Wil Wheaton: BitTorrent Isn't Only For Piracy 354
itwbennett writes "Geek advocate Wil Wheaton has written a blog post on the (legal) usefulness of BitTorrent, saying that the speed of his recent download of Ubuntu 12.04 should serve as a reminder that BitTorrent fills an important niche. Wheaton compares blocking BitTorrent to closing freeways because bank robbers could get away."
Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I think the actions of big media are way out of line and it angers me greatly to see the damage being done to law and society in general to protect a dying business model for a few more years..
That said, the analogy used in the summary isn't quite right. Yes, bittorrent has a lot of great legitimate uses, but we are deluding outselves if we think legal bittorrent usage is the majority of bittorrent traffic, or even a large portion of it. I get that extreme statements like this are necessary to balance out the extreme statements made by the other side (that song you downloaded cost us 500 million, etc..) .. but I still don't like it :(
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Interesting)
Legal uses are 100% of my bittorrent traffic. I can't speak for anyone else.
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about 2% of mine.
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Just say it! (Score:3, Funny)
Shut up, Wesley!
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
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Don't get me wrong, I think the actions of big media are way out of line and it angers me greatly to see the damage being done to law and society in general to protect a dying business model for a few more years..
That said, the analogy used in the summary isn't quite right. Yes, bittorrent has a lot of great legitimate uses, but we are deluding outselves if we think legal bittorrent usage is the majority of bittorrent traffic, or even a large portion of it. I get that extreme statements like this are necessary to balance out the extreme statements made by the other side (that song you downloaded cost us 500 million, etc..) .. but I still don't like it :(
Exactly exactly exactly. While Wil has the best of geekly intentions, his analogy was sad. If bank robbers drove 19 out of 20 cars on the freeway, you bet your ASS they would be closed, closed in a heartbeat. That's just basic civic management. Come on.
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
Some must enjoy collective punishment, then. Those that don't care about freedom, probably.
I don't care for the analogy, though. File sharing isn't anything like bank robbery. That wasn't the point being made, but it is something to consider.
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember when they said the MP3 format was illegal, and a majority was for illegal copying?
I do.
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree the analogy does not quite fit. He should have compared blocking BitTorrent to closing freeways because people might exceed the posted speed limit.
Sure a lot of people do it, but we only care about the ones that really abuse it.
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Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
Bittorrent is a protocol for moving data. It's really good at moving files, particularly large ones. This is a good thing.
The problem is, most files of that size happen to be media files like games or DVD rips or applications, which are particular targets for being distributed illegally.
Having said that, you can probably take just about anything that is legal and find some way to put it to a use that can abet some sort of illegal or prohibited activity. Possibly illegal use is not really an argument, by itself, for prohibiting something. There would have to be very compelling special circumstances to make that palatable.
What's more is that, because it is an open-ended protocol and not a specialty tool for "piracy", if you outlaw it or block it, someone will just come up with something that resembles it... and that will then be used for downloading content too. The cat is out of the bag. Trying to stop downloading at that level is simply attacking the utility of the network for users without really addressing the source of the problem. Bulk download protocols are needed, even if their legal use is dwarfed somewhat by their illegal use. Eventually, as data sizes increase in general, more and more legally sourced files will be large enough to need distribution.
The analogy is correct. (Score:4, Insightful)
The amount of illegal traffic does not change the nature of the medium: bittorrent is there to share data. That does not make it illegal, and even if 99% of the transferred data are illegally transferred, it still does not make bittorrent illegal.
A human can easily learn the notes of a song. The person can then be used to 'transfer' the notes to another destination. Is the human's abilitity to transfer information illegal? it is not.
Your computer's motherboard is also a network of electrical signals, where pirated material flows through. Does that make electronics illegal?
Saying that a transfer medium or protocol is illegal because the data moved through it are illegal is extremely stupid, and that is what Wheaton is saying.
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The analogy is right on! - I've often used roads as an analogy for the network simply because they are the same thing - a means of transport that can be used for good or evil, and everything in between.
The roads were - as were bittorrent - created for purely legitimate purposes. Then someone found a way to use them for something else. It's not the fault of the road or the network (and all its protocols) what they end up being used for. To say that bittorrent equals piracy is as wrong as saying that fast car
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Interesting)
A single user here, Using bittorrent since the beginning to download dead shows. But the majority of my usage is piracy.
Whether or not you want to believe me, thats all you, but my use is almost all illegal.
