Slashdot Mirror
The Commercial Future of Torrrents
acrid_k writes "Yahoo is covering a story from SiliconValley.com entitled BitTorrent moving uptown. From adding Ask Jeeves content in search results to investigating use of torrents for sharing bandwidth for paid downloads, the future is looking both more restrictive and more commercial. You have to wonder about a crucial part of the equation: why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?" From the article: "BitTorrent already has struck deals with video game publishers to distribute games with its technology. Cohen's bid to commercialize BitTorrent is a measure of how far the entertainment industry has come since the late 1990s, when
Napster introduced millions of people to the power of peer-to-peer technology for downloading songs -- and mobilized scores of lawyers to shut it down."
I would say share bandwidth for video game downloads because I hate those sites that make you pay to get a fast download or wait in line for 2 hours to download for free!
--
http://www.dreamsyssoft.com
lastIndexOf
public int lastIndexOf(String str)
Returns the index within this string of the rightmost occurrence of the specified substring. The rightmost empty string "" is considered to occur at the index value this.length(). The returned index is the largest value k such that
this.startsWith(str, k)
is true.
Parameters:
str - the substring to search for.
Returns:
if the string argument occurs one or more times as a substring within this object, then the index of the first character of the last such substring is returned. If it does not occur as a substring, -1 is returned.
"from the inrush-of-information dept."
Is that a reference to the hurried typing of Torrrrrrrent?
The man is always going around adding "R"s to stuff and taking away the purity. I say keep it Rreal.
...need I say more?
/. editing.
Now begin rants on
Note to editors: please add spell-checker to your article dupe checker!
Thanks.
Spell Check. Just do it.
Me doggie eats torrents during torrintenalk rain.
"You have to wonder about a crucial part of the equation: why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?"
Because they have no choice. That's the idea of P2P, in order to use the benefits of the download bandwith, you automatically contribute to the upload pool.
For a second there I thought we were going to possibly talk about the chimerical future of torrents. *sigh*
I imagine that Bittorrent would work best economically where you pay some fixed amount to be a member of a closed Bittorrent network with exclusive content. The service could then easily track who is downloading what, then portion out your (say) monthly fee among the content producers.
Bill Clinton: Pimp we can believe in. - The Shirt!!!
I thought bittorrent was a protocol, not a company - how can it "strike a deal"?
think of this scenerio:
a new download only video game (like HL2/steam)
several geograpahicly smart download servers seeding the download.
then the client connects using the softwares own download agent (a modified bit torrent client)
i like it.
.cig
Perhaps this is the most logical use for the technology. Maybe if people are commercially motivated to use the technology it will actually work? Right now it seems to be horrendously unreliable compared to regular P2P networks, but that is just my experience.
...of the Slashdot effect? Sure, we now use bittorrent to distribute software over a vast, distributed network. Why not adapt it to HTTP or the like? Yeah, it would make updating news sites a bit of a problem, but more static sites could brace for a large DDoS-type-hit (intentional or unintentional) by this method.
Thats one of the more overlooked commercial applications I can think of. Not only quite legal, but useful as well.
I hope the land around you yields, a crop like all the other fields, and then your waiting might make sense...
Every time I use BitTorrent I think of another reason to hit myself in the head for not coming up with it. It's one of those technologies, like the internet, that make you amesic about the time before it existed. Downloading regular files seems to me stupid.
That is not to say BitTorrent is perfect. I think there is tons of room for optimization and customization of a BitTorrent download session. But the important question is... why not BitTorrent?
From criminalising BT to making people pay for it.
"why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?"
;)
Media companies aren't the only people who can be helped by commercial application of torrent tech. Think of this (and it's just an idea):
What if Apple integrated bittorrent into the next version of iTunes? Users that subscribe to the same podcast could be torrenting from users instead of just from the server. This way, you can get your podcasts faster, and without hogging up one server to do it.
That's just my idea. But why would we want to make things faster for us?
Perfecting Discordia
www.stevenvansickle.com
why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?
Because not all people think that corporations are Evil. I would share my bandwith it it helps keeps costs down, and allows me to download the product I buy faster.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?
I think that's kind of obvious. It'll lower distribution costs, and that will lower the selling price, so people won't mind sharing bandwidth because they're getting a lower cost than they normally would. Of course, that's just the ideal scenario, and probably wouldn't last long. At least long enough for the higher ups to realize that they can sell their wares for the same price now, but also reduce their costs.
