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BitTorrent Community Running For Cover?
govatos writes "Bandwidth issues and DOS Attacks brought Bytemonsoon, a popular BitTorrent
page down, but now pages are closing for scarier reasons. Torrentse.cx 'recieved a cease and desist letter during the day of Wednesday, July 16, 2003 for copyright infringement. The entire website has been removed and will not return.' Will corporate pressure kill the BitTorrent movement, or will it keep flying from site to site before it settles somewhere 'safe' like Sealand's HavenCo?"
If only they combined the decentralization tracking of other p2p protocols with BitTorrent's distributed and simultaneous upload and download, we'd have a winner.
-- Samir Gupta, Ph. D. Head, New Technology Research Group, Nintendo Co. Ltd., Kyoto, Japan.
I don't think so. Bittorrent is just going to go back to be what it was really designed as: a great way to distribute legal files. The Torrentse's and the Bytemonsoon's where just taking advantage of a hole in the media companies radar. I'm surprized they lasted as long as they did.
Quack, quack.
Don't know how much sense that made, but p2p is too big to stop now, even with a million bazillion lawsuits.
Ignore the "p2p is theft" trolls, they're just uninformed
I've used BitTorrent once or twice myself, and found it to be a good system. That's only once or twice, because there just isn't that much legally distributable material that can reach the required "critical mass" for BitTorrent to be effective and necessary.
Nevertheless, the fact that there are proven legitimate uses of the code should be enough to prevent the code from disappearing. That, and all the copies that are already downloaded.
The real question is whether people will feel safe to post BitTorrent links even when they are distributing something that is 100% legit.
BitTorrent has one major advantage/disadvantage relative to Freenet. You can control what material you are involved in the re-distribution of to match whatever your defintion of "fair use" is. With Freenet you distribute everything or you distribute nothing because you don't know what anything is.
Personally, I prefer the BitTorrent approach. It would be a shame if the RIAA dogs force everyone to the "know nothing" approach.
More artists are going to have to offer their creative works themselves. I decided to put all of my former band's work as well as stuff I'm working on now up for free (the site is 8x7.org if anyone cares), and I have actually started getting interest from other bands I know that want to contribute their music for free. The truth is that the chances that you are going to see any real profit off of a recording is slim to none, so why not just let people listen to it for free? Most musicians make money off of live gigs and merchandising, so why not cut out the middleman (the recording industry) entirely?
The same thing goes for other content. Look at Homestar Runner. They offer the content for free, and make money off of the merchandise - its a great formula. Just this week they introduced a set of figurines, and in the first day brought in over $15,000!
Sound waves should be free!
I agree. The slashdot community may gripe that bittorent was used as an iso distributer, but in reality anyone outside of this community uses it only for downloading the hulk or 'fitty' cent album. Geeks are the minority. Same with the campus search engines in the news. I don't support what the RIAA did, but, truthfully, I've been on a college campus long enough and I can tell you 90% of the population only cares about getting music and/or movies off the net. We may not like that we can't get our linux isos any easier, but what can you do? Most people are pirating. plain and simple. --- no troll intended.
A better question would be: "Will the continued use of bittorrent by warez kiddies destroy its reputation as a good way to get legitimate files?"
Does this come as a surprise to anyone? Now, don't get me wrong - I love it. Some sites post the coolest stuff, including stuff you'd never find (or would take years to dl) on any of the popular p2p networks. Though, that being said, have you seen some of these sites? It's the most blatant piracy ever! These guys are just begging to be shut down. It's kinda like the way it was when Napster first got popular and everyone was like "woah! free stuff for the taking!" This is the same thing; once again the ability to steal stuff has been taken to a new level and it's only a matter of time before the rest of the world notices... I just hope someone comes up with a better way to let ppl know about torrents besides posting them on easily shut down web sites.
i forget how the quote goes, but there's a saying that if everyone is breaking a law, there is probably something wrong with the law (or, more likely, with the people making the laws)
-dbc
for one of the aggrieved parties, let me just say that BitTorrent is nothing short of the Denial of Service attack. I hope they are taken down. When is /. going to learn that you can't flood sites, steal music, or copy DVDs without repercussion?
BitTorrent is nothing like a Denial Of Service attack, infact, it's the exact opposite.
