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BitTorrent Community After SuprNova Shutdown
prostoalex writes "Folks from MonkeyMethods.org have researched the BitTorrent world after many popular destinations (SuprNova among others) have been shut down. Since BitTorrent always relied on the presence of trackers and servers hosting them, MonkeyMethods decided to see whether the shutdown impacted the BitTorrent community. So has the shutdown of centralized SuprNova had any impact? "In this case, centralization is a feature, not a necessity. Just look at del.icio.us most popular and you'll see BitTorrent sites every couple days, as people uncover new places to find the files they're looking for.""
Since the MPAA went on its rampage, finding the stuff I've personally wanted has become more difficult.
It's funny, though, that they would tear down SuprNova but somehow TorrentSearch slipped through the cracks, and so there is still some activity out there.
The big question now is whether or not exeem will be worth a damn.
Monkeyin' Around: Is BitTorrent Dead?
Date: January 10, 2005
WARNING: "Monkeyin' Around" contains rambling and wild speculation on the future of digital media. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading. Read the first edition here. Visit our blog at http://blog.monkeymethods.org.
What the heck is this article about?
After the recent shutdowns in the BitTorrent community, notably the popular site SuprNova.org, many were left wondering if BitTorrent was on its last legs. You can read some of the coverage here . Since this happened, many people are asking: How big of a blow are these shutdowns? Is BitTorrent dead or dying?
Well, we had the same questions too, and decided we wanted to understand the distribution of torrent files on the Internet. Using this information, we can examine issues such as centralization and other important factors.
(If you want an introduction to BitTorrent, please read this Wired article and this FAQ)
Okay Sherlock, what did you guys do?
Well, first thing, we have some pretty interesting data lying around. One of the initial projects we decided to do as part of Monkey Methods was TowerSeek.org , which is a true crawler-based BitTorrent search engine. Unlike other sites that simply mirror either Google's torrent search functions (try "filetype:torrent induce" for example), SuprNova, or some other site, we wanted to build a real search engine that crawled the Internet automatically. We'll write more about this project soon, but you can give it a whirl right now.
As part of the backend, TowerSeek.org has a database of links to torrent files, which we realized could be used to understand the distribution of files on the Internet. This would tell us a couple important things:
How centralized are torrent files on the Internet?
Do torrent sites follow the 20/80 rule?
How long is the Long Tail?
These questions are all important because they concern vital (and interesting) differences between BitTorrent and other P2P protocols. Unlike Kazaa, Gnutella, and any others, BitTorrent has a fundamentally "web-based" interface. That means you go to a website in your browser (preferably Firefox), click on a link from that trusted site, and download. So you would expect these sites to vaguely follow the same distributions as websites on the Internet.
Also, through the same mechanisms, the architecture of BitTorrent is far more centralized than other P2P networks. For each file, there is a central "tracker" that keeps track of what clients have what pieces of the file, so clients can talk to each other and download efficiently. Kill the tracker, and you kill the ability of any client to trade files with each other. It is for these reasons that BitTorrent is almost more similar to a direct-connect protocol like FTP or HTTP than a P2P network like Kazaa.
All of these architectural differences make it interesting to look at the data. To answer the questions from above, we did some UNIX pipe-fu to dump out the pages from the database, aggregate them, sort them, and put them in an Excel friendly format, all in one step. 5 minutes later, we were analyzing away.
What did you find?
We found a lot of interesting things. First of all, it should be noted that the dataset was from early December, and thus preserves the distribution of torrents before the recent site shutdowns. It may be interesting to look at this data again in a couple months and see how it has changed over time.
The first thing we did we to simply take the mean, median and mode:
Mean
176
Median
3
Mode
1
Wow. That's a very skewed distribution. It's clearly biased towards a smaller number of sites with many torrents, followed by a long, long tail. In fact, 1 torrent at a domain is the most common statistic. Let's take a look at the graph:
Figure 1:
Ah ha! We can see that this is the classic Zipf Law distribution, at least it looks like it from first glance. How close
Instead of everyone focusing on SuprNova, people have found new places that they otherwise never would have bothered with. There are a number of smaller quality sites out there now. Most of them seem to be hosted in Sweden, Netherlands, Brazil, Russia and elsewhere.
I needed a few new links!
The only effect SuprNova's shutdown had on me was to force redundancy on me- now, I get my files from a variety of sources. Sure, it's a little bit harder to browse what's new from 5 different pages, but it also keeps me focused on what I went looking for in the first place.
As long as it stays on websites, BT should be resilient enough to remain a popular protocol. But who out there doesn't expect BT or another distributed swarming protocol to go decentralized and become a hit? Too bad exeem falls so short.
Like the Galactica after the Cylon attack (The old series... not this new crud on Sci-Fi), the bittorrent world will move on after the destruction of it's centralized community.
As the article said, new sites pop up all the time, and a new site will rise up as the new SuprNova. I admit it's a pain right now that SuprNova is gone, but that is what happens when you walk the illegal (or legally gray) path; you hit bumps.
Carry on, brave nomads.
Let's fake an answer for the curious; let's fake it all for the fame.
Can someone please explain what it is about movie and music piracy that makes it ok to call them "bittorrent communities" or "filesharing collaborations" or homes for "movie enthusiasts", but when it comes to software piracy they're "gangs" and "asian swindlers" and "software theft"
It's fucking illegal, people. Who cares how this illegal piracy "community" is affected?
Let's start posting torrents in slashdot comments. I'm probably going to get in a lot of trouble for coming up with the idea but hey, genius can be a curse. :-)
Supply and demand, dammit. People just never understand this. The laws of capitalism don't refer to things that are necessary to create a capitalist economy, or things that are a good idea. They are natural laws. You can't escape them. There is no way out of the iron cage.
And the laws of supply and demand don't go away just because you try to put laws in their path. You barely even slow them down. The old Soviet Union found that out when black markets sprung up to provide the things the Soviet Union's system couldn't. And the ??AAs of America, much as they try to ignore it, are currently finding that out with the things that are springing up to provide the copyright cartels won't.
Perhaps we could work on the centralization of articles on Slashdot as well.
Copyright law should only be followed when it works in our favor.
/.ers violate pretty much every copyright they can...freedom!
Linksys violates GNU copyrights...they suck.
> It's fucking illegal, people. Who cares how this illegal piracy
> "community" is affected
Well if you think about it you'll see there are many television shows that aren't shown in my country so I want to watch them. Also, many movies shown overseas that are not released in my country immediately
Are you saying I do not have a right to watch these? or follow them with my friends who might get them first? I will have to wait and wait months maybe a year to see them, by the time spoilers are posted everywhere? It should be illegal that they are forcing us to pirate (no I won't say theft!) these videos just to keep up with what other people are able to see. The internet is the great equalizer.
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i do.
Why didn't they make delicio.us instead of del.icio.us? You'd think someone would've jacked that domain with less periods out from under them by now (?)
Conclusion: BT is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Creative Demolition
Bittorrent was designed to just host large files to a large number of people using a distributed system. It's the 'large number of people' thing which makes it bad for illegal file swapping. If 100 file sharers can find illegal content easily, then so can the copyright holders of the illegally copied content. If they want *privacy* with their fileswapping, then fileswappers should put a proxy function into a separate 'file swapper' client to allow you do download 'thru' another computer which would make tracking down the original user impossible... but a proxy function just increases the total sum of bandwidth used, which isn't what Bittorrent was designed to do.
I used to use Suprnova. Then it went down. Now I use Lokitorrent and I get much better transfer rates. It just goes to show the RIAA/MPAA that when you stop one website, another will take it's place and probably do better. This is the same as Napster to Kazaa.
I understand that Loki was around while Suprnova was still up, but I never used it. Now I use it.