"...why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?"
Because it's a cheap, easy, and very scalable way to get fast downloads. I'd rather pay for less a company to provide content via Bittorrent than pay more so that they can build and maintain and infrastructure capable of hosting a huge number of http or ftp connections.
On a related note, most internet users aren't crazed slashdotters who obsess over their upstreams.
We now have Tony the Tiger posting on Slashdot.
I never spellcheck and I freely admit it. Save your karma for more worthwhile "lol erorrs" replies
... is that it's completely based on whatever client someone uses. Since not everyone uses Azureus or ABC or Bit-Comet and the such, sometimes the downloads gets a little screwy. Such programs that allows people to download, lets say 1mbps, and only upload 10 kbps hurts everyone else currently on the download tracker. Then, lets say, that someone logs off as soon as hes done. This not only puts more pressure on the others seeding, but also reduces the overall speed and completeness of the torrent
Of course, if the ratio were somehow locked, such as in some other P2P program, and companies which will eventually use bt for commercial downloads, would eventually regulate BT to the point in which a new, better system would be developed.
Torrrents they're Grrrreat!
What's going to stop them from propagating those commercial links around the web? Arguably, I'd say that they need to force users to log into the tracker. That suddenly makes accessing those torrents more difficult.
I do agree, though, that such a setup would likely be a lot more secure than just a "pure download" method. If they DO set up some way for users to log in and access (and download) their torrents, then that means they would just need to store a list of torrents, making it easy for users to re-download stuff that's lost.
Similarly, a business could keep bandwidth and speed up by simply distributing a release among, say, 5-10 permanent seeding machines for their various releases. Most of the bandwidth would come from those, but for popular files, it wouldn't matter if you're leeching due to the increased speed of everyone on the network.
I can see how it would work for commercial stuff -- pretty much just the same as any non-commercial torrent release with dedicated distribution. What I don't see is how they're going to control access to the torrents, trackers, and the like.
I can say right now, though, that if they expect me to use my bandwidth for a download that, in all likelyhood, will take longer than a pure straight http/ftp download, I better get a "seeder" discount.
why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?
That brings up an interesting possible use. Let's say we have an app provided by a (nice*) media company which uses bittorrent to download movies for us to watch (how/wherever we feel like*). Now, what if this torrent app (which would probably be set up to only download torrents provided by the media company) tracked not only how many movies we downloaded, but how many MB we uploaded?
They could (assuming they're nice and cool and all that) do something like give us credits for how much we uploaded. While I might not be ok with them using my bandwidth to deliver their product for their profit at my expense, I'd be perfectly happy for them to pay to use my unused bandwidth. Be the first one to get a new movie, set up as a seeder, and earn yourself 3 other movies right there.
I just hope they don't start (like the article suggests they should) automatically blocking "non-official" torrents in the protocol itself or in the main distribution. It'd make it easier for them to license bittorrent, but it'd be a real slap in the face to everyone else.
*Yeah, I know, wishful thinking...
No trespassing. Violators will be shot. Survivors will be shot again.
Mod it down please, Thanks.
For example, if I decide to host a pr0n torrent server for free, I'm sure Ill get LOTS more traffic than any paid service. Free (as in cost as well as in beer) always wins.
Arr! I sense pirrate day coming close! Arrr!
You have to wonder about a crucial part of the equation: why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?
Simple. They will check your upload to download ratio and give you incentives to keep a higher ratio. Of course, the incentive will be far far smaller than the actual value of the bandwidth but hey, 1GB upload means 1 song or something like that would motivate people.
...but I am willing to return in kind.
Torrents for files that are being freely distributed - sure, I can share my bandwidth, especially when I don't need it. Even patches for some commercial games I don't mind because it improves games I play.
Torrents for commercial files that are charging users for the download? Kiss my butt, unless you are paying me for the bandwidth.
-Styopa
I have seen Commercial in the topic change spelling 4 times now...
...when my cable ISP capped NNTP at 32kB/s because of the binary groups. That's all fine, because I usually use bittorrent or eDonkey for downloading files, but it has the side effect of making headers require several minutes to download in some of the larger groups. I'm sure this wouldn't help small groups, but it would surely take some of the load off of the NNTP server if a torrent-like system could be used to distribute the pages.