If 99% of the population wants to copy music, and we live in a free world where Democracy wins against tyranny, why is it that 99% of the population are being oppressed by draconian ideals that are out of date in the modern world we live in? Why are they wrong in this democracy? Society should serve the many, not the few, and certanly not the dollar.
Maybe if the aggrieved parties are so concerned about money, they should just get a different job? Like everyone else who doesn't have enough money? Just like coal miners and town cryers have been superseded, so now have shit artists!
The problem with slashdot is that most of its users were bullied and stuffed into lockers as kids!
For all your bitching and bleating, I bet you have never been in a voting booth or been part of any kind of political organization.
Government does the things that it does because people like you bitch & rant on messageboards or to your friends, but never take your concerns beyond that.
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
First off, it's very important to note that bittorrent isn't a P2P network; it is a completely new protocol, fundamentally different then anything that has come before it. In that regard, the "movement" so to speak will not die. The technology will continue to be improved on and it will continue to be used by people who love to get distros the second they come out. Hopefully, we'll finally see bittorrent get some commercial use. There is no reason every game company shouldn't be releasing their betas/demos with bittorrent. It is perfect for these companies that use very little bandwidth, but then every so often require HUGE amounts of bandwidth that force them to use mirrors, which are becoming increasingly annoying. Bittorrent is really a revolutionary innovation, IMO.
But, it has some serious shortcomings that need to be addressed. For a technology that promises infinitely scalable bandwidth, the tracker isn't very scalable at all. Multi-tracker functions (both the interconnectivity of trackers and the use of multiple isolated trackers within the torrent) are an absolute must for this technology to prosper. Also, an apache mod where you could simply upload the file to your web server and not have to worry about running a bittorrent "seed" would be great. From the companies standpoint nothing has really changed, but instead of everyone flooding your website to get this file, the file is only accessible by your bittorrent tracker, so your bandwidth remains consistent. And the company doesn't need to run a separate seed process for the thousands of files it may be serving, the apache mod would only open connections for files that are requested by the tracker (which would only request the file if the full file wasn't already being distributed by those connected).
As for the piracy aspect, I don't really see it going anywhere but I also don't see it growing. There is always going to be some site where you can upload torrents, and that site will always die within 6 months only to be replaced by another.
It was designed as a way for people to distribute large files without paying gobs for bandwidth.
Wonderful.
So who do you think shut them down? Why? Because the RIAA will destroy any alternate distribution channel, regardless of content carried. If you have not noticed, the "promotion" business is mostly about suppressing other content. If a DoS won't do it, the **AA's will put their own content up and then send a cease and dissist letter.
The **AA are going to fail sooner or later. Their technology is simply obsolete and others are starting to produce too much for them to squash. They don't have the resources to fight everyone, and that's what it's comming to. They have enough money and resources to make a few people sorry before they go away. You have to wonder why they bother.
Friends don't help friends install M$ junk.
I don't think the original intent of BT was warez. And unlike Napster or Kazza each file forms it's own network, so infringing traffic is totally separate from legitimate traffic.
Honestly, hosting a Bit Torrent seed for a copyrighted file is no different then hosting the file itself, other then the lowered bandwidth bill.
Shutting down BT wouldn't make any more sense then banning HTTP or SMTP, both of which can be used to infringe copyright. BitTorrent is hugely helpful for small content developers who want to distribute their work, especially if they become popular.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
This is about websites, that are acting as a hub for warez activity.
It's got no more to do with Bittorrent than a pirate ftp site has to do with ftp. You don't blame FTP, you blame the site.
This is not at all the same thing as p2p networks.
Yeah, they're doing a damn good job of shutting them down. Just now I test-downloaded Eminem's Lose Yourself, and it only reached a top speed of 110 KB/s. Additionally, there was only 5,753,344 GB of data being shared by 3.6 million users at the time I was logged on, according to the status bar.
I'm real worried about Kazaa's future with numbers like that.
