlled
environment.

---

## 4. Streaming platforms and viewing data

### What scholarship says

**Video Privacy Protection Act (VPPA)** literature shows streaming-era **viewing
data** remains commercially and legally sensitive — yet platform practices often
outpace statute (family profiles, cross-device graphs).

### Key sources

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **O'Donnell, Anna** — *Why the VPPA and COPPA Are Outdated: How Netflix, Youtube, and Disney Can Monitor Your Family at No Real Cost*, 55 Ga. L. Rev. 467 (2021). [PDF](https://georgialawreview.org/wp-content/uploads/2025/01/Anna-ODonnell-Why-the-VPPA-and-COPPA-Are-Outdated-How-Netflix-Youtube-and-Disney-Can-Monitor-Your-Family-at-No-Real-Cost-55-Georgia-Law-Review-467-2021.pdf) | Law review | Streaming cos. collect rich viewing/family data; statutory gaps; low compliance cost. |
| **UCLA Law Review** — VPPA "consumer" definition struggles in digital age (2025). [Link](https://uclawreview.org/2025/10/05/back-to-bork-the-video-privacy-protection-acts-struggle-to-define-consumer-in-the-digital-age/) | Law review | Ongoing definitional failure for modern streaming. |
| **MIT 6.857 project** — Netflix privacy analysis (student research). [PDF](https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.857/2018/project/Archie-Gershon-Katchoff-Zeng-Netflix.pdf) | Academic project | Concrete privacy surface enumeration for a major streamer. |

### Mapping to TV Anarchy pitch

**Supported:** A **vendor-held viewing graph** is a regulated-but-leaky surveillance
surface. **Local catalog + local state** avoids centralized video privacy trove.

**Nuance:** Netflix et al. are not identical to **ad-tech brokers** — but
**adjacent** in privacy critique (viewing behavior as valuable, exploitable data).

---

## 5. Local-first and personal media infrastructure

### What scholarship says

**Peer-reviewed literature specifically on Jellyfin/Plex homelab privacy** is
sparse. Stronger academic neighbors:

- **Self-sovereign / local-first software** (informatics, HCI)
- **Data minimization** (GDPR scholarship)
- **Infrastructure studies** — who controls the stack

### Sources (mixed tier)

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **GDPR data minimization principle** — Art. 5(1)(c); extensive EU scholarship. | Law | Processing only what is necessary — architectural alignment for local index. |
| **Büchi et al.** — chilling effects / privacy (cited in Reviglio 2022 on "chilling"). | Peer-reviewed | Behavioral consequences of perceived monitoring. |
| **Community / industry** — Jellyfin, Plex comparisons (2024–26). | Non-peer | Operator motivations: ownership, takedown resilience, no phone-home — **anecdotal**, useful for GTM not citations. |

### Honest GTM note

Lead **architecture + law** (Tokson, O'Donnell, Zuboff), not "academics proved
homelab is better." Homelab is **design philosophy** backed by privacy principles,
not a randomized trial.

---

## 6. Chilling effects

### What scholarship says

Known surveillance causes **measurable behavior change** — Wikipedia traffic
studies after Snowden are canonical.

### Key sources

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Penney, Jonathon W.** — *Chilling Effects: Online Surveillance and Wikipedia Use*, 31 Berkeley Tech. L.J. (2016). [PDF](https://btlj.org/data/articles2016/vol31/31_1/0117_0182_Penney_ChillingEffects_WEB.pdf) | Law review + empirical | Post-NSA/PRISM revelation traffic drop on sensitive Wikipedia articles; long-term trend shift. |
| **Pen America** — *Global Chilling Effects of NSA Surveillance* (2015). [Link](https://pen.org/report/chilling-effects/) | NGO research | Writers self-censor under surveillance knowledge. |
| **Internet Policy Review** — comparative chilling effects of surveillance regulation. [Link](https://policyreview.info/articles/analysis/internet-surveillance-regulation-and-chilling-effects-online-comparative-case) | Peer-reviewed | Cross-jurisdiction framework. |
| **Cambridge** — *Chilling Effects* (book, Penney ed.). [Link](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/chilling-effects/introduction/1516B58C4CC7FF5FF53F5AA514579A1C) | Monograph | Broader theory. |

### Mapping

Supports: **Surveillance is not passive** — it changes consumption/exploration.
Optional line for founder post: people browse differently when the viewing graph
is external.