It seems the filesharing community evolves very quickly in a widespread fashon, whereas the **AA seems to be slow and uncreative in it's attempts to counteract P2P.
It's like watching an army built for fighting WW2 try to deal with the modern "war on terrorism" (except much less consequential).
Significant non-infrigning uses?
Double standards?
Hypocritical leeches?
Go away voice of reason. We don't want you here.
Mod parent -1 "Too sensible"
Ok, who cares how this illegal copyright infringement community is affected? How about the members of that community? I'm sure there's TONS of people on /. who have used those sites, and this is VERY relevant to us, whether you agree with our ethics or not.
You know, I'd really like to see some sources for your complaint of terminology used for movie and music copyright infringement vs. that of software infringement, because frankly I can recall seeing EVERYBODY being called swindlers, thieves, pirates, etc. I mean, didn't the RIAA start that campaign?
And if you already own a copy of the work, then it is not illegal. I know I've downloaded a movie on more than one occasion when my DVD got scratched beyond repair.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
... but TorrentReactor.net is also quite good...
Personally i've never heard the terms "gangs" or "asian swindlers" applied to software piracy. I think you're over-generalizing to prove a point which to be honest is misdirected anyways. Everyone knows it's illegal, and guess what...lots of people still do it. Since when did Slashdot claim to be a moral beacon? The story appears because there are a large number of people who a) use bittorrent and b) are interested in developments within the "community" regardless of whether or not they actually use it. So who cares? Quite a few people, and the fact that it's illegal is completely irrelevant.
Should you ever decide you'd like that cumbersome chip removed from your shoulder, let me know, i can get a few buddies together to come help with the heavy lifting.
It's not as if the *AA's anti-piracy forces were formerly Keystone Kops. They're not bumbling around trying to find out where those darn pirates went. In fact, they're probably hep to the latest craze before we are. They're simply being methodical, collecting solid evidence against a site owner before they announce their lawsuit in public. It would be pointless for them to sue a site owner they really don't have a case against, so they bide their time.
--
the strongest word is still the word "free"
But once all the other P2P apps came along, again we lost some of the consolidation of files. But people still adapted, and people began learning what networks were good for certain types of files.
Today with bit torrent, we are able to have entire trackers devoted to types of content, such as anime, tv shows, etc, and even before Suprnova and others went down, I still checked a few BT sites for all my files. However, I have to admit, it was pretty damn convenient to just go to Suprnova (which I think easily had the best interface and site mapping) and take a gander at what had been added that day.
I hope mininova takes off, because I enjoy it, but it really doesn't have the traffic or variety it needs yet to be a big competitor. Torrentreactor is still going strong, and so are several others. Frankly, I wish there was a markup language for bit torrent files that could include info such as what type of file it was (tv show, movie, song, album, etc), and possibly what season/episode, recording method, duration, etc. That way that info could be used with an RSS feed and I could REALLY tailor a personal site to all my needs without having to check each of the seperate sites.
Buy Steampunk Clothing Online!
personally I find when the RIAA does stuff like take down suprnova they end up not stopping anything, I personally find what I need with no trouble, but as was said, I just go to more places. at the end of the day the RIAA doesnt effectively solve it, they just split the community and make it more entrenched.
nt
Whether or not the law is just is irrelevant. If it isn't, vote to have the law rescinded.
Breaking the law is breaking the law. There's no "grey area" that so many like to take comfort in.
I got an email from someone I don't know (or maybe I read it on the net somewhere)...but I only use the tracker at xxaa.stuff4free.fbi.gov
Strangely, I haven't gotten a full download yet...everything seems to be corrupted, but I suspect that is a problem with my mach$#AESDFCVB...
LOST CARRIER
See if you added fullblown adware to the soup that eXeem is, then probably it would frustrate u as much as Kaaza does. However, one very critical improvement that eX(eem|lite|.*?) has is that it uses the Bittorrent protocol internally. So as long as you get the file with enough downloaders and seeds (which happens very quickly to gamez/moviez/pr0n) you are almost assured to get the file very quickly.
No more waiting as in eMule. And I dont think I have successfully downloaded any file from Shareaza recently.
Also the built in comments/rating system is the thing that will prevent the network from being MP**'s playground. If aint work work for you, let others know.
Personally, I am gonna implement a Java/.NET based client for this as soon as the protocol stabilizes (which should happen in a couple of months when we hit 1.0.)
~~~ 0wn3d
~~bada bing, bada bang, bada bong and voila~~
This article is a dupe; here is the original
Surprised no one caught this before.
It's fucking illegal, people
It fucking isn't illegal where I live
Sure... Suprnova was a great place to meet your warez/gamez/moviez/mp3z needs... but it wasn't exactly the only Torrent site out there -- it was just the largest. As the *AA continues to go after every target within their lawyers' reach, the Torrent sites in Sweden, Russia, and other places are growing at break-neck speeds.
Basically, as long as their are "safe-harbors" for the trackers things will continue.
For all you pirates out there that want a good laugh, check out The Pirate Bay's legal responses to the *AA.
/dev/random
I've never had any problem locating content on bittorrent.
Large files quite often do download faster than they do from the web so it's a major bonus.
My impression was that SuperNova was mostly full of links to illegal material, and hardly the point of bittorrent - even though many used it for that.
Why not create a .torrent file that contains a list of servers. Have a few people (that are held in high-esteem in the community) moderate it and circulate it. Other people could be added as moderators as they proved their committment to promoting the torrents.
It's a very socialism-meets-meritocracy (aka (Bergeronian) idealogy, but it would certainly work.
Don't think that a small group of dedicated individuals can't change the world. It's the only thing that ever has.
just add filetype:torrent to you google search.
People who want that particular community to be positively OR negatively affected I guess... I am sure the movie companies are VERY interested in what effect their actions have taken.
http://bi-torrent.com has a complete mirror of Suprnova's contents two days before its downfall.
I make mistakes. Don't we all?
Actually loopholes in the law say that its not illegal to copy anything off the net as long as you're not involved in a commercial process to make money from it.
So all those MPAA and RIAA suites are really for nothing if someone would just stand up and have the balls to tell them to go away.
IT IS NOT ILLEGAL TO **DOWNLOAD** ANYTHING FROM THE INTERNET! just make sure YOUR NOT UPLOADING.
Suprnova had no tracker. It was just a listing of torrents from multiple trackers all over the net.
You compared Suprnova to LokiTorrent as if it was slower when you mentionned the "much better transfer rates".
If you don't like the law, change it. The US is a democracy, so this is entirely possible if you want it changed bad enough. While it can be argued that it's ethical to break some unethical laws, I don't think it is here. Your need for the latest bullshit top 40 album is not enough to justify breaking a federal law.
Try arguing your personal ethics in court, see how far that gets you.
Were these people spidering trackers, or just counting any site with a .torrent file on it as a "torrent site"?
.torrent files, then their data on how many torrents were on how many/which sites means very little.
If they were doing blind spidering for
There are many "torrent sites" which simply act as a dumping ground for torrents found on other torrent sites, which actually run trackers. I can upload a a few torrent files to my webspace and link to them on my front page, and be counted as a "torrent site", when in fact, I am not one at all.
Lately, many (most?) torrent sites require authentication to even view the torrents that are avaiable, and their trackers deliver personalized torrents that keep track of how much each user uploads and downloads.
The torrent community I belong to requires authentication, so this spider completely missed it, and the 8,500+ torrents it hosts. I know of a few other sites which require authentication to view torrents, and they too host thousands of torrents.
I don't always use unix-like operating systems; but when I do, I prefer FreeBSD.