Y2K Compliant since the late 1890s
And we still have good old usenet after all these years...;)
While the majority of traffic may be copyright violations, the point is the technology is not meant solely for that purpose. In this case, the technology clearly has uses that do not involve copyright violations. That clear distinction makes a big difference than what Napster was. If Napster had taken more steps to push the P2P concept for much more than just music MP3s (kind of like Kazaa and other P2P) things might have turned out differently, but Napster was meant to trade MP3s (music). Bittorrent is meant to provide a technical solution to file distribution, and several projects and a few companies use that to distribute their work. A cassette deck with the ability to record can be used to violate a copyright. But it can also be used for much more than that. Same with Bittorrent. That little detail makes all the difference in the world.
. 62,400 repetitions make one truth -- Brave New World, Aldous Huxley
>Where I live [Ottawa, Ontario]. Many drivers "slide" through stop lines [specially in residential areas where kids and such walk], they speed, merge without signaling, change langes inappropriate [many seem to think you cutoff people instead of going behind], etc.
Let's see the amount of accidents each of these cause in our province:
Ignoring traffic controls (ie: stop signs/lines/whatever) - 4%
Speeding - 1%
Failing to signal / inappropriate lane changes: 3%
Grand total: Accidents reduced by an absolute maximum of 8%. In fact, if it works as well as the photoradar blitz, accidents would be reduced by 0.5%. Somewhat less effective than the war on drugs. Well, a lot more than just "somewhat" less effective...
>Personally I think people rolling through stop lines should be fined 500$. I think speeders should have their license revoked. If the cops spent a day doing a traffic blitz they could probably catch a few hundred people [town of 50K here...] easy.
Personally, I think, as the stats suggest, there should be an enforced "dangerous conditions" speed (7% of crashes). Clearly driving when the weather is good is simply not a problem for Ontarians.
Also helpful would be proper patrolling of yeild signs (10% of crashes), and making it easier to arrest people for following too close (7% of crashes). I'd suggest a law about losing control of a vehicle (8% of crashes), but I think it's usually too late when that happens, anyways.
Technically, it should be illegal to drive properly (45% of crashes), but that's just plain silly.
I also think that speeds should be increased (the amount of people's lives that could be saved by ambulances being able to get to their destinations faster [from less traffic being on the roads] likely outstrips the "risks", which are so small they likely fall within the possible mistake zone of the statistics).
>Similarly, make piracy a huge penalty [e.g. compute ceased, fined 1000$ or etc] and blitz every so often.
Great. So you want to deny access to computers for piracy? Are you sure you've never taped a Hockey game? Do you realize this means offenders would have to be denied their right to use a phone? Do you realize that would mean the government would have to continue to support an extremely expensive and outmoded paper-based infrastructure?
Basically, you'll end up paying for their crimes.
Which reminds me, $1,000 would be a bargain if that's what it really was. In fact, it's usually more around the $100 - $200,000 range. A lot of pirate BBS sysops lost their homes, despite having, at best, maybe $20,000 of pirated software on their machines.
>If you report a pirate [who is convicted] you get x % of the fines. Get the geeks to hunt the pirates!
Yes, let's move from being a socialist country to being a dictatorship! You do realize that the method of control you suggest was the very most popular form of control used during Hitler's regime, right (it's simply a fact -- I'm not invoking Godwin's law here)? And that it was used as a control measure by the soviet union until the cold war was over?
Since we're making up laws to suit ourselves, though, let's outlaw those separate schools. I'm tired of paying for children to be brain damaged, and taught to violate our laws. And it's time to get rid of the CRTC (who make it illegal to have multicultural TV -- only Canadian monoculture is easily available) -- AND I'm tired of having these signals beamed at my house from space and not being able to manipulate them at will. It should be my right to do with any signals being sent to me, against my will, as I wish.
If you could be told what you can see or read, then it follows that you could be told what to say or think - BoC
Or should we make the punishments more severe? Personally I think people rolling through stop lines should be fined 500$. I think speeders should have their license revoked. If the cops spent a day doing a traffic blitz they could probably catch a few hundred people [town of 50K here...] easy.
as another poster pointed out. speeding accounts for the cause of a whopping 1% of accidents. However, I'm willing to bet that "fear of getting a speeding ticket" accounts for a good 10% of accidents. Where I live, in upstate New York, people are generally afraid of the police. Driving around during rush hour I usually see about 2 or 3 accidents a day, and invariably there is a speed trap 200 to 300 feet before the accident. People see the speed trap, slam on the breaks (even if they weren't speeding), and get rear-ended.