---

## 7. Napster, P2P, and the Netflix era

### What scholarship says

Media studies documented Napster as **disrupting distribution** while revealing
**demand for on-demand access** — cultural precursor to streaming.

### Key sources (entry points)

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Oberholzer-Gee & Strumpf** — *The Effect of File Sharing on Record Sales* (JPE 2007) — debated empirics. | Economics | Industry harm claims contested; shows **economic battleground** not just law. |
| **Liikanen et al.** — EU digital libraries / access literature. | Policy | Institutional responses to P2P pressure. |
| **Streaming transition studies** — search: "from piracy to streaming" media economics. | Various | Netflix as **convenience bundle** replacing P2P for many users — supports your tagline tension. |

### Mapping to "Napster for Netflix"

**Supported metaphorically:** P2P era proved appetite for **library-like access**;
streaming captured UX; **ownership layer** remained unsolved.

**Not supported:** Equating TV Anarchy with Napster legally or historically —
tagline is **positioning**, cite media-history for **essay color** not product claims.

---

## 8. GTM and incremental launch literature

Your GTM strategy (ship capabilities, not version numbers) aligns with **lean
startup** and **continuous delivery** product literature — not TV-specific.

| Source | Relevance |
|--------|-----------|
| **Ries, Eric** — *The Lean Startup* (2011). | MVP milestones, validated learning — parallel to phase exit criteria. |
| **Fitzpatrick, Ciara** — capability-based marketing in B2B infra (various HBR/infra blogs). | Weak academic — use for internal GTM only. |

**Recommendation:** Don't over-cite academia for GTM; use **dogfood metrics** in
[gtm-strategy.md](./gtm-strategy.md) as primary evidence.

---

## 9. Streaming economics: Netflix, Blockbuster, and subscription stacking

### What scholarship and industry research say

Your **third argument** — Netflix offered budget relief and killed Blockbuster,
then fragmentation and price hikes left consumers **paying more than ever** — is
well supported in **media economics**, **disruption case literature**, and
**subscription-market surveys**. It is weaker as a universal claim (some households
still pay less than legacy cable); cite as **trend**, not law of nature.

### Phase A — Disruption on price/convenience

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Christensen / Raynor** — disruptive innovation framework; Netflix vs Blockbuster case studies. [HBS](https://www.hbs.edu/ris/Publication%20Files/McDonald_Rory_A04_What%20is%20Disruptive%20Innovation_182498a6-5391-4916-a38b-d14932db41a6.pdf); [Christensen Institute](https://www.christenseninstitute.org/blog/netflix-round-3-can-the-ultimate-disruptor-transform-itself-again/) | Business scholarship | Netflix won on **convenience**, **flat pricing**, **no late fees** — classic low-end disruption vs Blockbuster's per-title + penalty model. |
| **Brynjolfsson, Hu & Smith** — *From Niches to Riches* (2006). [PDF](http://www.iot.ntnu.no/innovation/norsi-pims-courses/Service-Innovation-Pedersen-Kristensson/Brynjolfsson,%20Hu%20&%20Smith%20(2006).pdf) | Peer-reviewed (Management Science lineage) | Online inventory / long-tail economics — early Netflix as **consumer surplus** via selection + delivery model. |
| **HBR** — *How Netflix Became a Disruptive Innovator* (2011). [Link](https://hbr.org/2011/09/netflix-bold-disruptive-innovation) | Case narrative | Documented strategic contrast with Blockbuster. |