Why not create a
That's actually what I'd assumed Exeem was going to be - it's the natural and logical successor to a moderated torrent list like Suprnova. But don't worry I have a feeling that it's one of those ideas that's too good not to happen sooner or later. Probably sooner. Meanwhile it's fun watching the **AA chase its own tail around and around and around....
No, you don't have a right to watch them. You have a privilege that may or may not be affected by your geographic location.
Also, there are lots of TV shows that are only shown on premium channels, like stuff from HBO or Showtime, that gets pirated along with all the other "free" TV.
Anime
http://tracker.anime-fin.net:6969/
http://thehawks.org/hawks/bt/
http://gits.no-jutsu.com/gits/
http://bt.zhentarim.net/
http://www.anime-legion.net/
http://kaa.animeconnection.net/torrentpage/
http://www.animelab.com/anime.manga/bittorrent/
http://www.baka-updates.com/
http://torrents.chaotixubs.com/
http://www.animesuki.com/
http://www.animetorrents.com/
http://www.gotwoot.net/
http://www.spisoft.net/Honobono/
http://a.scarywater.net/ large
http://www.anime-kraze.org/
http://paikia-fansubs.no-ip.com:8080/
http://www.lunaranime.org/
http://bittorrent.frozen-layer.net/
http://torrent.thegreatbeyond.net/
http://www.makenshi.com/
http://www.onegaistudios.com/
Everytime the MPAA shows up at its present location, they jump to a new system.
:D
If it was like the old Galactica, the MPAA would've had TorrentCasinoPlanet.com ready and waiting as soon as SuprNova went under.
Now, if they can only figure out which tracker has the hot blonde leading it along by its network cable . . .
> Also, there are lots of TV shows that are only shown on
> premium channels, like stuff from HBO or Showtime, that gets
> pirated along with all the other "free" TV.
And since then regardless of being paid television or free to air, it is not being shown near me. So the producers are losing what, nothing at all? Not like I am going to pay for it anyway because that is impossible.
Since they make it impossible for me to pay for it then I do have the right to get it for free, no ifs no buts about it.
best mac community on the web
Personally, filelist.org tends to keep me cool for tv eps that I miss. I'd really like to see a group/site devoted to older/classic movies-tv eps. No tivo/replayTV yet. Great time shifting...and, oh yeah, pr0n is good too.
you never lose in ure razorblade shoes......Beck-Hotwax
Can you provide some links to document this?
--This sig is in beta. Please let us know abut any errors you find.
Judging by many of the replies in here, it has had an impact. Just not a negative impact, as the article implies.
anyone check out exeem yet? (too lazy to grab a url) It has all the features I could ever want in a torrent program and its not centralized. I can not wait till this application gets large. This program is it. Check it out people.
I don't know if it's had any effect or not. The torrent I started downloading 2 months ago hasn't finished yet, so I haven't looked for anything else.
http://www.torrentspy.com/
No logins. No bs. Just lots of torrents.
I rather pay for more computer gear than traffic costs for some loser that downloads porn DVDs at work then emails them home.
11 Page list is here: http://board.shodown.net/viewtopic.php?t=4133
LawyerDrone #252272 on phone to ExecuDrone #45435:
..... woo, amazing! It looks EXACTLY like a food store. Fruit baskets and all. Those pirates are certainly crafty. I wonder how you get to the list? Probably a secret password. I'll try a few..
LD: John! Guess what my secretary just printed out and gave to me! It's the latest issue of SlashDots, the pirate newsletter!
ED: Lay it on me Earl, I just got back from golf and I'm ready to get to work, fightin' pirates!
LD: Okay. A prostate surgeon name "alex" just posted the Bit-Torment "master list" we've been looking for: it's at someplace called "delicious.com". As soon as my secretary gets out from under my desk, I'll have her check it out!
ED: No need Earl, entering "delicious.com" into Mosaic now
LD: Don't bother. I'll have the FBI pick up their computers and bring 'em right to you! Because I have that power John. Just a phone call away. BWAH HA HA HA !!!!
ED: Earl, DO IT! If those pimply-faced pirates have their way, I'll have to play golf in that club where they allow black people!
LD: Ouch! Hey, aren't we really doing this for the poor writers and set designers? HA HA!
Together: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
You know, I'd really like to see some sources for your complaint of terminology used for movie and music copyright infringement vs. that of software infringement, because frankly I can recall seeing EVERYBODY being called swindlers, thieves, pirates, etc. I mean, didn't the RIAA start that campaign?
No, it wasn't RIAA.
IIRC, the word 'pirate' has been used in that basic meaning since 1668, which actually predates copyright, which didn't appear until 1710. And remember, that was during the age when there were plenty of the arr-matey-fifteen-men-on-a-dead-man's-chest kind of pirates to go around.
If RIAA were just coming up with a similarly loaded term today, it wouldn't be 'pirate,' it would probably be 'terrorist.'
And if you already own a copy of the work, then it is not illegal.
It is illegal. When you download in that situation, you might -- might -- have a successful fair use defense, but that's as much as you can hope for. Since BT users also upload, and you can't really argue that just because your DVD was scratched it's fair for you to help other people infringe, you're still hosed if anyone wants to make an issue out of it.
-- This and all my posts are in the public domain. I am a lawyer. I am not your lawyer, and this is not legal advice.
That's right, Ramzi will show us how to download Bonzi Buddy again but this time from eXeem when it will become the next p2p full of useless leet junk for us "hackar beatches".
Seriously though, whatever happend to the time where we had great clean clients like Scour Exchange and Morpheus (the first).
BitTorrent is "the thing" of today and no matter what site shuts down, people will never understand and they'll just continue to download and download, and upload.
Go with MUTE and they can't stop you!
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Seriously.
Imagine a mass zombie network of illegal (or legal) content run by people who have no idea they're participating in it.
If they can create a worm/virus that turns thousands of computers into spam and DDOS zombies, why not one that turns them into BitTorrent trackers (or seeds, or link lists, etc...)? Most of us know how much fun it is to try and get thousands of zombies to stop doing anything, and if they do manage to get one or two shut down, then that's just one or two less insecure computers for the rest of us to deal with. Win/win.
Granted, there's no money in it, so it'll never happen, but it'd be fun to see viruses/worms used to distribute pirated (or hey, even legal) content.
He was being facetious, either to be funny or to make a comment about legalities. Not clear to me.
HOWEVER...
Australians can be extradited to the USA for similar offenses that are not illegal in their own country.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Better pay attention. Exeem is chock full of spyware. Cydoor, if I remember correct. It has been discussed here before.
Someone announced an Exeem-lite client, but no one was sure how long the lite client would work before Exeem would be re-engineered.
Basically, it's a copout. An attempt to capitalize and get some cash.
And the MPAA has to spend money to "dig up the dirt". Pirates don't care. So of course it's going to take the **AA longer to catch up. They have consultants that are know exactly what's going on... but there's a delay. Getting the info to a lawyer, getting documents issued to whomever. Wheres the pirate puts the server up, and bang... in business after telling a few people.
i really think exeem has the same problems that plagued kazaa and edonkey and such. it has spyware, its possible to put fake files onto the network even with the comment system, and it even has a central server you have to connect to before you get onto their decentralized network. while it has a better file downloading system based on the bittorrent protocol, i really think its relying on the bittorrent and suprnova names to be effective enough. i think any p2p app has to have a few major features to be effective: anonymity when needed, multi-source file downloading, and a way to verify files are legit before you download them. ive been working on a p2p app like this for a bit, but... im lazy. :-P
I'm with you on this one. Just like the parent's completely nonsensical statement "the fact that it's illegal is completely irrelevant," chronic pirates do tend to be hypocrites. Of course the fact that it's illegal is relevant. That's the whole reason the fight is going on.