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
Here's the problem... a lot of things that are technically illegal, people don't believe OUGHT to be illegal.
If I can watch, oh I don't know, Seinfeld reruns on TV over the air for free, why is it illegal for me to download the episode I missed last night? I use Usenet for time-shifting, the way that I used to use a DVR. I have no moral qualms whatsoever about doing so, and I don't think that there OUGHT to be any legal impediment to doing so.
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I agree, as a pot smoker, a lot believe i am doing something illegal while in my mind it shouldn't be illegal in the first place. Your example leaves out how the show should get revenue if they aren't selling ads in the time-slot. When you download the show it bypasses the ads leaving the show with pissed off advertisers. Lets talk games, can you justify me downloading duke nukem forever for free to test it out to only have me delete it? Should i have bought the game to try it? I personally think you s
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
Your example leaves out how the show should get revenue if they aren't selling ads in the time-slot. When you download the show it bypasses the ads leaving the show with pissed off advertisers.
If the show were available for download 'legit' , they could throw a ad or two at the beginning and make $ that way. "Thanks for DLing this episode. Encoding/bandwidth/etc funding provided by: [insert commercial]"
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
Streaming != download. Try using Hulu at an airport with free Wi-Fi that the entire terminal is sharing and tell me how well that works out. Try using Netflix on a train where everyone else that train is also streaming Netflix and internet connection is sparse. Let me know how free those ABC.com shows are and you inadvertently go past your monthly data cap and pay $0.10/KByte for the second half of it.
I'm glad that these services get us halfway there,but Hulu and Netflix inherently require a level of connection that DSL or cable can provide, but mobile internet cannot. I'd be perfectly on board with a method to even pick videos and cache them in a container I can't open myself when I'm somewhere with Wi-Fi. Sadly, even this compromise does not yet exist.
Re:Not quite (Score:4)
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
"This content is not available in your region."
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
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But just because they haven't "woken up" yet doesn't give you the right to violate copyright law.
I never said it did. I don't pirate, I simply avoid any interaction with companies that won't provide me with the products or services that I want. I am slap bang in the middle of the early-adopter demographic for this kind of thing, yet I haven't bought a BluRay player, nor have I signed up for any streaming services. Your employer can blame piracy for their lack of sales, but even though I was one of the first people I know to buy a DVD player (back when they were actually expensive), the first to sign
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
That - or rather, the difficulty in "going legit" - is the real issue here.
People tend to take the path of least resistance. In the past, I've bought some TV shows off of iTunes. Also bought a few on Xbox 360 Marketplace, and a few off of Amazon's service.
You know what? The iTunes ones don't really work anymore as I decided I no longer wanted to use iTunes. The Amazon ones don't work either after I switched away from Windows. The Xbox360 purchases technically still work, but only on the Xbox which sits in my bedroom, when almost all my TV watching is done in the living room.
The bottom line is that PURCHASED media is limited, crippled, and aggravating crap.
Compare to the piracy route: go to Bittorrent, search. Click on the little magnet. Wait for a bit, and a regular media file shows up. Whatever quality I want. I can copy it to my Android tablet. I can stream it over to my AppleTV running XBMC. I can play it on any of my computers in the house. It just works.
Essentially, but people who actually PAY get an inferior product.
Compare to music now: I buy virtually ALL of my music, because music is generally not copy protected anymore, and the legit sources are easy to use and priced right.
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I'd use legit sources in a heartbeat!
Unfortunately, none of the services you mention are available in the UK.
So I can either wait for my local stations to show the shows, and in the meantime read headlines on international news sites that totally spoil the show (without even reading the article!), or I can download illegally.
I remember back when I was watching Lost. This was the last show that I watched on broadcast TV when I had friends and colleagues in the US watching it. We were a few days behind the US
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
When you download the show it bypasses the ads leaving the show with pissed off advertisers.
By that logic TiVo is illegal. So is going to the bathroom during ads.
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Interesting)
Ummm, that depends on who you ask. When Jamie Kellner (TV Exec, at the time was CEO of Turner Broadcasting, looking after a bunch of channels including the Cartoon Network) answered that very question [wikipedia.org] his reply was this: "Because of the ad skips.... It's theft. Your contract with the network when you get the show is you're going to watch the spots. Otherwise you couldn't get the show on an ad-supported basis. Any time you skip a commercial or watch the button you're actually stealing the programming."
Seriously, you just can't make up quality like that.