### Phase B — Fragmentation, fatigue, higher total bill

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Bango** — *Subscription Wars: Super Bundling Awakens* (2024, n=5,000 US). [Report](https://bango.com/reports/subscription-wars-super-bundling-awakens/) | Industry survey | Avg **4.5** subscriptions; **$77/mo (~$924/yr)** total subscription spend; **57%** canceled after price hikes; **28%** say piracy is only way to get all wanted content in one place; **73%** want one hub (cable déjà vu). |
| **Simon-Kucher** — *State of Streaming Services in the US* (2024). [Link](https://www.simon-kucher.com/en/insights/state-streaming-services-us-navigating-subscription-fatigue-and-driving-retention) | Consulting + survey | **42%** feel too many subscriptions; **~half** plan to cancel within a year; subs per person **3.2 → 3.6**; explicitly warns streamers risk **cable-bundle pitfalls**. |
| **Pew Research** — streaming vs cable penetration (2025). [Link](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2025/07/01/83-of-us-adults-use-streaming-services-far-fewer-subscribe-to-cable-or-satellite-tv/) | Survey | **83%** use streaming; cord-cutting widespread — but does not imply lower **total** spend (stacking offset). |
| **ResearchGate** — *Unsubscribing From Over-the-Top: Subscription Fatigue and Mental Coupling* (2025). [Link](https://www.researchgate.net/publication/397901396_Unsubscribing_From_Over-the-Top_How_Subscription_Fatigue_and_Mental_Coupling_Affect_Multi-Homing_Users) | Academic (preprint/working) | Multi-homing users churn due to **fatigue** and cognitive load — supports fragmentation cost. |
| **ScienceDirect** — media economics / SVOD pricing (2025). [Link](https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0969698925004023) | Journal article | Recent SVOD pricing/consumption literature (verify abstract for your locale). |

### Cord-cut vs stream-stacked cost comparisons

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Texas Electricity Ratings** — cord-cutter cost study. [Link](https://www.texaselectricityratings.com/resources/study-how-much-does-it-cost-to-cut-the-cable-cord) | Consumer finance survey | Models total OTT stack vs cable — useful for **household math**, varies by bundle. |
| **TechHive / All About Cookies** — streaming cost analyses (2024–25). | Journalism + surveys | Debate exact $1k/yr figure; consensus: **stacking + annual hikes** erase early savings. |
| **Independent** — streaming vs cable cost/piracy link (2024). [Link](https://www.the-independent.com/tech/streaming-price-cable-netflix-disney-piracy-b2499375.html) | Press | Consumer press documents price convergence narrative. |

### Mapping to your argument

**Supported:**

1. Netflix's **initial value proposition** was economic + experiential vs rental
   (disruption literature).
2. **SVOD fragmentation** recreated bundle dynamics — studios verticalized;
   consumers multi-home across services (Simon-Kucher, Bango, academic fatigue
   papers).
3. **Total subscription wallet** rose materially for average US subscriber
   (Bango: $924/yr across all subs, not video-only — note scope when citing).
4. Industry itself admits **subscription fatigue** and **cable-like bundling**
   as strategic response (Simon-Kucher explicitly).

**Nuance for credible press:**

- Not every household pays more than legacy cable — cite **averages and trends**.
- Bango figure includes **all** subscription categories (retail, gaming, news) —
   for video-only, attribute carefully or use Simon-Kucher streaming-specific data.
- **Piracy** as response to stacking is reported by Bango (28%) — industry
   survey, not endorsement.

### Citable sentence

> Early Netflix displaced rental with flat, consumer-friendly pricing; a decade of
> fragmentation, password crackdowns, and hikes produced documented subscription
> fatigue and rising stacked spend — with consultants warning the industry is
> rebuilding cable-like bundles (Christensen/HBR disruption cases; Bango 2024;
> Simon-Kucher 2024).

### TV Anarchy GTM link

**Ownership economics:** capital cost of disk + open software vs marginal monthly
rent for fragmented catalogs. Pairs with *Napster for Netflix* tagline: streaming
won UX, ownership wins **predictable lifetime cost** for heavy viewers.