I hate that all the mods are sympathetic to the so called "fight" as well. Why is it that those of us who are against piracy are considered flamers and trolls? That's pathetic.
Yeah, I hate the fact that legal music downloads have the restrictive DRM on it. So I don't buy music online - I buy used CDs and just rip'em onto my computer.
Aw - you can't see a TV show in your area? Have to wait a whole extra month to see that movie you wanna see? Tough shit - that still doesn't make it yours. It's someone else's property and they can distribute it however they please.
I've been saving up for a new car - but my childish impatience doesn't give me the right to come steal yours in the meantime.
I've downloaded quite a few songs illegally in my day, but I have no illusions that what I'm doing is "the right thing." I know it's illegal and I'm not proud of it. I don't think I mind people downloading stuff illegally so much as I mind the people trying to make excuses for it. There is no excuse - what you're doing is immoral and dishonest. We're stealing - not leading a revolution. Get over yourself, folks.
Now go ahead and mod this post down - I know most of my fellow pirates don't want to hear it anyway. See no evil, do no evil - or at least not admit to it.
And if you already own a copy of the work, then it is not illegal. I know I've downloaded a movie on more than one occasion when my DVD got scratched beyond repair.
Sorry dude, downloading a copy of something you already own is copyright infringement. Technically, making a backup is also infringement. Fair use is only a defense against prosecution for such an infringement, and it is generally considered a strong enough defense to defend you in the case of duping your own disc for backup. But letting someone else dupe their disc for you is a lot harder to defend under the aegis of fair use.
For a relevant example - consider mp3.com. They came up with a service where you could purchase a copy of any of 80,000 different CDs they would pop your legit, original recording disc in the mail and then at the same time make it possible for you to immediately listen to a streaming mp3 version of the exact same album. Or, you could prove you had physical posession of the disc by inserting it into your PC's cdrom and running a validation program from mp3.com and they would also make the streaming version available to you, at no charge.
No question that you owned a legit copy because you just bought it and they just snail mailed it, or you had to physically put it into your computer. BUT, mp3.com lost big time in court and the settlement destroyed most of the money raised by their IPO and ultimately resulted in them being acquired and smothered by one of the RIAA members.
Here's a quickee link about the case and settlements.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
It's fucking illegal, people.
Not in a lot of countries. Please come up with a new argument.
Because not trading all files is piracy? My country(Venezuala) does not respect most other countries' copyrights. And for good reason, because we are a sovereign country.
How is it illegal for me to trade Kubrick films on the net? And I'm not really affected morally, because, I don't think Kubrick is missing the cash.
No, I don't think it's dead.
Tons of torrent sites still exist: For everything (music/movies/games/etc):
ISOHunt (both BT and IRC)
VIP Torrents
For TV:
BTEFNet
TV-Swarm
TVTorrents
And for those who are only into "legal" material:
LegalTorrents
Not to mention, most Linux distributions offer a BitTorrent alternative download method for obtaining the ISO.
So it's definitely not dead...
No comment really, just thought of that and gave myself a chuckle, might be good for a sig.
Well, one thing is linux really needs another alternative to azureus. My system is running like a pig right now because of it. And yes I'm Java 1.5, helped a bit but not much.
I've searched but haven't found much, I even tried bitcomet in wine but no go.
actually there is a lil difference in the way BT works and the way a "classic" P2P client works.... BT encourages you to get the file and then seed as long as you want ---- where as eMule does the opposite, it sees how much you shared and then allows the download. With more and more people waiting rather than downloading (which could be uploaded to other people at once), the overall throughput suffers. For example, I published a new file in eXeem just before I went to sleep and by the time i woke up (after 4 hours), there were already 12 seeds and 79 downloads. clearly my role was done.... i didnt matter how those people had shared before, just that they found my file to be cool enough to download and the thing just whirlwinds on. ofcourse, BT network can never be a match for the variety of files found in eMule but for hot-happening stuff, eXeem will rock!!!! i got overbilled by my ISP for saturating my DL cap for 14 hours straight (thats 700 KB/s.) I was dloading some stuff.... never happened with eMule.
~~bada bing, bada bang, bada bong and voila~~
Ah, your mistake is in thinking that American laws apply equally the world over. People DO have a right to watch them in countries where downloading copyrighted material for personal use IS legal. This includes Canada.
It also includes several European and Asian countries, but I can see how you might be confused - after all, most Americans think they control the world. Guess what? You don't.
(Okay, that brought out the troll in me, but my point is valid. Many people the world over do have a full, legal right to download and/or share these works. American companies being pissed about it does not change that fact. If you are downloading in a country where it is not legal however... well, if you play with fire you should prepared to be burned.)
No, mod parent (and you) as -1, "Doesn't Understand American Law Does Not Apply Worldwide"
I see these articles all over the world. "Is BitTorrent dead?" "Life of a filesharer after suprnova shurtdown" and so on and so forth.
So, is BT dead? No it not!
When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
buddy, unless you also switched ISP in between, it seems highly unlikely (bordering on - not possible) that you got better transfer rates. suprnova was just a list of torrent that you could use. it didnt keep the files, nor did it track them. ofcourse, unless you referring to the speed with which these sites loaded....
~~bada bing, bada bang, bada bong and voila~~
I see these articles all over the world. "Is BitTorrent dead?" "Life of a filesharer after suprnova shurtdown" and so on and so forth.
Do these people have any clue at all? The only thing that changed after suprnova shutdown was the url I typed in my browser. And I am still using torrents like I died before suprnova. Acutaly, I have more torrent sites bookmarked now and more material avaiable than I did before the raid.
So, is BT dead? No it is not!
When in danger, whewn in doubt! Run in circles, scream and shout!
You have a *right* to see them? Where does this right come from? Do children in the third world have a right to see these movies as well, then? Should we ship them television sets with DVD's so they can exercise their RIGHT to watch seinfeld - the right they've been denied all this time?
You don't have a right to any of this. You like to *think* you do, because that's how you've been justifying your piracy all this time. You're wrong.
I'm the first person to admit that I also download episodes of shows I want to see. I'm not innocent. I sure as hell won't allow you to claim you are.
Let's not be hypocrites here. Piracy happens for selfish reasons. Not because some people can't watch some shows, not because some people want to 'stick it to the music industry', not any of this. Selfish reasons! Admit it, or forever face my contempt.
You (along with many others here who are anti-downloading) are under the mistaken impression that all downloading and copying is illegal and infringement.
/. or worldwide is arrogant to say the least.
To be brief: this is incorrect. Copyright Laws differ worldwide, and there are countries where it is a legal and inalienable right of the people to download works that are copyrighted, without having to seek approval from the copyright holders.
To argue as you do is helping Corporate interests muddy the waters - please, next time you seek to argue against it, restrict your arguments only to those countries where it is definitely illegal. To do otherwise is to do a disservice to everyone.
As for arguing that it is dishonest and immoral - you might as well drop that as well. Many countries have no moral restrictions against ignoring foreign copyright laws - indeed, this was actively encouraged in America in its early history eg. google for Dickens+copyright+America if you are interested. To suggest that your moral views hold for everyone on
(Personally - I see any acts of copyright infringement I may commit as guilt-free and minor-to-the-point-of-forgetting compared to the massive acts of corruption and manipulation carried out by Corporations in the name of profit. If I were to fund those acts by purchases I would feel more immoral than for what I do now.)
Well your mistake is in thinking US laws do not apply in many other places. For example here it is not illegal to download shows and watch them
But people have still been extradited from here to the US for downloading content free from US servers. so the law does count place overseas.
So there.
Are you saying I do not have a right to watch these? or follow them with my friends who might get them first? I will have to wait and wait months maybe a year to see them, by the time spoilers are posted everywhere? It should be illegal that they are forcing us to pirate (no I won't say theft!) these videos just to keep up with what other people are able to see. The internet is the great equalizer.
