lbry.tech/content/overview/index.md

---
title: Overview
---

## Mission

What if anyone in the world could publish a piece of digital content, anyone else in the world could access it, for free or for payment, and that entire system worked without any centralized authority or point of control?

That's the idea behind LBRY.

<div style="max-width: 800px; margin: 40px auto; font-size: 2.0em">To create a market for accessing and publishing information<sup>1</sup> that is global<sup>2</sup>, decentralized<sup>3</sup>, robust<sup>4</sup>, optimal<sup>5</sup> and complete<sup>6</sup>.</div>

That's a fancy sentence, so here's a plainer one: we just thought it'd be really damn cool if there was a system that stored as much of the world's information as possible, but was owned and controlled by no one.

<sup>1. In the information theoric sense, i.e. any data. LBRY facilitates distribution of all data, whether it be a video or a spreadsheet.</sup>

<sup>2. Accessible anywhere in the world on any internet-connected device.</sup>

<sup>3. Not controlled by any one person, party or authority.</sup>

<sup>4. Resistant to censorship or attempts to control; impervious to attacks or disruptions.</sup>

<sup>5. In the Pareto sense, with regards to the production and distribution of information (i.e. digital information is both created and distributed in a way that could not be any more efficient from the perspectives of information producers and consumers).</sup>

<sup>6. The most complete collection of world’s books, films, art, games, etc. should be available via LBRY.</sup>

## Ecosystem Overview

Learn more about how LBRY works from this ecosystem overview.

<Ecosystem/>

## Keep Diving

- Explore live metadata and add your own blockchain entry on [the Tour](/tour).
- Read the whitepaper, the API specification and other documentation in [Resources](/resources).
- Learn how to [contribute to LBRY](/contributing) or [build your own application](/build).