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just as normal, by the ads in tv.
when i miss the show, i see no ads, when i watch the show from bittorrent, i see no ads either. so its no benefit/detriment for the show, only a benefit for me. so not to allow me to watch the show from bittorrent is making it worse for me without making anything better for the copyright holder
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On a separate note, I use to be a
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
If I can watch, oh I don't know, Seinfeld reruns on TV over the air for free...
Actually, you're not watching them for free. Your eyeballs earn them money in the form of advertising.
A better example might be: "If I'm an HBO subscriber and I download the episode of Game of Thrones that I missed..."
That said, I actually do agree with you, it's just the whole advertising thing is a big speed-bump in your argument.
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Insightful)
I remove the ads from it automagically before watching. Still illegal?
No, but it's worth mentioning that I never said that it was.
Is it any less moral than downloading a copy via bit torrent or Usenet with the ads already removed?
I don't know. But I'll put this in another perspective: If your favorite ad-supported website goes off-line, would you feel bad if you had Ad-Block on?
It's a balance. On the one hand, these content providers need to respond to supply and demand. On the other hand, there's no free lunch. They need to be reasonable and you still need to pay. To me the word 'moral' has nothing to do with this conversation.
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Here's the problem... a lot of things that are technically illegal, people don't believe OUGHT to be illegal.
I think that's what many people in Europe think. In the US, you can get almost anything promptly and usually at fair conditions. In Europe, the same things tend to cost twice as much or, more commonly, are not available. This ranges from keyboard stickers, over CPU coolers, particular mobile phone models, PCs, to all kinds of online services.
Where I live, in Portugal, it is impossible to legally watch a particular movie or series via streaming online. It's not just hard or inconvenient, it's impossible beca
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
A single user here, Using bittorrent since the beginning to download dead shows. But the majority of my usage is piracy. Whether or not you want to believe me, thats all you, but my use is almost all illegal.
That's you. There are plenty of WoW players out there. Every last one of them uses bittorrent for updates, whether they know it or not (most don't even know what bittorrent is). Other update programs are using bitorrent too according to the scuttlebutt.
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If you purchased a digital copy of diablo III (as over 2-million people did this week) - then you got it delivered over bittorrent by default (same client-update system that WoW uses).
If you purchased it on DVD (as I did) - the updates and patches still default to bittorrent. Granted you can disable the torrent support and use a direct HTTP download - but that is obviously much, much slower.
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
And the Web is 90% porn (ok, maybe exaggerated) and Email traffic is 30-90% Spam (http://www.mailarmory.com/resources/stats/). But still we use both. Maybe 90% of torrents are currently illegal, but it does not mean that the service should be blocked or banned. Otherwise I would say: Bye bye to Email and Web as well. (At least Porn and illegal torrents serve a certain purpose, Spam on the other hand...)
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
Citation needed.
Here. [arstechnica.com]. 89% definitively illegal, 11% probably illegal, 0.3% confirmed legal. And since you want to play the wikipedia game, anything you say to make this article invalid is [citation needed], no arguments of your own only reliable third party sources.
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The problem with the analogy is if 89% of the cars were bank robbers
But trying to conflate downloading with assault and theft is just nasty propaganda - bank robberies are violent, agressive actions, deeply scarring victims. Downloading does not involve threats or directly affect individuals.
A better analogy is that people using bittorrent are re-purposing existing infrastructure in ways that the owners had not anticipated. It's not the first time it's happened and caused conflict [wikipedia.org] , and it's unlikely to be the last.
Re:Not quite (Score:5, Informative)
And since you want to play the wikipedia game, anything you say to make this article invalid is [citation needed], no arguments of your own only reliable third party sources.
I guess you missed the link [torrentfreak.com] in your own article that debunks the study? Cliffs notes version: They only looked at the files with the most seeds, which already skews the results, and pirated stuff has a huge list of fake seeds to screw up lazy anti-piracy enforcers, which means that choosing the torrents with the most seeds invalidates the entire study because the ones with the most (fake) seeds are the pirated ones.
I would also add that relying on 'this one public BitTorrent tracker we found somewhere' is not statistically valid, because it's just one tracker. You have to get a statistically valid sample of all the trackers or you can't conclude anything. For example, if they included these these [btlist.info] trackers instead, I would expect different results -- and by failing to consider them, they naturally get totally invalid numbers.
Re:Not quite (Score:4, Insightful)
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Intellectual property is intellectually dishonest.
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No, just because certain cases are completely legal says nothing about how we should treat that which is currently illegal (which is not the same as criminal). Only complete morons think personal copyright infringement should be criminal.