I will say it will be wise to consider world distribution rather then the current system. People like your self will just end up pirating it as was the case with Battlestar Galactica being shown first on UK's Skyone network.
Unfortunately copyright holders have no obligation to make your live easier by making sure their material gets released in your country in a timely fashion if at all. While you and I think this is farking stupid to alienate potential markets... it's their choice to be bastards. In the world of executives who can only see in short term benefits of having one group pay a premium to get it first it would be hard to convince them anything different would be in their best interest. Perhaps in a decade or they will see the wisdom in making material available globally esp since we can distribute on line.
There is no sanctuary. There is no sanctuary. SHUT UP! There is no shut up. There is no shut up.
Suprnova was never shut down by the RIAA or the MPAA. The operators of Suprnova voluntarily shut it down after being payed by the company that developed Exeem.
Suprnova was conveniently taken down during the MPAA crackdown and was replaced with an advertisment for Exeem. Suprnova's operators effectively sold out its entire fanbase.
I have never had any trouble finding anything that I have wanted on Bittorrent. Anyone and their mother can host a tracker, so the need for the big sites like "Suprnova" is uneeded and totally insecure as that is where the RIAA and MPAA are focusing their lawsuits. I personally use little known trackers with 1 or 2 people seeding at hundreds of kilobytes a second for all of my needs.
You have a point, but don't forget the usefulness of heterogeneity. I mean: better to have a popular protocol drawing attention away from where the real work lies than to compact everything onto HTTP. Remember, we're dealing with cretinous lawyers to whom "mp3" and "torrent" are synonymous with "evil copyright-violating spawn of satan" or something, here. /. article is an implicit acknowledgement that *most* interesting uses of bittorrent have been for copyright-violating purposes, otherwise why would we be reading it, and why does it conflate "bittorrent" with "suprnova"?
And observe how it's not just the lawyers: behind this
~Tim
--
Rushing on down to the circle of the turn
MiniNova is definitely the best website after the closure of SuprNova. It's SuprNova done right. :)
TorrentSpy and TorrentReactor are also kinda good.
So no, BitTorrent isn't dead at all. I'd say the community more alive then ever
you can easily make a case for promissory estoppel. The DVD says in the big frickin FBI warning "licensed to view". So you have bought a license to view.
You are now downloading the stuff (just numbers) and when you VIEW it (which then causes the numbers to have meaning), you have license to view.
I'll identify the legal live music tracker at Etree for ya. Sure, some of the bands (a little over 800 of 'em) have their music available at The Internet Archive, but the Archive requires explicit permission from the bands to host their material there. A lot of bands that allow taping/trading haven't (for whatever reason) opted in to the Archive. So the Etree site has tons of taper-friendly bands like They Might Be Giants, Primus/Les Claypool, Parliament/Funkadelic, Los Lobos, and GWAR, who aren't on the Archive, but who still allow (some of) their music to be traded.
I don't know why you say, "free software doesn't count." That seems pretty silly. Free software most certainly does count. Aside from updates to my Debian machines, I get most of my free software by BT. But there's probably more legal music trading going on on the Etree site every day than there is BT traffic in free software on the entire Internet in a month. So the argument is moot.
The point of BT is not to give you the fastest possible download. Its primary benefits are for the people offering files, who can offer those files to a lot more people than they would be able to if they had to use ftp/http. Those fast ftp/http sites you like? They're not fast because they use ftp/http. They're fast because they pay huge amounts of money for huge, fast pipes. I guarantee, if the guy offering the torrent that you're getting at 200kbps were using ftp or http, you'd be seeing speeds more like 2kbps.
But hey, if you don't like it, don't use it. Nobody's twisting your arm.
With my work on indexing BitTorrent sites, I can shed some light: nothing changed.
From http://s3.isohunt.com/stats.php?mode=btSites
You can see smaller sites on the list relative to Suprnova (it had more than 30,000 torrents online at any one time), but total torrents available didn't change (60,000+ online). As I keep adding more sites, index size is getting bigger than before SN died actually, online torrent count is close to 70,000. Peers also remain at above the 1 million mark.
VIVA1023.com | Political Fashion.
From a perspective of evolutionary theory, this kind of "natural disaster" is about the best thing you could hope for. Some external force comes along and wipes out the top dog every now and then, allowing the also-rans to take its place. This kind of thing may actually accelerate the innovation of PtoP piracy greatly.
uhhhhhhhhhhh..............
the original bt and many versions are written in python.
python will run directly under linux as code itself
http://btfaq.com/serve/cache/12.html
...is that it is impossible to set priorities. The only way to get files *is* to have 100 files in queue, so you'll always have 1 or 2 running. Yes, if you limited the files, you'd essentially have BT. Maybe that's not such a bad thing? Because I can assure you, that if you run one download on eDonkey it'll be much much slower than BT.
As you say, total throughput = total bandwidth. But eDonkey increases the amount "in progress" from ~0 to ~50gb (that was what my incoming dir used to be). And nothing like after three ages and getting 90%, the last seed disappears and stay gone. In BT, I kill the partial file and try again later. On eDonkey, it's "too valuable" and you're stuck with it.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
It has been said that 'rock is dead' and many people predicted the demise of radio, cinema and TV. No, I don't think bittorrent will last as long as they have, but it's far from dead. When it does die it won't be missed - another P2P protocol will take it's place. In the meantime, leech away my friends - but give back what you take.
This one really tickles me. The very first pirate / phreak bbs i ever logged on to was 'The Pirates Bay' in 415. It was run by Mr Krack-Man who many of you that owned Apple ]['s will remember. He cracked many well known packages, including Print Shop.
old school
music lover since 1969
informative article, and I'm glad to read that bt is not dead as a conclusion.
-- We are Microsoft. Linux is irrelevant. Openness is futile. Prepare to be assimilated. --
F2F
Spammers seem to be able to find thousands of places to host their Viagra websites (blackhosts), so why don't more Torrent seed sites go this route?
After all, if spammers can violate CAN-SPAM with little chance of being cought, why can't torrent seed sites do the same?
Again... What is "The 20/80 Rule". Dammit Alex, can you please repeat the answer?
RIAA/MPAA need to come up with inexpensive competing systems that people are going to want instead of DRM infested content.
document, linux distribution, server list-- hmmmmm
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
In unreleated, more recent news, Del.icio.us just received a cease and desist letter from the MPAA. The MPAA told reporters, "All people had to do was look at del.icio.us most popular and they'd see BitTorrent sites every couple days, as people uncovered new places to find the files they were looking for."
Are you saying I do not have a right to watch these?
He wasn't - but you don't have a right to watch them.
It should be illegal that they are forcing us to pirate (no I won't say theft!) these videos just to keep up with what other people are able to see.
Then you need to change the current laws. Contact your politicians!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
I use the following... and see no slow-down in bittorrent usage.
http://www.mininova.org/
http://www.torrentreactor.to/
http://lokitorrent.com/
http://www.torrentspy.com/
http://www.thepiratebay.org/
http://torrentbox.com/
http://www.mybittorrent.com/
For every one site that shuts down, two more spring up to take its place.
Meh.
So seriously, is BitTorrent dead?
No. Well, we don't think so, at least.
Don't think so? Does it really take more than a visit to The Pirate Bay or TowerSeek to confirm to 100% the system isn't?
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
Until ABC et al change this policy of trying to force people to stay on their channels for ratings sake - all the while not informing the guides of the proper start/stop times, and prevent me from getting a full episode, this is what I have to do to watch a full episode.
