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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?"
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.
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.
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.
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
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.