Slashdot Mirror
Legal Torrent Sites Help Legitimize BitTorrent
Jeff writes "In today's Seattle Times, technology columnist Paul Andrews highlights how legal torrent sites such as CommonBits may lead to wider adoption and acceptance of BitTorrent. With reports that illegal torrent usage may be more than a third of Internet traffic, sites like LegalTorrents, Torrentocracy, Prodigem and bt.etree may offer a compelling defense to future legal attacks while simultaneously promoting fair use rights. Andrews goes on to argue that the future of television may be no further away than integration of podcasting, RSS, tagging and BlogTorrent."
Slashdot Editors Help Legitimize Dupes
It only takes 1 illegal site to put BitTorrent in the crosshairs of the *AA groups. In fact, the fact that we are celebrating some legal sites speaks volumes to where BitTorrent currently stands.
But is be legal to download anything that I'm ever going to have any interest in?
I somehow doubt that the content of these sites, and by extension the sites themselves, are going to be popular in the long run.
Just to state the bleeding obvious, of course.
When the article says the intent is to provide otherwise inaccessible content to Internet "viewers", it only applies to the novice users and those who don't read /. But I must say this is a start. If the companies can support this actively, it would be better.
... and I shall strike upon thee with great vegeance, furious anger and a slightly positive karma.
Saying that these sites are legal or illegal is like opening a legal knife shop.
The torrent protocol isn't illegal, the sites running them aren't illegal, the content distributed from different places however can be illegal in most countries.
liqbase
I think the point is that these sites are unquestionably legal, even to boneheaded organizations like the MPAA. (It's necessary to make things very, very simple such that they can understand.)
These sites aren't a defense against people who run pirate sites, but against outlawing the actual bittorrent protocal
Don't you hate pants?
The only problem with "legitimizing" bittorrent's image is that, as a protocol, it's still the most popular one for illega filesharing. We admins quite frankly don't give one hoot about its benign uses: we KNOW that the second we stop filtering BT traffic, our bandwidth usage is gonna go up.
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
I missed last week's episode of Lost. None of my friends had recorded it so I found the torrent and downloaded it. Hurley's crazy. Anyway, I would rather have gone to the ABC site, paid like a $1 or something, and downloaded it from them. I want to support stuff I find interesting but there is no way to do that with TV episodes. What do I do, wait for the DVD next year? Please. ABC and the like could use BitTorrent to distribute Pay Per View content. I'd like that very much.
Speak truth to power.
Why exactly is there a need to "legitimize" the Bittorrent protocol?
AFAIK there never was an initiative to outlaw the protocol itself.
Talk about paranoia.
120 chars are not enough for a signature. I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to c
With reports that illegal torrent usage may be more than a third of Internet traffic...
Sorry, but how the hell are the people who come up with the numbers able to differentiate between legal and illegal torrents?
First of all, how do you tell between traffic that's due to Linux ISOs and traffic that's due to the latest movie release? Secondly, how do you differentiate between copying of material that may be legal in one country and copying of the same material that may be illegal in another one?
I'm not saying that legal torrent usage is greater than illegal torrent usage (any more than I would say that more drivers stick to speed limits than break them) but it seems to me that there's no real way of differentiating between the two, so all those reports are arguably just speculation.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
as a protocol, it's still the most popular one for illega filesharing.
Really? NNTP, FTP, DCC and HTTP are quite popular.
We admins quite frankly don't give one hoot about its benign uses: we KNOW that the second we stop filtering BT traffic, our bandwidth usage is gonna go up.
Hint: you can lower your bandwidth usage by filtering NNTP, FTP, DCC and HTTP too.
If the problem is with bandwidth use, why are you bringing the law into this? Filter it because it soaks up all your bandwidth, don't make up stupid excuses like "it's illegal" when it's not true.
It's not censorship. They specifically say that it's a "resource for politically left people". So you know what to expect when downloading their content. If you want no political slanting, don't use their service, that's all there is to say.
Again: not censorship
120 chars are not enough for a signature. I have discovered a truly remarkable proof which this margin is too small to c
So any legal material that doesn't fit their leftist worldview will be censored... how nice...
No, you idiot, it will just fail to be promoted by this site. There is a big difference. You can do the same kind of thing with your right-wing attack site if you so wish. At the least you can agree that there is a market for news for leftists (whatever "leftist" means - in the USA it apparently means anyone who is not a rabid neocon)
What I want to see is for this to have no biases
So make your own. The existence of this site doesn't stop you doing that, and good luck; you'll need it in heaps. Unbiased news is very difficult, arguably impossible.
I want no political slanting of what gets in, I would far rather it be noted for the fairness of their coverage.
Try the BBC, it comes close.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
Slackware has been using BitTorrent for a while now. You have the option of using that, or the normal download methods. You can visit them here.
I've seen many other legitimate uses for BitTorrent, since there are a lot of things to download that are of considerable size.
Guns are sometimes used to commit crimes, yet we do not outlaw them. Bongs are being sold at the local Waterbeds N Stuff. Knives that aren't practical for neither hunting or home protection can be purchased in lots of places. Why should software be any different?