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>Anyone who claims that BitTorrent has plenty of legitimate uses should be fine with the arrest and conviction of those who use it for illegal purposes.
Most of us are. We don't want our legitimate uses harmed by people angry at the illegitimate uses and we are all for the justice system doing it's job as far as criminals are concerned.
Most of us also believe in things like habeus corpus, due process and that the punishment should fit the crime - so we'll shout about ridiculous fines for sharing too.
Those
I agree that BitTorrent is a tool, but.... (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd imagine that the BitTorrent traffic due to sharing of works without the copyright holder's consent dwarfs the legal traffic. So blocking or throttling BitTorrent is more like controlling access to lock picks and drug paraphernalia (which also have legal uses).
As a die-hard geek/maker it pains me to have access to tools restricted, but this is hardly an oddity of the digital age.
It seems like network owners have the right to shape their traffic, and Will has a right to take his business to ISPs that don
Re:I agree that BitTorrent is a tool, but.... (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems like network owners have the right to shape their traffic
Unless that right is taken away, that is.
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It seems like network owners have the right to shape their traffic
Unless that right is taken away, that is.
So, you're saying that network owners have the right to shape traffic, but the government should take that right away?
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No, I said that it's only a right until it's taken away.
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so is Wil Wheaton.
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It seems like network owners have the right to shape their traffic, and Will has a right to take his business to ISPs that don't do it.
This is such a bullshit argument with the reality of the current state of broadband across the US. There is almost no competition to go to in most areas, there is no way to start a competition in a lot of areas where the right to lay the cable was granted along with a local monopoly for whoever laid the fiber and these internet service providers also own or are owned by the big media companies that have an interest in stomping out anything that competes with their content divisions...
A slightly extreme example (Score:4, Insightful)
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It is "slightly extreme" or "ridiculously extreme"? Also, what is your suggestion for a proper analogy?
From TFA:
Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away, which I know is an imperfect comparison, but is the best I can do after a night of not-especially-good sleep.
Re:A slightly extreme example (Score:5, Insightful)
Also, what is your suggestion for a proper analogy?
Banning guns because they're used in so many crimes.
Re:A slightly extreme example (Score:4, Funny)
Also, what is your suggestion for a proper [BitTorrent] analogy?
Banning guns because they're used in so many crimes.
You, sir, win the Internet post of the day award. Any analogy that will piss off both sides of the political spectrum must have at least a grain of uncomfortable truth to it.
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Does it? I think it's a valid comparison, because it's fundamentally the same sort of situation. Both "services" have both legitimate and illegitimate* uses. Most people would argue that shutting down the freeways would be blatantly wrong, as it harms the vast majority of legitimate users far more than it harms the minority of illegitimate users. So the question then becomes "at what point do you 'shut down' a service that has both uses"? What ratio of illegitimate to legitimate users is necessary? 70%? 50%
People do love it for Linux ISOs (Score:3)
I remember when a new Knoppix launched. My boss asked me to get it and I did. Asked him if I could seed it over the weekend to help out and he said sure, it was summer and usage was low. Sent out like 1.5 TB of data over the course of 2.5 days.
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I don't seed Linux ISOs, but I do seed Humble Bundle games I have purchased. It's an ideal distribution method that keeps the weight off the servers - I always go for the torrent links rather than the direct http downloads.
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This is why I always use Bittorrent to download Linux ISOs (and seed them afterwards). Often these organisations are not for profit or at least trying to make a small profit. Why would I put a small dent into their costs by using their bandwidth when I can use some of theirs and a lot of other peoples who (like me) are willing to share the pain? Fortunately I'm with a flat rate ISP, but I would still continue to seed even if I weren't.
Downloading Ubuntu (Score:2, Insightful)
Can we collectively stop using Ubuntu/Linux downloads as an argument point to extoll the virtues of bittorrent? Lets use an example that people are familiar with. No one outside the tiny geek subculture downloads these things or knows what they are.
Remember, you're trying to win them over, not preach to the converted.
Re:Downloading Ubuntu (Score:4, Informative)
Surely there's something? Right?
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OK, perhaps someone here can provide some suitable legitmate and mainstream examples that we can cite then
Blizzard still uses torrents to distribute software updates in their games, right?
LimeWire (Score:2)
Remember how LimeWire billed itself as a "sharing tool" that you could use to share things such as "recipes" with your friends?
The problem is that you need a real example (that doesn't involve piracy) otherwise you'll be laughed at by your own users.
