Major Flaws Found In Recent BitTorrent Study 167
Caledfwlch writes with a followup to news we discussed a couple days ago about a study that found only 0.3% of torrents to be legal. (A further 11% was described as "ambiguous.") TorrentFreak looked more deeply into the study and found a number of flaws, suggesting that the researchers' data may have been pulled from a bogus tracker. Quoting:
"Here's where the researchers make total fools out of themselves. In their answer to the question they refer to a table of the top 10 most seeded torrents. ... the most seeded file was uploaded nearly two years ago (The Incredible Hulk) and has a massive 1,112,628 seeders. The torrent in 10th place is not doing bad either with 277,043 seeds. All false data. We're not sure where these numbers originate from but the best seeded torrent at the moment only has 13,739 seeders; that's 1% of what the study reports. Also, the fact that the release is nearly two years old should have sounded some alarm bells. It appears that the researchers have pulled data from a bogus tracker, and it wouldn't be a big surprise if all the torrents in their top 10 are actually fake."
They also take a cursory look at isoHunt, finding that 1.5% of torrent files come from Jamendo alone, "a site that publishes only Creative Commons licensed music."
Moral Of The Story (Score:3, Funny)
Moral of the story.... don't trust seedy research.
Re:The best-seeded torrents... (Score:5, Funny)
The patch that removes clothing completely from that game will bring the entire Internet to a standstill.
Re:Moral Of The Story (Score:5, Funny)
Seedy research can plant misinformation.
Re:Imagine that (Score:5, Funny)
News at eleven.
I've got plans tonight and won't be home to catch the news at 11. Can someone upload a torrent for me?
Re:Honestly... (Score:3, Funny)
That's God damn it, God damn it! :p
Re:Old content is interesting... (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Honestly... (Score:1, Funny)
Of course they can get away with presenting the bogus data: the IPCC^W RIAA will clear them of all wrongdoing after an "investigation". The science^W piracy is settled!
Re:Moral Of The Story (Score:3, Funny)
But seedy research downloads more quickly!