I used to walk into Safeway. Some people walk into Safeway to browse, and some to shop, and some to steal. Because of those who steal, they installed alarms. They closed Safeway down, so now I shop at Albertson's and I get much better groceries. I understand that some people rob Albertson's as well. It just goes to show the COPS/PIGS that when they stop me shopping in one store, I shop in another and probably get better stuff. This is the same as Vons was to Stater Brothers.
try mlDonkey, it does a number of networks including BitTorrent and I've never had any problems with it. Also since it handles your torrents and donkey files together you have central queue and priority system for both networks.
I spent ages trying to think of sig, but never did
That's only the USA. Maybe the parent was a Canuckastanian. Here we actually value some things like consumer rights.
Unconvinced?
See Part 3, Section 30.6 of the Canadian Copyright Act for more information.
That's for computer programs, but there are similar laws for audio recordings as well.
This whole story is stupid. You americans think the whole world revolves around you. Well it doesn't. Of course shutting down SuprNova had no effect.
I will warn Time Warner high-speed Internet customers that Time Warner knows what copyrights it owns, and there's no reason to believe that the ISP doesn't monitor all BitTorrent traffic. If you use BT to download any Warner Bros. Pictures or New Line Cinema release, with torrent filenames that look like those of a scene release of any WB title since 1923, don't be surprised if your cable guy comes knocking on the door.
Frankly this seems like the typical space invaders anime, as in "As long as they don't kill us all, we'll still fight".
Oh no! They bombarded the main HQ! We have to be more careful guys. Hey there's this huge cave! We can start operating from here!
Tssssk. Alpha to Beta. We found a potential HQ location in sector C. Over.
Roger. Over.
Actually the whole world does basically revolve around the US. That's why all you socialist losers hate us and steal our IP. I don't recall anyone wanting to steal any canadian movies or music or software. Oh, and Canada/EU, etc. put price controls on drugs invented in the USA -- effectively theft.
How convenient that your "morals" allow you to take something someone else has produced for free. The fact is that most countries outside the US are a bunch of socialist leeches.
You either didn't read my post, or like the post i responded to have decided to ignore my point in order to get your agenda across. My point is that the fact that it is illegal *is* irrelevant with regard to whether it gets attention on Slashdot or not. How exactly is that a nonsensical statement again? Do you want your news censored?
That you believe it's wrong is a valid opinion, and in my opinion you're right, pirating *is* wrong, but again, that, and in fact your whole rant, has nothing to do with what i was trying to say.
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=zh-TW&lr=lang_e n&rls=GGLD,GGLD:2004-35,GGLD:zh-TW&threadm=uDRHd.1 22898%24NO5.119348%40twister.rdc-kc.rr.com&rnum=2& prev=/groups%3Fq%3D%2522http://alanb.yi.org:6969/% 2522%26hl%3Dzh-TW%26lr%3Dlang_en%26rls%3DGGLD,GGLD :2004-35,GGLD:zh-TW%26selm%3DuDRHd.122898%2524NO5. 119348%2540twister.rdc-kc.rr.com%26rnum%3D2
You, just like all the other moral apologists, have the most laughable points. The fact that someone else does something wrong still doesn't give you the right to do wrong as well. If you really care about punishing the immoral acts of others - that are better avenues to do it than by sinking to their level. Besides, the whole "I pirate to get back at them," argument is silly.
If there were a way to invest as much time as it takes to download stuff illegally without getting music and movies for free - would you still do it? Of course not - because through all of the lies and excuses, the primary reason people pirate will always be that they get stuff for free. Pure and simple. "Stickin' it to the man" is only secondary to the fact that you're a freeloader.
Another thing - I think it's very telling that all of you "proud" pirates still make your arguments under the protective guise of anonymity. The truly righteous are not at all afraid to show their faces.
Lastly - I never said anything to suggest that all downloading and copying is illegal. You assumed that without merit. I use bittorrent regularly for Linux ISOs, so I enjoy the technology thoroughly. But if you're still trying to convince yourself that 1% or more of all bittorrent and filesharing downloads are legal, you're even more delusional than I thought.
Yes, the tactics of the RIAA and MPAA leave a lot to be desired. Yes, the people who make the laws regarding these things usually don't know what they're talking about. But none of that is an excuse for doing something that your momma's taught you since birth is wrong. If your morality is responsive to someone else's behavior, then you're weak and you're gullible - and you need to go back to grade school to learn the golden rule.
Sorry for you, "dude", but that is not a universal truth. Here in Belgium for example, it IS legal to make a copy of something you already own.
http://jcsnippets.atspace.com/ - a collection of Java & C# snippets
Judging by the effects in the Prohibition Era on alcohol prices, and the price differences between crack vs. powder cocaine, yes. Were cocaine legal, it would be noticably cheaper-- leaving out taxation effects after legalization.
Of course, the legalization debate hinges on more than just prices.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
Either that or they understand the Prisoner's Dilemma with two people and they realize how more hopeless it is with two hundred million.
What about the fact that barring Southampton style collusion, Tit for Tat and Tit for Two Tats consistently place well in Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma contests?
The bit-torrent community is not dead, it is just changing, every time new technology comes out all the warez kiddies grab it up immediately and try to apply it to distributing their warez, clearly, BitTorrent is an amazingly well-designed, well-thought of protocol, and something we clearly needed with all the people starting their own websites, or wanting to distribute large files.
Of course, believe it or not, I also believe in adware, I believe to make movie (tv)/music distribution legal, all the clients to download them should be adwared, then using the money made from the ads, pay the record companies (just like TV and radio works). I think that is the ultimate solution. Discuss?
The truth is... on BitTorrent, there is no such thing as a 'leecher'. Everyone who downloads, uploads too. That goes against the definition of 'leecher'.
Then what is the term for a user who permanently stops the torrent client at a share ratio well below 0.5?
Here in Belgium for example, it IS legal to make a copy of something you already own.
Maybe you should read what I wrote again.
In the USA making the copy yourself is defensible, relying on someone else to make the copy for you is not (easily) defensible. Are you so sure that such a subtle difference does not also exist in Belgium law? If your copyright law is even just one tenth as labrythine as the USA's, chances are that you won't even be able to tell if it is legal or not by reading it.
When information is power, privacy is freedom.
Now, alot of torrent "networks" (Like FileList.org) have popped up, requiring registration and a certain ratio. These networks are very large (100k+ users), moderated, and consistently get the latest torrents by qualified individuals (meaning everything is usually checked before its put on the network).
Since the fall of SuprNova the only thing the *AA has done was increase the quality of torrents and pushed pirates further underground.
The article does cite its inability to spider those restricted torrent networks, but if you ask me, I'd say the problem has gotten worse for the *AA, not any better.
The fact is that US "morals" is more wide than most coutries, so don't go there.
>most countries outside the US are a bunch of socialist leeches.
Living in "socialist leeches" head capital.
I must say p2p has nothin to do whith politics i the country. I dont beleave that americans are so sure of than "socialist" are so bad. Sweden have two parties one socialist and one like yours democrats (republicans is to extreme).
We have ruling of socialist for may years.
but in 1984 we got a "democrats" goverment for a period of 4 years. and all went to hell.
The goverment spending was so high we still are draging there burden of loans to this day.
"Besides, the whole "I pirate to get back at them," argument is silly."
Actually, it's not. It's a band-aid solution for a band-aid kind of world and legal system. IP law is wildly out of control because they are deep pocketed interests greasing the legislators and practically no one to defend the commons against that kind of corruption.
What you are seeing is perfectly reasonable disrespect for "the law" because laws aren't really worth anything until we all generally agree to them - and many of us don't agree any more.