I've posted this before, but supposedly this company has technology to stream HTTP torrent-style. No idea if that's vaporware or what.
picpix image polls. create - share - vote. fun!
When did we get a choice if we use torrents or not? A lot of browsers are now able to use torrents by default. If big media companies exploit this others will follow and we're stuck using them like it or not.
I like muppets.
I would not be in favor of using bit-torrents to distribute games. Imagine downloading something like HL2 over Bittorrent. My bandwidth would definitely be shot for a month or two in that scenario. (Not that Steam was that much better of a distribution platform though, they never seemed to have any bandwidth either)
Ha. Torrent is a widespread open source solution. It's not like previous P2P solutions where the companies who develop them can put pay links in. As long as there is a demand for free stuff (which I'm pretty sure is a universal want), free bittorrent will always win out.
The question was why people would share their internet connection to benefit media companies. Well, people will do it if there is incentive enough, i.e. they get other stuff faster or access to exclusive content or some other tangible benefits. The current P2P networks have already shown that people are willing to share, adding commercial beneficiaries may not change it radically. The businesses just need to invent the benefits for people for the win-win scenario.
(Argh, I actually used words like "incentive" and "win-win scenario"! I think I've been exposed to too many business proposals...)
*wipes correction fluid from lower lip*
Is it just me, or does the Blizzard Downloader suck when a new patch comes out? Is this an issue with BT, or an issue with the "Enhanced" Blizzard Downloader?
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
Works fine for me.
Actually the scenario you are describing is a massive step backwards. BitTorrent has KILLED paid for downloading services and has made them -1 redundant. BT is conceptually incompatible with a commercial subscription service. Sure some will try but it will only go so far.
Though I'm not quite in favor of using torrents to help the media conglomerates save money, the implications can be positive in some respects. For one thing, it'll legitimize P2P and make it a crucial part of the Internet experience.
If the big players depend on the technology, it means we'll have an easier time defeating some of the current restrictions planned to curb P2P... such as limiting DSL upstream to a bare minimum, or charging for higher-than-average upstream.
Lots of providers all over the world are still considering this as we speak. Using commercial torrents would put enormous pressure against such measures.
Ah... there's the missing r from 'emergency' a couple of articles back...
Up to several hundred clients, yes. Beyond that? Things don't look quite as cheery. Try connecting to a torrent with a thousand peers and a thousand seeds. A substantial part of your bandwidth- especially precious upstream bandwidth- is spent replying to peers. I blame the third party clients, mostly, for flooding peers with requests.
Please help metamoderate.
Oh geeze...I can only imagine the roommate hell that will surface if this becomes more commonplace. Roomies slurping stuff off the net in p2p networks was bad enough. When my one roomie discovered the joys of Bit Torrent, oh my poor router...
I feel for all the self-appointed sys admin roommates who are supporting their roomie's habits.
"He uses statistics as a drunken man uses lampposts...for support rather than illumination." - Andrew Lang
Try out http://popcast.com/ for an example of BitTorrent TV.
I don't think I've ever had a torrent that didn't just peter out and stop, never to complete. Mac version. PC version. Doesn't matter.
Skype
They're commercial and their software uses P2P to provide the bandwith needed for all those VoIP conversations.
So what does skype have over other VoIP solutions which existed before:
Ease of use
Make the BT client easy to use and well working, and people will use their lines willingly to distribrute whatever the big media company wants.
why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?
Unless the companies in question are run by idiots (umm, oh well), the idea is that (1) the company needs to provide little actual product (cd's, boxes, books, etc) and instead just media, AND (2) don't need a powerful server to support it (which lowers the running cost of the company). So that shiny game that costs $60 at the store on openning day should cost a good chunk of change less when taken by a torrent method (at least $10 less). Since games are switching to DVD's, this saves the company even more.
So, the incentive is cost. I for one would prefer having a real instruction manual and some real media to have the game on, but realistically dvd's hardly last forever (~10 yrs would be a good start) and manuals are forsaken. (Why provide content with a game when you can just have a forum?)
Bit Torrent sounds great, in thory....