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The problem is that you need a real example (that doesn't involve piracy) otherwise you'll be laughed at by your own users.
Sharing 5+ year old songs and movies. IF we had a fucking sane copyright law.
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Can we collectively stop using Ubuntu/Linux downloads as an argument point to extoll the virtues of bittorrent? Lets use an example that people are familiar with.
Such as? How many non copyright infringing uses are there for bittorrent that (non-geek) people are familiar? How many of those represent more than an insignificant fraction of bittorrent usage?
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How many non copyright infringing uses are there for bittorrent that (non-geek) people are familiar?
^ this. Until bittorrent is used by normal people for something legitimate, it's always going to be associated with pirating. It really just needs one really popular legal use... netflix streaming over bittorrent, or adobe giving you a bittotrent link after you purchase software (of course, neither of those would actually work.. also needed: someone more creative than myself :)
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Until bittorrent is used by normal people for something legitimate,
It's been used by indie musicians to distribute their music for years now. That's certainly a "legitimate" use in my eyes.
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Several video game studios use BT or similar protocol to alleviate bandwidth consumption. Blizzard distributes updates via P2P, so if World of Warcraft isn't mainstream enough for you then nothing will ever be. Fact is, BT itself is niche and geek, so the entire premise is flawed.
Revision3 uses it to push out their videos. So do the indie and folk musicians I know. These are "mainstream" among young and old alike -- hell gramps has been donating to musicians on Kickstarter for years before it got popu
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Nerdy? cause she asked for a torrent on twitter?
The a really low bar..really really low.
Bad for his career (Score:2)
Now he will be shunned ( black listed ) by the very people that he makes a living from, the 'industry'.
I commend him for speaking out with some sanity, but i do hope he just didn't destroy his future in the process.
Re:Bad for his career (Score:2)
Nonsense. After Hollywood drives itself into the ocean, it will be Will Wheaton who will bring cinema / television back into style.
And the first show he will bring back is a remake of Star Trek TNG, except this time he will be playing the part of the captain. ;-)
Re:Bad for his career (Score:2)
I thought the only thing keeping his career alive was guest appearances as himself on Big Bang. :)
Speaking out on behalf of nerds only adds to his onscreen persona.
Half Right (Score:2)
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This is a fair comment, I have helped someone set up free to renters wifi at an RV park, one of the things that had to be done was block peer to peer otherwise it consumes all available bandwidth. (note the broadband available at this location is very limited fractional T1 speed)
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FTFY. You're not the only person on your segment, and if you want to be, get out your checkbook. Residential DSL/cable modem hasn't been "unlimited" for some time.
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Who cares? (Score:2)
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Torrent is just the file transfer protocol, like FTP, HTTP, or of course USENET. It is indexing sites like PirateBay that give Torrent a bad name. They could just as easily use another protocol... something like torrent is even used by CNN to play video (Octoshape?).
ISOs want to be free (Score:2)
Some of these Linux ISOs are owned by HBO, MGM, Fox, and Universal.
The last Linux ISO I downloaded was Avengers R6 release.
Some game companies do this too... (Score:3, Informative)
Government documents (Score:5, Insightful)
Sadly it seems like places that would most benefit from Bittorrent are the least likely to use it. My favorite example was a big document that was fairly recently released publicly, I don't recall what it was on. But there was major press interest, major public interest, and you just knew that the Library of Congress website (or whatever agency it was that was hosting it) was just going to implode under the strain. Impressively the website didn't completely go down, it just sat there serving a 100+ MB pdf at about 100 bytes per second. With all that interest, all those people trying to download the same public document at the same time it would have been perfect for Bittorrent. Sadly I think it is too closely entangled with piracy in the minds of politicians, so it is very unlikely that it will ever be put to such a use.
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Opera's had native bittorrent support for years [opera.com], but I'd suspect that the other browser manufacturers would consider adding this as a built-in feature either bloat or indicative of supporting piracy.
Dear WIll (Score:2)
welcome to 5 years ago.
BitTorrent was NEVER the Performance Problem (Score:5, Informative)
Over and above the claim that torrents helped pirates, there was the claim that it was a bandwidth-hog.
Well, it aint so! Jim Gettys researched it, and found what the network vendors were seeing was ... bufferbloat! See https://gettys.wordpress.com/2012/05/14/the-next-nightmare-is-coming/ [wordpress.com]
We Need More Legal Avenues (Score:4, Insightful)
I am aware this is a discussion of the current legal uses of Bittorrent, I offer an off perspective to the idea of embracing the free P2P distribution channels.
