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Bram Cohen to Release BitTorrent Search Engine
AI Playground writes "Within two weeks, a BitTorrent search engine will be available at BitTorrent.com. From the Wired News article: 'Bram Cohen and a small cadre of developers and entrepreneurs are in the final stage of launching an advertising-supported search engine dedicated to cataloging and indexing the thousands of movies, music tracks, software programs and other files for download over Cohen's popular BitTorrent protocol.'"
This is not sufficient. I totally agree, release a search engine!
-Palal
... should give them enough time.
I don't read your sig. Why are you reading mine?
Doesn't Bram Cohen see this coming?
As nice as this might be, to be able to simply search various torrents, I have a feeling that this will not do anything to enhance Bittorrent's image with the media. If anything, they will use it as a tool to show that people "pirate" tons of stuff over BT. (As mentioned in the article - when the "reporter" requests a search done for The Interpeter.)
It's a good idea, and probably going to be a nice piece of software... but right now is probably about the worst time you can release something like this.
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
Has anybody tried/implemented distributing .torrents (not the payload, the .torrent file itself) over Usenet? It seems that with trackerless torrents, Usenet would be the perfect distribution medium for the torrents themselves, just as decentralized as BitTorrent itelf... TorreNTSP so to speak...
You can wait two weeks for them to link it on the homepage or you can search now at search.bittorrent.com
The MPAA has maneuvered to get some torrent sites pulled offline, almost all of the sites are places where users publish content to the site manually.(PUSH) A search engine pulling content from existing locations (PULL) is a completely different type of system.
I wonder if they are going to make it super easy for the FBI, and just let them type in "Illegal Downloads". The only saving grace is that the list will be so long it will probably freeze up the FBIs network.
A search engine is a decent idea, but if you can't find your files already, you aren't doing something right. I'm not sure BitTorrent is the kind of thing that should be catering to the dumb computer user. Part of the reason it hasn't been locked down totally is because the masses haven't figured it out. Make it as easy to use as Napster, and it will be shutdown as fast as possible.
/. ++
As contradictory to the "Cause" as this may seem, doesn't anyone see that Bram is probably doing this because the RIAA/MPAA and other major industries are blaming his project, a project that produces a protocol, for the rampant copyright infringement on the Internet?
The irony here in recent news is that the RIAA/MPAA are directly blaming BitTorrent for the Star Wars EP3 leak, but its been repeatedly shown that the leaked copy came from inside, and was released before the movie hit the public.
...and somehow BitTorrent is to blame?
Are we blaming Boeing for the 9/11 tragedy too? Or blaming Kabar for making high-quality blades, because someone killed with one?
This is ridiculous, and I personally applaud Bram's efforts here to absolutely saturate the mainstream media and dark corners of the Internet with as much media as possible, using his legitimate tool. I personally don't care for any of the copyrighted dreck on television or the radio these days, but others might.
Also, whenever you can, please keep correcting people who regard this as "piracy", "stealing" or "theft". It is nothing of the sort. It is "copyright infringement", plain and simple. If I "steal" your bicycle, I have deprived you of something you previously owned, which I now posess. Making digitally-perfect copies of a work is not "stealing" or "theft", though it is very much illegal in most countries.
You can't steal profits that weren't already earned. You can't steal "projected" profits. Keep up the pressure on these companies who continue to misunderstand the terms they're spewing in public. There's a certain Heinekin commercial that is grossly misrepresenting the nature of copyright infringement.
I corrected a Wall Street Journal reporter for a front-page article in the Marketplace section of the dead-tree version for promoting the "sharing of music" by burning copies of music and handing it out.
He wrote a story that included how some woman (which he named), was bored with the looping music playing in her resort in the Caribbean islands and decided to use her laptop, complete with burner, to burn several CDs of her favorite music to give to the resort to play instead. He was promoting the "advance of technology" for "enabling" people to do these things. This is disgusting.
THIS is where we need to start directing our angst... at the mainstream media misrepresenting these technologies.
Further, as was pointed out in one of the first posts, this would be akin to suing Google for indexing sites that link to (possibly) infringing material. That case has never happened, and if it did, it would set an odd precedent, to say the least.
.torrent files.
I think Bram is going to seek the same protections most search engines enjoy. No doubt if a suit came out, he would argue that he is only linking to files that link to peers. This is no more illegal than the "filetype:torrent" option on Google, and that has never been challenged. It would essentially be akin to outlawing
You have two choices when it comes to torrents. Either disown the sharing of copyrighted material "Piracy is Bad. We don't support piracy at all. Torrents can be used for GOOD!".
Or, you can try to legitimize "piracy" itself. Ie. Make the downloading of copyright material, so widespread, and so common, that the content providers have NO CHOICE but change their business models. Essentially force a revolution.
I'd guess, thats what Mr. Cohen is up to. The MPAA and RIAA aren't going to be convinced that Torrenting is "good" or "just a protocol". So rather than try in vain, he's gonna play by their rules, open the gates wide open, and legitimize piracy.
Remember, content providers are not gonna change by choice, they are not going to do the right thing because we ask nicely. The only way they will smarten up is if they are given no choice "change, or die".
So the plan isn't to deny piracy. It's to embrace it, make it so big it's unstoppable, to induce a paradigm shift in the industry. To bring on the revolution.
Heck, it might even work.
Aggies
according to the wired article, the search engine will allow "RIAA and friends" to target the uploaders directly and sue them.
So the search engine will actually become a benefit for the RIAA. Which I'm perfectly OK with, since Cohen never intended BT to be a pirate tool.
I'm firmly in this camp here. For instance, downloading a copy of ROTS is patently illegal. Ditto for the rest of the **AA stuffs.
If, with this 'search engine', the **AA folks actually have a better tool to be used to go after the infringers, and it leads to a general cleaning up of the currant situation by virtue of the takedown notices that sites that do have the material will receive, and the filing of suits for a *reasonable* level of damages against the receivers of such material, then I see this as a net positive development.
BTW, my view of reasonable, provided the receiver hasn't passed on any further copies, is no more than 10 times the cost of a theater ticket to see the show, times the number of people living in that household.
That, and court costs, but no attorneys fees. Costs will probably exceed the damages that **AA will recover, and it will send a strong enough message to the average person, but it will not be a significant item in the **AA members bottom line. Net losses could well eat any profits from doing the civil suit, so it turns into a CODB for them, and something to minimize.
OTOH, the takedown notice should be delivered in the form of a site-wide machine seizure, then followed up with a civil suit, based on the forensic data recoverable from the site that would give a good picture of how many times it was downloaded from that site. That would often lead to a net profit making it a worthwhile item on the quarterly report. This of course mixes the criminal and civil aspects, so its not that simple. Really, it should be, but combining that would put a lot of expensive legal people on the bread lines so the chances of that happening are somewhere between zip and point double ought (excrement).
However, if the **AA make the mistake of going after the program itself, then I would hope the courts have sense enough to toss it out. That however, would appear to depend on how many judges they have on a leash, and what the leash is made of.
The program has the potential to do much good, and I cannot see that true justice is being served in any venue that attempts to control 100% of its use.
--
Cheers, Gene
"There are four boxes to be used in defense of liberty:
soap, ballot, jury, and ammo. Please use in that order."
-Ed Howdershelt (Author)