---

## 10. Open source resilience and "unkillability"

### What scholarship and policy say

Your **fourth argument** — personal media infrastructure should be **open source**
so the project is **unkillable** — maps to established work on **code forking**,
**OSS sustainability**, **vendor lock-in**, and the **public interest internet**.
"Unkillable" is **founder shorthand** for *no single vendor chokepoint*; scholarship
uses *forkable*, *sustainable*, *exit from lock-in*.

### Core sources

| Source | Type | Finding |
|--------|------|---------|
| **Nyman, Lindman & Hällmark** — *Code Forking, Governance and Sustainability in Open Source Software*, TIM Review (2013). [Article](https://timreview.ca/article/644); [PDF](https://timreview.ca/sites/default/files/article_PDF/NymanLindman_TIMReview_January2013.pdf) | Peer-reviewed (journal) | **Forking** is governance mechanism when maintainers diverge; OSS can **continue** without original author; sustainability = social + technical continuity. |
| **Nyman et al.** — fork governance, IFIP (HAL). [Link](https://inria.hal.science/hal-01875488/) | Conference / book chapter | Forking as **insurance** against governance failure. |
| **EFF** — *Public Interest Internet*; *Outliving Outrage: CDDB Story* (2021). [PII](https://www.eff.org/issues/public-interest-internet); [CDDB](https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2021/05/outliving-outrage-public-interest-internet-cddb-story) | Policy / advocacy | Open, forkable systems **outlast** proprietary products abandoned or attacked. |
| **FSFE** — *Software sustainability* programme. [Link](https://fsfe.org/freesoftware/sustainability/sustainability.en.html) | NGO policy | Long-lived infrastructure requires **free software** freedoms (use, study, modify, share). |
| **Vendor lock-in literature** — e.g. *Critical Review of Vendor Lock-in… Cloud Computing* (Bournemouth). [PDF](https://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/22467/1/Critical%20Review%20of%20Vendor%20Lock-in%20and%20Its%20Impact%20on%20Adoption%20of%20Cloud%20Computing.pdf) | Academic review | Proprietary SaaS creates **exit costs** and **discontinuation risk** — opposite of forkability. |
| **Lessig** — *Code and Other Laws of Cyberspace*. | Monograph | Architecture (open vs closed code) **regulates** behavior — complements arg 4 structurally. |
| **EFF** — *What Peer-to-Peer Developers Need to Know About Copyright Law*. [Link](https://www.eff.org/pages/iaal-what-peer-peer-developers-need-know-about-copyright-law) | Legal guide | **Honest limit:** OSS ≠ immunity; lawsuits can target people; distribution choices matter. |

### Mapping to "unkillable"

**Supported:**

1. **Forkability** — if maintainer stops or community disagrees, development
   continues (Nyman et al.).
2. **No binary kill switch** — users can build from source; not dependent on one
   app store gatekeeper (FSFE freedoms).
3. **Outliving proprietary death** — public interest internet case studies (EFF).
4. **Contrast with streaming** — vendor lock-in lit. documents SaaS/catalog
   discontinuation harm.

**Not supported (do not overclaim):**

- **Immunity from copyright suits** — EFF P2P guide; arg 4 is **resilience**, not
  legal shield.
- **Guaranteed active maintenance** — forks can wither too; "unkillable" = *code
  remains runnable*, not *thriving community forever*.
- **TV Anarchy today** — repo has no root `LICENSE` yet; arg 4 is **strategic
  commitment** contingent on release policy.

### Press-safe vs founder voice

| Founder | Press-safe |
|---------|------------|
| "Open source so the project is unkillable" | "Open source so operators can self-host and fork without a vendor permission gate" |
| "No single company can turn it off" | "Reduces single-point-of-failure vs proprietary clients" |

### Citable sentence

> Open-source personal media software can outlive its maintainer through forking
> and self-hosting — a documented sustainability pattern in OSS governance research
> (Nyman et al., 2013) — whereas proprietary streaming clients remain subject to
> vendor discontinuation and lock-in (vendor lock-in literature; EFF public interest
> internet).