And they said zombies weren't real!
I don't think anyone is talking about the people who do the actual pirating of the software (i.e. serve it via bittorrent). We're talking about the future of the bittorrent protocol itself.
While it may seem silly to believe that a protocol for file transfer could be in trouble because a few people used it for illegal file sharing, think about what happened to Kazaa. Sharman Networks wasn't necessarily distributing any copyrighted material on their own, they were merely providing a method of hooking up with other people who have copyrighted material (ala suprnova).
While this may not be technically _illegal_, they are still propogating criminal activities and as such _someone_ is always going to be after them. Folks like the *AA have managed to harass Sharman networks to the point that it's questionable whether they'll be able to carry on, in spite of the fact that they weren't doing anything technically "illegal". People seem to think you can always hide behind the actual law, but in this day and age, blatantly exploiting loopholes such as this will surely result in some retaliation.
-py
-py
Saying that these sites are legal or illegal is like opening a legal knife shop.
Er... no, it isn't.
You can take any knife and commit a crime with it, and likewise you can take any knife and use it in a perfectly legal manner. However, you can't make downloading FreeBSD into copyright infringement whatever you do, and you can't stop downloading a cam of a Hollywood movie being copyright infringement whatever you do.
Therefore, a single knife can be used both legally and illegally, but downloading from a single torrent can only be legal or illegal. Therefore, your analogy does not work.
The sites running [illegal torrents] aren't illegal...
Regardless of whether hosting links to illegal torrents, or running trackers for illegal torrents, is legal or not (given that the people who run these sites inevitably settle when sued, the implication is that THEY don't believe it's legal!), the concept of a "legal torrent site" - being one which hosts only torrents which it is legal for anyone to join - is a useful one.
Just wait until a file called "Episode 3" is listed. MPAA's sueing robots will tear them up to tiny bits before their masterminds even realize it's not what the bot thought it is.
It's not that they're boneheaded - quite the opposite. Bittorrent and similar apps are (they believe) a real thorn in their side at the moment. They believe that if they can show that these apps have no significant non-infringing use, then they can have them outlawed. That would make their jobs much easier - rather than having to be able to prove that a user was violating their copyrights, they'd just have to prove that they were using the apps at all.
Let me put it this way - why should they care that people like us use these things for perfectly legal file trading, if enough people use them in ways that do infringe? We're not their concern - preventing you or I from getting the latest Linux ISO isn't going to impact their profits at all. Hell, *personally* they may care, but *professionally*, it's not even a consideration, as long as they (believe that they) stand to lose more money by doing nothing, than by seeking to outlaw p2p apps.
They're not boneheaded, they just have a different set of priorities, and you're never going to be able to effectively work against them by dismissing them and their actions in this way.
It's official. Most of you are morons.
that Bit torrent has been given such a bad name by the MPAA and RIAA. Bit torrent is an amazning technology that deserves acceptance by the mainstream media.
I still remember how cool I thought it was that Blizzard used Bit Torrent to distribute the beta for World of Warcraft. At least one company understands its potential...
You're parsing that wrong. It's not about legal (torrent sites), but about (legal torrent) sites.
That is, you're thinking that the site itself is or not legal, and that leads to your complaint. I'm thinking of a site with links to torrents of files that are legal to download, as oposed to lokitorrent et al.
And besides, it's not like any judge would actually care about what the IANAL population of slashdot calls it anyway, so any question about suggested legality is moot.
If only it were that easy. Last I checked, human beings were quite capable (nay, proficient!) at lying. However, there are times when they tell the truth also. So which is it? Is Anne lying, or telling the truth? Or is it some mixture of the two?
:]
I guess in those instances you have to look at the actions, not the words. The MPAA hasn't done a whole lot, but they are very similar to the RIAA, and the RIAA, at the least, has shown NO respect to P2P networks. They've done everything they could to shut down as many P2P networks as they could, and only when that didn't work, did they finally actually attack the actual problem (the users).
But the MPAA is essentially getting a bad wrap for the DVD Jon situation (which showed them to be a bunch of jerks (imo)), but also because of their recording industry counter part, the RIAA. Is guilt by association fair? No, but you can't blame people for being extraordinarily wary. Maybe the MPAA will be different, but do you really want to rest on your laurels and wait for them to roll over you, your rights, or something you deeply care about before you try to fight? In those situations, it's usually too late to do anything.
But I ramble. My apologies
Well, the submission hits all the buzzwords. Perhaps "wiki" is missing.
Torrent...Podcasting...RSS...Blog...
Which of these will we use consistently in, say, three years?
I've been worried about BitTorrent being squashed by the ??AA, not because I download illegal material, but because the *legal* material I download is still a threat to the ??AA. After all, the possibility of artists distributing superior quality material without relying on the ??AA still endangers the stranglehold the bureaucracies have on the "art" world. They're going to get away with outlawing independent distribution if the public is not aware of legal media exchange before the laws eventually pass.
Nobody really seems to care, but it's still very refreshing to see that the point has at least been made in the media.