Lots of people want to download say a Linux distro on release day and I know of no Linux company that will be able to have a server that will hold up. So, they create a torrent and when millions are all trying to download it at the same time can because bit torrent speeds this up immensly. What happens later that month? What happens in 2 months? That iso isn't ALWAYS going to be in hot demand. After a while, the torrent becomes slow since there are no downloaders. It would be nice if you can have a server or cms software atuomagically change the link to the static web site once the on coming rush is done. Bit Torrent only works well when lots of people want the file. Once the rush is over, the static link works better.
Gorkman
egrep -i gr+?eat Hmmm.
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. -Theodor Adorno
> You have to wonder about a crucial part of the
> equation: why would internet users share their
> bandwidth to benefit media companies?
What goes around, comes around. BitTorrent was
always about forcing people into a community
of "sharing"; even if you really were not in a
position to.
No sympathy from me...
Cohen's bid to commercialize BitTorrent is a measure of how far the entertainment industry has come since the late 1990s, when Napster introduced millions of people to the power of peer-to-peer technology for downloading songs -- and mobilized scores of lawyers to shut it down."
But the problem everyone has, and why we get 1k/sec torrents from them here, isn't that torrents suck until somthing is popular, it's that 1 or 2 users with 100+++ TCP streams each can consume all available bandwidth at the company/campus/etc.
:)
Of course, that's also exactly why it's so popular and people like it.
Movies are just BIG, and since the torrent protocol is lets face it, about as hostile as you could design to any other traffic, it's always going to be packet shaped/blocked/filtered.
Still, gotta love free as in not paid for
- Adam L. Beberg - The Cosm Project - http://www.mithral.com/
Like the internet as a whole, BitTorrent is a network. Anyone (including media companies) can put stuff ON the network assuming someone is willing to host it. Having said that, however, there are a few rules to follow (MEDIA COMPANIES PLEASE PAY ATTENTION!):
a) The network is not yours to do with as you please. It is OUR network and you are participants. Participants != owners, no matter how would much you would like it to.
b) You don't get to choose your neighbors on the network.
c) It is a priveledge, not a right, for you to participate on the network.
d) You don't get to control what goes OVER the network. Yes, there may be things you don't like but deal with it.
Thank you for your time.
The real question is if ISPs are going to support this. Sounds like a lot of more work for them.
but seriously, if the choice is either to use bittorent or deal with an infestation of obnoxious advertizements needed to pay for the content (or not getting the content at all) I think the choice is pretty easy. Why would it bother me to help distribute something cool?
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
At the very least, the editors and article-submitters alike could install SpellBound or IE Spell and check their text fields before approving/submitting.
I think Entire internet should be based on Multicasting. (Or atleast part of it) Thoes content or pages that are most accessed should be rebroadcasted evry second. If 1000 people are accessing that page, then instead of giving out 1 page to each browser , we can send 1 page to 1000+ at the same time. Saving WebServer bandwidth by using Bittorent technology ?
I just copy all my Netflix rentals. :)
Actually, it's best use can probably be seen here (NSFW!).
The way they use upload ratio to control download priviledges on new content is really good. This provides incentive to get your upload ratio well above 1:1. And since you have to register, it's a controlled community.
It wouldn't matter if they started blocking "non-official" torrents in the protocol itself, people just wouldn't upgrade. Nobody would use the new version, and it'd vanish into obscurity.
People who use "pseudo" code in their posts think they are being witty and pithy, but are actually revealing themselves to be JACKASSES.
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
After just a hundred comments or so?
Shortest. Poll. EVER.
The Commercial Future of Terrorists.
I started thinking /. just came out of the closet for a Jihad.
It may have been all those r's that got me.
Dirka Dirka Torrrrrrrrent!
First you set up a seamless transmission network, sortof like bittorrent but closely monitored. The monitoring would be the hard part. The goal would be for people to sell their bandwidth, in an priceline style auction, they put their bandwidth up for sale, I've got a cable connection at home that can serve about 500kbps upstream that I want to make available in the evenings, perhaps my cable provider limits me to serving only those people on my comcast network, fine, I put that into the app. The app uses complex heuristics to give people the bandwidth they need, at the quality they need (comcast being LOW quality) and at the price they want, while actually PAYING the people for their bandwidth. I don't suppose I could make more than 10 or 20 dollars each month in this manner, while comcast continues to charge $50/month. It could even be set up to serve encrypted content, completely secure, although I'm not aware of a security system that supports translatable keys, where a client sends its key to a server, the server sends a transformed version of that key to a middle distribution point, which then transforms the already encrypted content to match the key the client originally sent, using the transformed key the server sent to it, and then send it back to the client. That's the future of DRM right there, perhaps an encryption expert could tell me if something like that is possible.