We need more legal digital distribution avenues. Period.
The huge media corporations are screaming bloody murder but they refuse to back down on things like DRM and content regions. If they were to embrace the "free bandwidth" that Bittorrent provides they would not be crying about record breaking profits in years.
What if there were a service for those of us falling through the cracks who _honestly_ want to pay for the things they download "illegally." A service where I could purchase a license to obtain a specific media by any avenue I choose to pursue (aka. Bittorrent, Gnutella network, In the back alley, etc).
If a company (or media conglomerate) were to open up shop online. Its role would be to sell customers a license to view the content and provide you with a bill of sale (that I would hope would hold up in Court if the situation were to arise), thereby authorizing you to obtain the media via P2P. Overhead for the business would be _very_ minimal, as your customers are also the content distributors and could probably sell licenses at insanely low prices. For example: $5 full CD album, $5-10 full length movie and profit themselves $1-$2.50 after transaction costs, etc. With over 500 Million people in North America, I am sure even capturing less than 1% could make it a worth while business model.
I would be interested in such a service if it existed. As all other options seems to be out of reach for me. I am sure there are others out there who feel the same.
I _want_ to pay for the media I download, but it has to be reasonable and not encumbered with DRM. Not everyones situation is the same but my situation is so: No movie rental stores in town (since Blockbuster Canada went under, as well Rogers Video closed many of its locations). Purchasing a movie is usually fruitless endeavour as you are still bombarded with ads you can't skip and lets face it, optical media is going the way of the do do bird. Living in Canada, I don't have access to Hulu and Netflix is very limited (I also don't have the right hardware or software configuration to use it, but that's just me). Amazon Instant Video doesn't exist in Canada.
Regarding the business model and potential profits... 528,000,000 million people in North America. Lets say 0.05% (around 264,000 people) of that market were to participate in such a service. If those 264,000 people are willing to spend $15-$20/month on media (like I am), they could potentially gross $3,960,000+ to $5,280,000+ per month. In perspective it is not a lot of money considering how much media companies make, but why not at least attempt to collect my money? Instead of calling me a pirate, embrace the free distribution channel of P2P.
The ability to to "buy a license, download wherever" at very reasonable cost (remember distribution cost is literally nothing, the "pirates" are doing the work for you) in lieu of living in fear of being sued into oblivion I really think such a system could flourish.
Any thoughts by the more enlightened? I am not a lawyer, just a man who is frustrated with his current options to consume media.
Re:bittorent is not for speed (Score:5, Insightful)
he didn't need bittorrent, all he had to do was go to a mirror site that didn't have bandwidth issues. Bittorrent can be usefull but speed is not one of the things it excels at.
It depends on the peers in the swarm (local peer discovery), and how well your set up can handle multiple connections. Using automated block lists to prevent people from poisoning the protocol also makes a big difference.
I rarely get speeds off BT that are less than 3 - 5 times the max I've ever pulled off a single HTTP pipe. It is significantly faster than any other transfer protocol I have used. It can also be turd slow given the right circumstances, but if you can connect to a hundred or so legit peers... whoooooweeeeeeiii it's fast.
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But never faster then your max bandwidth. Something some people don't understand.
Re:bittorent is not for speed (Score:5, Informative)
On the other hand, a direct transfer is never faster than the most congested link between you and the server. If you have a reasonably fast connection, the bottleneck is often not your connection. Downloading from multiple peers that are likely taking different paths to reach you lets you reach an high overall speed even if all the peers are congested.
Re:bittorent is not for speed (Score:4, Interesting)
I second this. I downloaded Ubuntu 12.04 CDs and DVDs the day it was released, and I was able to easily find an ftp mirror that saturated my 40mbit connection.
Re: (Score:3)
he didn't need bittorrent, all he had to do was go to a mirror site that didn't have bandwidth issues.
What should happen is Ubuntu should provide a meta-link so you don't even have to look up the mirrors. You even get proper hash checking like bt.
Re: (Score:2)
And I don't need a freeway to quickly get to where I'm going, I can just hop in a private helicopter.
But it's significantly cheaper and more efficient to build a freeway for many people to use than supply a private helicopter for everyone.
Re: (Score:2, Funny)
Re:second second first third post (Score:5, Funny)
Re: (Score:2)
He's on the big bang theory and eureka (and probably some others i've forgotten). looks different than on star trek though.. would have thought it was a completely different person.