The police need to stop screwing around with speed traps, where they succeed in doing nothing but scaring the populous and causing accidents, and start enforcing the laws that would actually prevent accidents. Reckless driving, changing lanes without signaling, speeding under unsafe weather conditions, following too close, etc.
>So all you need is to develop a "jumping tracker" that hops from host to host
Don't get me wrong, I didn't mean to imply "it's not possible". I'm just trying to point out that BT in it's current form isn't meant for warez. BT was originally meant for mass distribution of the 'little guy'. Things like open source software without needing massive donations for bandwidth... not it's current abused state of mass distribution of copyright material. Something like that will definitely attract 'bad attention'.
Personally, I will hazard a guess that BT warez will evolve to a state like freenet: nothing centralized. However, the fact that sites like bytemonsoon and torrentse went down shouldn't have been surprising to -anybody-.
Really, when you offer so many pirated software programs on one single site, where a single click (sometimes... two!) would allow you to begin downloading illegal software.. it shouldn't be at all surprising that these sites were instantly gone after and shutdown. It's just incredibly stupid to be so large and so public for something so obviously illegal
Of course, i guess this wasn't so obvious to the webmasters, was it... ;)
... so I don't see how these sites going down affect BitTorrent for legit uses.
BT is decentralized, so taking down trackers that just have warez doesn't take BT down for trackers that have legit files.
"You spoony bard!" -Tellah
Insofar as there is a "bittorrent community" (seems a little bit like saying the "ftp community" to me), this should be a good thing for it. This should help make it obvious that BT is not a very good choice for distributing "WareZ" (whether software, music or video), as it's too easy to find these sites and shut them down. Which in turn means that all the people using BT for legit purposes won't have to worry about being slandered by association with these types any more.
And geeze, does everything have to be a "community" these days? BT is more like FTP than it is like much of anything else. Why does it need a "community"? Can't it just be a tool that people use for various purposes?
The content was provided by MPAA. If they have a right to distrubute copyright holder's work, the download is legal. I don't see how they can display a copyright/legal use notice BEFORE someone downloads the .AVI, in all the language of the world including Navajo, with existing P2P software that doesn't display any notice before downloading a file. If not, the author can only sue MPAA because they misled private users.
You will think I put copyright authors in an impossible situation. But in fact, they just have to switch stategy by focusing on people who distibute their work without permission.
Tom,
I would not report him. Friends and family are the two things that are supposed to be more important to individuals than the law of the land.
If you go turning in all of your friends for anything illegal that you happen to witness, it's likely you won't have friends anymore.. because, well, you'd be a bad friend to have. Plus, it's impossible never do anything that infracts on the law. Especially here in the US where mere words are considered crimes.
I'm not saying if a friend goes out and commits homocide that you should protect them, just to rationalize a situation before blowing a whistle on someone.
Personally, I wouldn't turn anyone in on anything to do with theft from a corporation. This is a capitalist society. Anyone on the top has gotten there by breaking a few rules, so why should the rest of us (the poor people that funded and helped monopolies be what they are today) be the ones who always must play by the rules? It's a double standard in my eyes.
Btw, police officers are some of the biggest criminals we have. I recall in highschool, the kids that turned out to be cops were some of the worst people to associate with. Considering being a police officer requires little more than no felonies on your record and an 8th grade reading level. My assesment is that most officers would rather get paid $24k a year to be in control of other's fates than to make $45k a year in an office somewhere.
Pardon my disrespect for the legal system. It's a mess. How do I go about becoming a Canadian citizen again?
I am an avid BitTorrent user when it comes to downloading LEGAL stuff like Linux distros. But Bytemonsoon got what was coming to them. A quick glance at the first few entries showed "Win XP Key Generator.rar" and "X-Men 2." To answer the question, "Will corporate pressure kill BitTorrent?" My answer is no, but idiots like the Bytemonsoon webmasters will.
To put it another way, too many people with technical knowledge to create or expand upon something wonderful such as BitTorrent allow their greed to cloud their judgement. It is possible to be greedy over non-physical posessions. Just think about how many people you know that horde movies and music, just to have them, most of which they have never even bothered to play.