The point of all the complexity would be to allow a website to distribute a significant portion of their bandwidth needs, while unloading bottleneck links. If a tv ad for the latest as-seen-on-tv widget goes up in Los Angeles, and the company expects a significant amount of traffic from that area, a node could be set up in LA and all the images on the website sent to it for 10,000x redistribution, which makes even more sense if the server is located in australia and the intercontinental links represent a bottleneck. The heuristics server would be the key aspect of a system like this.
Yep, I'm greedy. So are a whole lot of you.
AC comments get piped to
It helps that Cohen never cast himself as an anarchist who bragged that his technology would vanquish the old entertainment industry. He has gone out of his way to castigate those who use BitTorrent for piracy.
Or not...
From his homepage:I build systems to disseminate information, commit digital piracy, synthesize drugs, maintain untrusted contacts, purchase anonymously, and secure machines and homes.
Best slashdot comment
Why, for the discounted rate/right of use to the content I choose to host, of course. I should get something - other than a bill or a lawsuit - for being part of their distribution network.
The REAL jabber has the user id: 13196
What you do today will cost you a day of your life
"You have to wonder about a crucial part of the equation: why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?"
Why? Why? So I can download it at 200k/sec from all over the net instead of 10k/sec from the central server. Because I want my media when I click "Download" and if not then, then as fast as possible.
Besides, I'm not paying per meg, so as long as it's extra bandwidth, they can have it, as long as it benefits me, which is does. Faster downloads.
My question is: How much will downloading stuff via P2P, instead of from web sites, save me as a consumer. After all, the delivery method takes advantage of the bandwidth I pay for instead of the bandwidth they were previously paying for and to some degree, charging me for.
Now, I'll grant, compared to the cost of making a movie or software, the cost of bandwidth for distributing it is pretty minimal. That said, I don't really see an advantage to me to use P2P unless I'm getting something in return. Otherwise it's just plain easier to download it from a web site. And knocking off $0.05 in the price certainly isn't going to be much of an incentive for me, even if that's more than the actual cost of my share of the bandwidth.
Of course, we're just the lowly consumers, so I doubt they'll offer a "choice."
Yarrr, matey, torrrents is a perfectly cromulent spelling for us pirates! Ain't ye been listening to the MPAA? Who else but us would use torrrents? Arrr.
Now then, if you'll excuse me, MP3s, ho! Let's scuttle this Britney Spears swag, ye scurvey scalliwags! We'll keel haul her and send her and send the lot of this crap down to Davey Jones' locker!
Bram must come from an elite Jewish family (his last name is Cohen!). Jewish People are good merchants, not pirates, they are not sea people. Their neighbors, the Phoenicians, combined both activities, they were BOTH great merchants AND pirates. Do did the ancient Greeks, and probably most other sea people, the Modern Greeks, the Dutch, the British, etc.
Don't a lot of isp contract sort of pre-emp this type of resale of bandwidth?
Is it possible to mix the lot into one package so that the load the server, bin, and content can be shared over a WAN?
(and CSS of course, I love it)
The only reason for actual web space would be for DNS and original seed.
My complaint is gaming sites have a habit (justifiable because of bandwidth) of charging fees and expansion means eliminating the competition (usually by buying them out).
Is there anyway to get gaming developers on board?
Could user ratings (similar to slashdot) dictated by reviews, previews from gamers (or whoever) and give cadence to the front page (but not exclusively)?
Can a php type forum be ported into the same purpose?
Advertisement space can still be allotted but in a more rational form (but hopefully not necessary). Gaming communities are easy to communicate at a truly unbelievable scale so producers like Activision or Atari would not be endangered by the infamous blackball. Etc...etc...etc...
Is this a good idea?
bittorrent bandwidth on my computer...sure I would.
I wouldnt do it 24 hours a day...but i could leave it on when Im not there.
They dont have to pay me just give me something
of value.
What's going to stop them from propagating those commercial links around the web? Arguably, I'd say that they need to force users to log into the tracker. That suddenly makes accessing those torrents more difficult.
