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Official BitTorrent Search Opens
starrsoft writes "The official BitTorrent search has debuted. The search engine was built by BT inventor Bram Cohen. The question? Will he get sued? The BT search seems to be down right now. (It'll really be down after this story is posted...) Spiegel has more (En): "Naturally other sites such as Bitoogle, Isohunt, SuprNova or Torrentspy have tried before, but either they became fast a goal of legal attacks on the part of the industry or they furnished rather durchwachsene [??] results. BitTorrent search however proves with first tests [that it is] as...Google...fast. The results come from a large number [of] more well-known and unknown... sites, and...permits sufficient restricting to the inquiry, in order to obtain really relevant results.""
I don't think the legal efforts against him will be successfull. Here's why:
When Napster was sued they actually had content in their possession. Not the case here. Even if they were able to prove that you could get content from the network, you aren't technically scearching for the content you get. You're scearching for torrents, which are small files with no real copy righted data in them. They're little road signs that point you where to go. It would be like getting arrested for creating a phone book just because you might be able to find the number of someone who has drugs in the book.
Bit Torrent's strength has always been that it's a content neutral utility that is great for efficient P2P. The fact that it's been picked up by some large corporations for distributing large files helps. An official search tool will damage that position.
Don't get me wrong - I'm sure it will be incredibly useful. I'm also sure, that it will be filled with porn, illegal software, and illegal copies of music (whether you agree with the law or not, it's still illegal). That hurts bit torrent's reputation as content neutral, and will make some larger backers step away.
Apparently, though, the makers find it more useful to be widely used than widely respected. Fair enough, it's their toy. Unfortunate, though, that it can't be used as a shining, piracy free star in an otherwise ugly niche of the internet.
Video Phone Blogs send video messages straight to the web.
Will this search engine help other websites get shut down?
I don't think the RIAA can sue the search engine, but it could sue sites that list torrents.
How will this search engine deal with private torrent websites?? Will it cache them? Can that be used as evidence at a later time?
Rosco: "If brains were gunpowder, Enos couldn't blow his nose."
1) It's redundant - who wants to have to use two P2P apps just to get something?
2) It's difficult - until recently, trackerless torrents have been a dream, so downloading a torrent from a random user might end up creating a bunch of seedless torrents.
3) Most people who use other P2P apps tend to not understand BitTorrent. They stick with what's easy.
I am scientifically inaccurate.
I would imagine BT search looks at the contents of a torrent, for instance extracting filenames that could be matched against search terms. Of course this is possible for Google as well, but I doubt that it's being done.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
Surely that problem exists on the provider's side, not the search engine's side? If I share a movie file with BitTorrent, is it BitTorrent's fault?
If I share a movie via FTP on my web server and Google's spiders find it and link to it, is it Google's fault that I've broken copyright law?
The protocol is irrelevent. (The constant game of cat and mouse, protocol-of-the-week antics confirms this.) Even the uses to which people *put* the protocol are irrelevent. What matters is that people are sharing materials to which they have no copyrights, not that they're using BitTorrent to do it.
BitTorrent doesn't share movies. People share movies.
How so?
Well, if you kept your Metallica stuff (music, T-shirts, videos, I assume), then in the future you might decide that you just don't care for Metallica anymore. So you sell it. And the people who bought your used stuff might not buy new stuff from Metallica because they just bought your stuff.
But now that you've thrown it away (it's destroyed, presumably), this cannot happen, and now somebody will have to buy new Metallica shit, lining Lars' pockets with even more gold.
Good job!
Remember that not all the world has bought into the united states lame idea of intellectual property, and anti innovation laws. IDK where bittorrent.com is being hosted, but if they get bothered by the MPAA, they'll probably just go to Denmark or Switzerland where information is still free.
"And we have seen and do testify that the Father sent the Son to be the Savior of the World"
1 John 4:14
If I'm looking for a legal file, why wouldn't I just go to the official Web site? The BitTorrent search engine doesn't ensure that you're getting the official torrent.
Don't underestimate symbolism. Aside from expressing how he feels to himself, he expresses to many others how he feels. A band depends on other people for its worth. Actions like this diminish it, even if it doesn't cost them a few quid immediately.
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
I've never understood the Metallica case.
Even if in the past they encouraged trading, its up to them to say Hey When We Were A Small Unknown Band, It Benefitted Us, But Not That We Are Superstars, It Doesn't Anymore -- So Stop It -- and thats what they did at first.
Being true fans, you'd have quite posting these respecting their rights. It might be moronic in your mind, but they did write the music...it had nothing to do with you and your word of mouth promotion no matter how much you'd like to think so. Given this, the only folks that got sued were folks that didn't give a damn about the band and even then -- I don't remember Metallica actually suing any individual. They wanted their music off the internet and thats it.
I don't know why its so hard for others to respect the rights of those that they admire. Even if you don't respect copyright and think its insane -- I'd hope you still treated these guys with the respect they ask for. I have friends with religions I don't believe in -- I still go out of my way to not offend them and try to understand them...I do the same with copyrights.
I really don't know why this is such a hard concept.
But now that you've thrown it away (it's destroyed, presumably), this cannot happen, and now somebody will have to buy new Metallica shit, lining Lars' pockets with even more gold.
Maybe you're not familiar with the argument that the sale of used cars, for example, makes new cars more valuable - it gives them resale value.
I've read Cory Doctorow argue on BoingBoing that the newly enlarged used books market (thanks to Amazon, eBay, half.com) is doing the same thing for new books, like so:
- New book unit sales are way DOWN, but...
- Used book sales are way up.
- New book prices are up (books are more
valuable b/c they now have more resale value).
- New book revenues are up.
So authors shouldn't be upset about the expanded used book market, as many apparently are - so the argument goes.
I'm no economist, I don't know how much of this really makes sense. But it seems to me that by destroying his old Metallica stuff and not selling it, the original poster could be helping to prevent the development of a robust used-Metallica-stuff aftermarket, thus putting downward pressure on Metallica-stuff prices and helping to deflate new Metallica-stuff revenues.
As I understand the case, the judge said that a technology would be legal if it was demonstratably useful and intended for legal purposes. Napster failed that test, because there simply wasn't an existing base of legal music files at the time. Kazza succeeded because it was able to show that its design allowed for any type of file regardless of legality.
This might have been an issue, but the determining legal point was that Napster was a centralized system and therefore knew full well that copyright infringement was occurring and could have acted to stop it. Futhermore, Napster had a huge papertrail describing their infringement-based business model.
Systems like Kazaa are decentrilized to the point where Kazaa themselves can't stop any particular file from being traded. So while their intent is to support copyright infrimgent, they've sofar escaped on technicalities. Unfortunately, most "tracker" sites are more like Napster than Kazaa.
Whenever I hear the word 'Innovation', I reach for my pistol.
You make interesting points, but it really comes down to one question:
Can they afford the legal battle?
Until the answer to this question is yes, all others will remain unanswered. As it stands, the mere threat of legal action is enough to send anyone with less than deep pockets scurrying.
https://www.eff.org/https-everywhere