Anyway, laws about IP rights are pretty absurd if you ask me - in the main they serve no one but the protected few. They are a creation of law, a completely unnatural arrangement to benefit creators of useful things. Had the laws remained reasonable people wouldn't be so inclined to flout the law. After the most recent extensions of copyright (i.e. sucking Disney corp cock) most people well understood that IP laws had become completely insane.
Patent law now threatens the same thing. One cannot turn around without considering whose fucking "idea" one may be treading upon.
To be honest, that's a not a world I want to live in, but live in it I do. I have my own fixes for things that bother me.
For the record, I consider myself a deeply moral person. I also refuse to equate morality with what may or may not be "against the law" - laws change all the time to suit the needs of the few, and basically I don't give a shit any longer. We live under the "Golden Rule" where those that have the gold make the rules. It's an old joke, and its funny because its sadly so true.
What you are really worried about is that you are used to a society where the shots are called from the top down. Well, you might have to get used to a society where the street morality you so fear is agreed upon from the bottom up. Because the street, my friend, has its own uses for things.
After Supernova went down, the whole community slowed down for a couple of weeks, but I think its back up again.
Instead of using different tracker sites to search for torrents, use Google, which has indexed them all!
Just search "whatever I want to find +torrent". Beautiful.
don't know why this hasn't been posted yet, but its the largest selection of torrents I've seen, and apparently not subject to threats of shutdown because of the laws of sweden where it is hosted. I just wish i could find a good translator so i could read the comments in english. http://www.piratebay.org/
Hey, there are a million reasons people do this - but its still not legal. If enough people what this changed... get some new politicans to change the laws you know.
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
The RIAA is putting software onto CDs that prevents them from being ripped. What will you when every CD has this?
Aw - you can't see a TV show in your area? Have to wait a whole extra month to see that movie you wanna see? Tough shit - that still doesn't make it yours. It's someone else's property and they can distribute it however they please.
If it's not being sold, no sales are being lost by it being downloaded, so how is downloading it bad?
I've been saving up for a new car - but my childish impatience doesn't give me the right to come steal yours in the meantime.
No, you can't deprive me of the use of my car-which is the traditional definition of steeling, but if you want to make a copy of my car, in such a manner that I can still know my car and not even know that the car is being copied, then go right ahead.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
So why is that we repeatedly see cool technologies like Bittorrent coming under the thumb of industry grpoups like the RIAA and the MPAA. Well, duh! It's because a few million bad apples can't help but see the technology as a way to illegally obtain intellectual property that they have no right too. And then, like the high school student who just managed to scam a copy of the exam before it was given, they can't help but brag about it on forums like this. Do you guys really think that Slashdot is some form of secure communication? I don't work for the MPAA but I could... the point I'm trying to make is that if you were saddened that Spernova got shut down then you shouldn't be bragging about how it's replacement is even better. Reminds me of the illegal street racers who, when shut down by the cops utilize their cell phone network to reassemble elsewhere. Unlike you idiots, however, they don't go out of their way to tell the cops where they are headed to next. Bittorrent is really a great technology for distributing large files. It was originally conceived of for totally legal purposes, and there are tracker sites out that contain only public domain files. How can any of you honestly believe that downloading a full length hollywood release before it hits commercial DVD distribution is legal. Thanks for messing up a great technology.
TorrentReactor got its domain hijacked months ago
Just wanted to say thanks for mentioning this.
So the Etree site has tons of taper-friendly bands
Do bands have the right to opt in to tape trading? I thought the songwriter and sheet music publisher controlled reproduction of works just as much as the record label does. Bands may think they write their own songs, but can they prove it?
Frankly this seems like the typical space invaders anime, as in "As long as they don't kill us all, we'll still fight".
In the animes like that, such as Macross, the good guys win through song.
So if everyone bursts into song at once, maybe the RIAA will bugger off.
The more you tighten your grip, the more torrent sites will slip through your fingers...
if you want people to think you know what you are talking about, just put ".com" at the end of everything you say.com
...Long live Paper and Scissors! (You just *know* it had to be said....)
Take the 90-Day Challenge! http://rwmurker.bodybyvi.com/
How big can you make the L for our friend the
LOOOOOSSSEEER.
I want to spend my life in prison because I just can't get enough trailer trash American TV.
If that is your reason for being a international conspirator and copyright pirate we will need a very big L for your sign.
LOOOSEEERRR
But what if my making a copy of your car caused your personal banking account to drop. In other words - what if you were paying for my car? And you had no choice in the matter?
If somebody creates something, I believe it's theirs. Call me crazy. They can be as stingy as they want to be with it. You can say it makes them a bad person, but the fact remains that it's STILL THEIRS.
If you had an empty room in your house that you only used for guests, it's not open season for anyone to move in and stay out of your way until you have guests.
If you buy a chicken that you only intend on eating half of - it would be NICE if you gave it to somebody that's hungry, but you don't OWE it to them, nor do they have the RIGHT to just march into your house and eat it. If someone did that, you wouldn't be losing out - you were planning on trashing it. Still doesn't make it okay for someone to do that.
Sorry to use so many analogies - but it's the only way I can think to explain something that's just incredibly simple in my mind. It's their property, so you shouldn't steal it. They don't owe you crap. What is it about the file sharing generation that makes them feel like everyone owes them whatever they want on whatever terms they want. It would be nice if everyone gave you whatever you want at no cost to yourself - but that's not how the world works, sorry.
Again, I don't like the big media companies - but it's still their property and not yours.
this is what replaced mircx:
http://www.tokyotosho.com/
I believe that people have the right to make decisions for themselves, according to their morals. Everybody's morals differ. If one person wishes to download copyrighted material, they should not be scolded by those who believe it to be morally wrong. If a person is illegally downloading, that mean they have measured the legal risks and accepted them.
If you still feel against illegal downloading strongly enough to continue the lecture on how wrong it is, then you should also feel strongly enough to take physical action against it. Those who believe in downloading of copyrighted material and those who oppose it should keep their words and insults to themselves (That goes for both sides).
Movies or shows that are on premium channels, I agree - it's not legal, but over-the-air shows...
You do know that over-the-air means public airwaves, right? That is exactly how the FCC defines over-the-air: public airwaves.
If you had an empty room in your house that you only used for guests, it's not open season for anyone to move in and stay out of your way until you have guests.
I like that.. Only one problem. It IS ok, ethically for them to whatever the hell they want in there as long as they don't affect me.
If they snuck in, and lived there for 5 years, I'd still be perfectly happy with it. The instant they got in my way, or otherwise harmed me, I'd be pissed, but as long as they aren't and won't inconveiniencing me in any way, I'd consider it morally reprehensible not to let them stay.
Unfortunately staying that unobtrusive in the offline world is extremely difficult, as even opening a door for a few seconds could adversely affect my heating bill. And given human nature, the "won't" part is impossible for me to beleive to the degree needed to let someone actually attempt it.
In the digital world though, there literally is 0 cost to creators when other people make copies of their creations. The only thing that I feel should be considered un-ethical of copying-without-oportunity-to-pay is literally only the ego hit to the creator, and even then only if that hit will prevent them from creating more in the future. That's not counting how unlikely it is that they even find out about the copy in question.
You have a *right* to free speech? Where does this right come from? Do children in the third world have a right to free speech as well? Should we ship them computers with Internet access so they can exercise their RIGHT to troll on Slashdot - the right they've been denied all this time?
You don't have a right to any of this. You like to *think* you do, because that's how you've been justifying your idiocy all this time. You're wrong.
I'm the first person to admit that I also troll forums on the Internet. I'm not innocent. I sure as hell won't allow you to claim you are.
Let's not be hypocrites here. Trolling happens for selfish reasons. Not because some people can't say the things they want, not because some people want to 'enlighten the Internet', not any of this. Selfish reasons! Admit it, or forever face my contempt.