### TV Anarchy GTM link

Arg 4 completes the stack: **local-first** (arg 3) without **open source** still
has a maintainer chokepoint. License choice (MIT/Apache/AGPL) should be decided
before marketing arg 4 publicly.

---

## Synthesis: your privacy argument on a scholarly footing

### Strong claims (cite freely)

1. **Government buys commercial surveillance data at scale** — Tokson (2024), CDT
   (2021), Rahbar (2022), Reviglio (2022).
2. **Ad-tech / RTB is a structural privacy breach** — Ryan/GLJ, ICO (2019).
3. **Consent frameworks fail for broker chains** — Hoofnagle, McDonald & Cranor,
   Tokson §III.
4. **Streaming viewing data is a sensitive, under-protected class** — O'Donnell
   (2021).
5. **Known surveillance changes behavior** — Penney (2016).
6. **Surveillance capitalism is a recognized business-model critique** — Zuboff
   (2019) + JBE special issue (2021).
7. **Streaming disrupted rental on price, then stacked subscriptions raised total
   spend and fatigue** — Christensen/HBR/Brynjolfsson (early phase); Bango (2024);
   Simon-Kucher (2024).
8. **OSS forking enables continuity without the original vendor/maintainer** —
   Nyman et al. (2013); EFF public interest internet; FSFE sustainability framing.

### Moderate claims (cite with nuance)

1. **Industry piracy rhetoric is asymmetric with data exploitation** — Lessig,
   Patry, Litman; connect explicitly in your prose.
2. **Businesses fail duties to consumers** — ethics literature; avoid absolute
   "duty" language in press — use "structural consent failure."
3. **Local-first reduces third-party viewing graphs** — architectural inference +
   data minimization; not a single RCT.
4. **"Unkillable"** — use **forkable / no vendor chokepoint** in academic tone;
   hyperbole OK in founder voice.

### Founder-only rhetoric (passion OK; don't cite as academic)

- "Enabling fascist states" — substitute in academic contexts: **authoritarian
  surveillance**, **human rights risks of broker markets** (Reviglio notes national
  security / trust harms).
- "Napster for Netflix" as literal product category.

---

## Suggested citation block (founder post footer)

```
Further reading: Tokson (2024) Wake Forest L. Rev.; CDT (2021) Legal Loopholes
and Data for Dollars; Zuboff (2019) The Age of Surveillance Capitalism; Penney
(2016) Berkeley Tech. L.J.; O'Donnell (2021) Ga. L. Rev.; Reviglio (2022)
Internet Policy Review; Carpenter v. United States (2018); Bango (2024)
Subscription Wars; Simon-Kucher (2024) streaming fatigue study; Nyman et al.
(2013) TIM Review (code forking).
```

---

## Research gaps (future work if you want deeper citations)

| Gap | Possible direction |
|-----|-------------------|
| Germany/EU operator context (your DE priors) | BfDI case law, GDPR streaming guidance, GLJ RTB article |
| Empirical study of self-hosted vs streaming privacy surface | Original user study — not in literature today |
| Net-style federation (contentKey editions) | No direct academic analog; closest: federated social web (ActivityPub lit.) |
| Copyright industry + broker data **same parent companies** | Needs case-by-case corp structure research — don't assert without evidence |
| TV Anarchy **root license** | Add LICENSE before citing arg 4 publicly; pick license (MIT/Apache/AGPL tradeoffs) |

---

## Related kit docs

- [privacy-positioning.md](./privacy-positioning.md) — messaging from this evidence
- [faq.md](./faq.md) — public Q&A
- [founder-post.md](./founder-post.md) — narrative

*Last literature pass: 2026-06. Re-run search annually — broker procurement and
RTB enforcement evolve quickly.*