Not good enough. Anybody who gets the files themselves can then make their own torrent on a different tracker. Or if you use Azureus, torrents can become trackerless automagically, if you're setup to use trackerless torrents. In fact, with Azureus's implementation, you don't even need the torrent file. Just the Kademilia link. You'll then get the torrent from a participating client.
No, for that, you'd need a DRM solution. While it's true that DRM doesn't work in the long run, in the short run, it'd work fine. Anything you sell will eventually be cracked and posted everywhere, but by that time you'd have made your cash from the people wanting it on a "first run" basis, assuming your prices were reasonable.
Commercialization of torrents won't work except in cases:
a) where you're giving the content away for free anyway,
b) where you use a DRM scheme to charge people to decrypt/view the content after they download it, or
c) where the content contains advertising that is not annoying enough for people to remove it or integrated into the content itself (product placement).
For the most part, however, the idea will be to use the technology to reduce bandwidth costs of the company pushing their content. And for the most part it'll be free content, like patches to programs, or video of news stories, or whatever. A torrent in cases like this will always be at least as good as a straight http/ftp download for the simple reason that they have a constantly on seeder replacing the http/ftp download. So you're downloading from the main server just the case, but can also download from other peers.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
If you're using lots of bandwidth responding to peers, you need to limit the number of peers that you can connect to. Everybody's settings will be different because everybody's bandwidth is different. I find that for my cable connection, limiting it to about 400 total connections works pretty good, for me.
- Give a man a fire and he's warm for a day, but set him on fire and he's warm for the rest of his life.
That's "torrents" (two r's, not three).
Dog is my co-pilot.
I guess I am new here, but could someone explain to me what a 'Torrrents' is and how it compares to a Torrent?
thanks,
The war with islam is a war on the beast
The war on terror is a war for peace
Mr. Cohen might have created bittorrent to take the load off of main servers by using untapped upload bandwidth. This works fine for free or pirated files, but when you have to pay to download something nobody is gonna seed. the ratio will mean nothing to them. People only do it now for cred, the ratio at their fav torrent site, or for the simple fact that they want to belong to something - the idea that 'hey, all of us non-topsiters' have to kind of work together to get the contraband that we want' Sony is not my peer. If I pay them 40$$ to download a new game because I don't have time to run to the store and pick it up I am absolutely not going to seed. Why would I when I can download it from a my fav torrent site for free and prob faster because of all the hit and runs with the 'official' torrent. The only way that would ever work is if they insisted that you download their BT client that would not allow you to play the game or watch the movie or whatever until the ratio was 1:1. Even then I could just go to my fav BT site and download the crack for it - still twice the trouble of just downloading it for free in the first place.
Like, eh, faster downloads from other iTunes users?
Not much details in the article. It just says Bram Cohen is having meetings with businessmen. It doesn't say how it will become a more restrictive technoloyg. In either case, non-commercial, non-restrictive use of BitTorrent will never die. For example, the idea of combining BitTorrent with RSS has been brought up before. With podcasting currently rapidlly growing in popularity, bandwidth is quickly becoming an issue. Amazingly, the podcasting community haven't embraced P2P technology yet. So BitTorrent might be a reasonable solution. However, one of the concerns with BitTorrent is peer sending corrupt data in a way undetectable by SHA-1 checking.
BitTorrent automatically does SHA-1 checking for you, so it's very difficult for corrupt data to be distributed, but not impossible. Many security-related protocols use SHA-1. The next step would be to go with SHA-256, which makes it harder to create corrupt data that produces the same digest.
Sorry, but I won't give my bandwidth to other people just to help media companies. If I do, I will leverage their annual costs for bandwidth but get no benefit. Remember 'Steam' from VALVe?, yeah, internet distribution will make games cheaper. (rolleyes) Where!!? When!!?
Not again. There must be a real compensation to the users. Not only to the companies.
"Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former" - Albert Einstein.
What I don't understand, especially in a home cable broadband setting where upstream is at a premium and when saturated hampers downstream speeds, is why it's necessary to distribute that bandwidth and software to nodes on the network. Doesn't it make more sense to place the torrent upload at the service provider network? Otherwise you are receiving data at one hop, then to one or more nodes on the "fat pipe" part of the cable segment, then part or all of it back up through a much thinner "pipe" back to the hop and back to the Internet.
-Phil
Shoot questions, first ask later...