Bit Torrent Isnt dead ... People just move onto other sites .. Not everyone used suprnova, so their un-effected ..
...
...
A lot of ppl swaped from open public trackers to forum sign up trackers with ratio..
http://www.btefnet.net/ & http://www.bt-gm.com/ are two sites i usally refer Bit Torrent p2p downloaders too
Few ppl have swaped to using DC++ and some have gone back to irc xdccs
Bit torrent is certainly not dead from the down fall of one tracker site
Dont ask , Just Google IT : http://www.google.com
A new Linux Distro centered tracker site has opened up at the address: linuxtracker.org. It's a recent startup, but it selection seems to be growing pretty rapidly.
There really should be some central location in which Linux related developers can upload torrents to. Time will tell if this site is able to provide this much-needed service or not.
"Here we are, back at the Reactor... You can send this to your friends or news sites or you can comment on this on our board. Because of MPAA complaints and also some others our old colocation decided to shut down our servers. Why you ask? - Thats also what we asked them - really we don't know a lot more than you. They probably got tired of all the complaints and were about to give out some addresses. (Isn't that just what MPAA wants them to do? - But wait, theres no legal base to give out any addresses and besides - this site is not illegal!) So after they shut us down we had to find a new colo and we did - as you can see. Now why did it take us so long? - Everything was ready to go on the new servers but then either some 31337 pseudo h4xx0r scriptkiddie hacked the box or someone at the colo fucked something up. We just got the message from them that the box was fucked up and that they reinstalled it. Stupid shit, we lost 3 days because of that! Now here is the issue about the .net scammers: As we were moving our domain (because the place where we had it was about to give out some addresses (yep, the same shit again)) someone hijacked it - with a fake identity and a faked passport. And the folks were the domain was hosted agreed to it... Ouch, how stupid of them. They tried a lot to get it back but as you can see without success. Anyway - just dont use .net. Our work, traffic and part of our userbase is also stolen because not everybody knows that the domain changed.
Thanks for your patience and your support, it's time that we give something back to you so I will be posting news more often and some new features are in the works.
Stay tuned - Team TorrentReactor."
So how is that different from downloading? No money is going to the artist, it's going to the used CD store and the intern who stole the promo from the radio station.
If they snuck in, and lived there for 5 years, I'd still be perfectly happy with it. The instant they got in my way, or otherwise harmed me, I'd be pissed, but as long as they aren't and won't inconveiniencing me in any way, I'd consider it morally reprehensible not to let them stay.
:)
Send me your address. I'm recently unemployed and living at home - which is a nightmare! I promise I won't get in your way
I do have a natural right to see whatever I want, and share information in any way I see fit! In the United States, we have made a bargain with artists to allow that right to be temporarily superseded in order to allow them to (hopefully) profit and create more art, but the fact is that we've granted artists a privilage, and we can take that privilage away.
Copyright infringment happens when we feel like artists are abusing their privilage.
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
More like, the sheer volume of leechers, driving up bandwidth bills. Centralized media hosting simply got too expensive for amateurs.
In effect BT brings us back to the file-sharing web of the late '90s, and resurrects the old whack-a-mole gambit. Remember that? "They can't stop us all". They could and did when sites had to be big and centralized. But the game's different when centralization is just a matter of market attention.
You wouldn't "steal" my car if you could just make a digital copy of it and I could retain the original?!
Actually, I would love for someone to point out where it says it's illegal...
They have the copyright to the mateiral. They don't want you to do it, therefore it's illegal. Don't like it - go into politics!
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
But if you make a copy of my car, it doesn't cause my personal bank account to drop. At worst, it simply doesn't add to it. If, theoretically, somebody downloads Photoshop, Adobe does not lose any money. They just don't gain anything.
As to your analogies-they all fail because they all involve depriving somebody of the use of their property. With your chicken analogy, if I decied to eat the other half of the chicken, I can't because you deprive me of the use of it. With your room analogy, if I decide that I want to use the room, I can't, you're depriving me of the use of it. But if you make a copy of these things, I am not deprived of their use. I don't lose anything. At worst, I just don't gain anything. It would be nice if you had the right to gain things, but that's not how the world works, sorry.
"Do I dare disturb the universe?"
... and wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Seriously, do you have any links to more information about this? I'd be interested in reading them.
- fader
Wow, Slyck covered this story a few days ago and these guys didnt even give them props.. way to go..
It would be nice if you had the right to gain things, but that's not how the world works, sorry.
But you should have the right to be reasonably paid for your work. There's no excuse for depriving someone of fair reward for their hard work.
I've downloaded quite a few songs illegally in my day, but I have no illusions that what I'm doing is "the right thing." I know it's illegal and I'm not proud of it. I don't think I mind people downloading stuff illegally so much as I mind the people trying to make excuses for it. There is no excuse - what you're doing is immoral and dishonest. We're stealing - not leading a revolution. Get over yourself, folks.
This is the only comment that I have read here that I genuinly dislike.
There are some people who say "you are stealing, it is wrong and you should stop". I can understand that point of view, although I do not agree. They themselves don't copy things because they feel that it is theft. Sure, good for you.
There are others who say "this copyright thing is a sham and who says that copy protection is a God given right and I will copy whatever I want". I don't completely agree with them either, but I understand their point of view also. They copy things and don't feel bad about it. Good for you too.
But I find that you are the only one being immoral. You believe that what you are doing is wrong, wrong, wrong, and still you keep doing it.
Now THAT, truly, is the lowest of morals.
First off, I'm sorry if I didn't clarify it to be past tense. No, I don't pirate anymore. In fact, I switched back to dial-up to prevent so much as the slightest temptation. So I'm sorry if I wasn't clear on that point, but it is past tense. Dial-up's so frustraing as to prevent any such thing. Sometimes I'll go to the coffee shop for free wi-fi just to check my email from the frustration!
Secondly, even if I were still doing it, that doesn't make the people who don't admit to it's immorality any less immoral than I would be IMHO. If they steal without any notice of the unethical nature of what they're doing - that means they're either in denial or simply don't have a conscience. That doesn't make them better than someone who recognizes the immorality of it.
I don't believe that morality is as relative as these pirates - and yourself, apparently - take it to be. Even a kid with down-syndrome will be punished in SOME way for murdering someone. The extent that someone recognizes the "wrongness" of their actions does indeed figure into their legal punishment, but I don't think it makes their actions inherently more "right."
Stealing is still stealing - just because someone may not be mentally strong enough to admit to themselves that they're being immoral doesn't excuse it any more than someone who recognizes it and does it gleefully. They're just different people behaving unethically with different motivations - but the end action is the same. And let's face it - how many of these pirates sincerely believe that what they're doing may not actually be wrong or illegal? They all know it, and I call shenanigans on anyone who downloads 1000 songs and goes "Oh, I didn't know it was wrong." Whatever. It's the weakest of excuses because it's an outright lie.
> And the non-availability of something in a country often means that
> getting it "illegally" is not illegal. For example, canadian courts have
> consistently ruled that decrypting US satellite TV signals is not stealing,
> nor illegal because the US satellite TV providers are prohibited from selling
> their subscriptions in Canada. So, US satellite TV providers have to use
> private investigators within Canada to track "illegal" subscribers and often
> use bounty hunters to kidnap them in Canada and drag them to the US where
> they get jailed for not committing a crime in the US...
You information is several years out of date. Unauthorized decryption of US sattelite signals has been declared illegal by the supreme court.
I went to the Torrent Site Status site, but I couldn't find any references to torrent sites in Brasil. Can you please elaborate?
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
were designed for piracy. Bittorrent was designed to copy (large) files to (large) audience.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
Nope, you've just blown it. You would have been just fine, but you had to go and make me reply. Now I'm pissed.