They have people that charge for bandwidth, you know ISPs? They won't allow you to sell their bandwidth. I haven't even looked yet, but I'm sure it's in your contract.
It would avoid BitTorrent from having 'Tony The Tiger' as a spokesman.
" BitTorrrent , It's Grrreat !"
Success is not the result of spontaneous combustion, you must set yourself on fire.
for torrents.. ...
is more Rs!!
You have to wonder about a crucial part of the equation: why would internet users share their bandwidth to benefit media companies?
I would share my bandwidth for a discount off the download. Everyone pays the price for the download, but then gets a discount for every chunk that they share out. Some research would need to be done on the pricing, but I would take a 50% discount on the download for allowing the company to use my machine to distribute a full copy of the content.
Editors, I find your over use of the letter "R" to be quite disturbing. ;D
I thought Downtown is where all the money is.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
What, is this the new DRM enhanced version? The extra 'r' makes it uncrackable!
XeoMage
ADSL with it's slow upload speeds is a prime canadate for problems with BitTorrent. I know I could only run maybe two at a time on my DSL at my Dad's and I haven't tried anything on the slightly faster DSL I have at home.
...They're GRRREAT!
(as Tony the Tiger would say)
I'm a leaf on the wind. Watch how I soar.
I don't mind sharing some of my bandwith with a commercial entity if it means I can get media faster and cheaper (since the distribution costs are not as high).
I hate seeing overly compressed video that comes stuttering out of a popular server for some webcast, when I know that for the same bandwith bill they could be distributing an HD quality torrent of whatever event they are webcasting.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"Indeed, Cohen, 29, recently relocated from Seattle to San Francisco, and he and his chief operating officer are making the rounds on Sand Hill Road looking for venture capital for their new company, BitTorrent. They've forged a partnership with paid-search provider Ask Jeeves, and recently the duo flew to Burbank for high-level talks with the Motion Picture Association of America."
Whatever your opinion is of torrents or Bram, you have to be in awe of just how "hobby" coding can make you filthy rich (granted, this probably is a very rare exception to the rule). Now I realize that congratulations to Bram are pre-mature, but I think he's very much on his way. And when he does get rich, with a head for numbers and the stock market, I'm sure he'll stay that way. I do suppose, however, it's a bit too early to take down that paypal-donation link on the bittorrent site (http://www.bittorrent.com/donate.html).
I wonder if these very same ISPs would be interested in knowing that their precious bandwidth is being stolen by stealth-torrents.
If the user hasn't given permission to use their bandwidth, wouldn't that be stealing?
Evolution is a fact. Darwinism is a joke.
BitTorrent does have ONE very big drawback compared to other distribution methods like ftp: Your customer must download and install a BitTorrent program if he/she has not done so already, and some users will reject the idea of installing something new "just to download this and that". But this will become less of a problem as BitTorrent becomes more widely accepted and is installed on a broader user-base (Web browsers were optional software not long ago..)
9/11: Never forget it was a false-flag operation
What the heck is up with this sudden rush toward the "filtering" bandwagon? Everyone knows these "filters" are not viable except the idiots at the MPAA. Even if cohen's code were not open to the public as we speak to allow perfectly compatible unfiltered versions, people would still find ways of patching or spoofing the filters. (audible magic?.. HAH... encrypted rar files anyone?)
If cohen goes for it you can count on a split in the developer community as most people tell the mpaa and their new lapdog where to stick it.
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
After all, these are the same people who demonstrated their idiocy by claiming in their press release that the trackers they've shut down somehow "caused a slowdown across the whole network".
Give me a break here. =)
VLC FOR MAC IS DYING! IF YOU DEVELOP, PLEASE SAVE IT!!
Once the old-guard of the movie industry give up on maintaining their monopoly profits that are based upon a tightly controlled distribution network, that complex and unwieldy distribution network becomes a hindrance.
It comes as no surprise that they'd look to cut the cost of distributing content by removing the slowest most expensive part of the system and replacing it with a free and open alternative.
Cringely has some excellent insight to offer on this topic, specifically in his recent column on podcasting and in relation to the long tail school of thought as applied to PBS shows. If shows can be distributed at radically lower costs due to p2p networks, and content owners don't act like dicks by demanding monopolistic profit levels, television and movies will move to a p2p medium because it make the most economic sense.
Don't forget the additional advertising opportunities that a custom p2p app provides, in the app itself, in the movies and shows downloaded, etc. I hate ads myself but marketers will line up for this once producers figure it out.
Dijjer is a far more appropriate solution to this type of problem.
When the source doesn't have a web presence at all, doesn't care about any sort of download counting, or is trying to remain somewhat anonymous, then sure, bittorrent is the right solution, but in many of the more legit uses there is more infrastructure to be taken advantage of.
It annoys me to see bittorrent being shoehorned into situations for which it is less than ideal...
Dude, if I had any mod points I'd give 'em all to you! Made my day!!
The Russians have won. They have made the world a cesspool of distrust, greed, fear and hate.
It just transfers the cost around.
Traditionally: vendor pays for the user to download their software
Proposed: users collectively __seem__ to pay for thr bandwidth.
Actual: Users are using their idle bandwidth in most cases, but they pay for it when their ISPs jack up prices due to increased P2P usage. The ISPs are paying for it really, and hence the users will in time pay for it.
So if coupled with lower prices, you'll just pay for it a different way... I'd rather have reliable fast downloads from a big game/movie/product company with lots of infrastructure and resources.
-M
when you see the word 'Linux', drink!
A Cambridge (the real one in the UK!) company called CacheLogic is probably one of a number who are creating products for ISPs.
Not true of all ISPs. Speakeasy, for instance, actively encourages their users to sell WiFi access to their neighborhoods.
I've lost count of the numbers of times websites have executed some form of revenue generation "to cover bandwidth costs". It ranges from annoying advertising to a Paypal donation button, etc. It is true that bandwidth for popular sites gets to be the critical expense.
Now, with Bittorrent, we have a way to support those bandwidth costs without having to part with cash - or to worry about the site's *real* motives.
If the site's users provide the bandwidth, that's one less expense for a web site. Fewer expenses for a web site mean less pressure to sell advertising.
Sounds good to me.
If this gets big, then the ISP companies will be sure to respond. Bittorrent doesn't reduce net traffic; it just moves it around, adding its own overhead. The ISP unlimited bandwidth model works because most people don't use most of their bandwidth. If users become the servers, this puts more strain on the ISPs. ISPs will pass the increased costs to the customers, and/or limit the bandwidth of them (especially upstream).
The consumer might pay a little less to the publisher to download, say, a game. But the total cost the consumer has to pay will most likely rise, thanks to an increase in ISP fees.
Bram may be getting cosy with Hollywwod but ,Warner Music,EMI and Universal Music .They are also adding games and in negotiations with the Studios to have video content on the network .
LX Systems http://www.lxsystems.com/ has already beaten him with ther Peer Impact p2p client http://www.peerimpact.com/ that has all the music labels signed up inluding the major indies and the big 4 of Sony\BMG
Dear Consumer,
HAHAHAhahahahahahhaha!
OK, seriously. We're gonna need some liquor.
Best,
The media companies
you can have my violent video games when you pry them from my cold, dead hands.
Prime UID Club
Commercially they can set up point servers globally that are always seeding. As a user, you simply upload while you download to offload those servers. No one says you have to stay online afterwards to seed. Sounds fair to me.
If commercial entities can't use bt to make money, does it really matter ?
Many non-profits use it.
bt does not need to be p2p either, any software distribution setup could use it to update local mirrors, or to provide fault tollerance and load balancing.
I came up with this idea a year or two ago,
That's a much older idea. Thousands of persons in the IT industry have thought of it, as it's an obviously good concept, but nobody pursues it because the prerequisites aren't in place yet.
First, we need a widely accepted micropayment system. Then, we need people to start renting out their unused nighttime CPU cycles via an anonymous, automated auction (like SETI@home, but greedier). Once those two things are in place (and there are groups pushing for both of them), then automated bandwidth trading will naturally follow after (obseleting much of Akamai's business model).
Of course, it may require ISPs to revise their TOSs, but if micropayments are working by then, this won't be a problem. (Of course, micropayments don't look like they'll arrive soon, or even ever, but hey)
It's like a replacement for FTP, but it's peer-based distribution like BitTorrent. It seems to be a viable soloution for the Server/Client bandwith problem, however, it's still in pre-alpha stage, and could use some help with programming. http://www.windley.com/archives/2004/04/replacing_ ftp_t.shtml