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Legal BitTorrent Communities for Class Presentation?

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the it's-not-the-technology-but-who-uses-t dept.

OnBeyondBeing asks: "A few of my friends and I are taking a class at a local university called 'Internet and Society' and we have to do a 'Technology Tour' on innovations that have social aspects or uses (like Google Maps, Kiko (an Internet-based calendar), LiveJournal and Frappr). We chose to do our presentation on BitTorrent. As part of our presentation, we have to do a lab in which the students and teachers use BitTorrent in some way. I was thinking of having people join some BitTorrent community that interests them and join a torrent, but most of these communities contain material that is not suited for an academic presentation. Aside from places like CommonBits and Etree (and others that were mentioned in a previous Slashdot post), what sites have you found that use BitTorrent as the basis of a community that are clean and legal enough for a class presentation? Alternatively, what other interesting, legal uses of BitTorrent have you found?"

11 of 73 comments (clear)

  1. Linux Torrents by SocialEngineer · · Score: 5, Informative

    There are always Linux Torrents

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    "Better to be vulgar than non-existent" -Bev Henson
  2. Cringely's NerdTV by headkase · · Score: 5, Informative

    Cringely offers NerdTV as a bittorrent download. As it is legal there's usually a ton of seeds on each download - nothing better to demonstrate the speed possible with bittorrent.

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    Shh.
  3. (From my bookmark list) by TheDarkener · · Score: 3, Informative

    http://www.legaltorrents.com

    ETree - Legal Bootleg Torrents

    Open Source Torrents

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    It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
  4. Re:Anime by theNetImp · · Score: 2, Informative

    Them not being licensed to an american distributor DOES NOT MAKE THEM LEGAL. They are still protected by international copyright law. Use some common sense.

  5. Legal Torrents by Bullet-Dodger · · Score: 3, Informative

    Legal Torrents is quite good. Creative Commons-licensed music, movies, books, and such.

  6. electric sheep has novel use of torrents by spot · · Score: 2, Informative

    The Electric Sheep server uses BitTorrent to distribute results of aesthetic evolution. Get the torrents of the RSS feed of torrents here. It's currently delivering about 150GB daily by torrent.

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    Scott Draves

  7. Damn! by Zadaz · · Score: 3, Informative
    When I was in school I had to do research for papers by my self.

    But then again, we had Gopher, not Google, so I'll shut up.

    Anyway, off the top of my head, Democracy player is a combination video player, RSS reader and torrent client that hooks up a community of legal (well, most of it) video distribution.

    It was also announced this week that Steven Soderbergh will be releasing a short through BitTorrent. (I'll let you find the link, you hard working student.)

  8. promotion of music by scum-e-bag · · Score: 3, Informative

    www.djmixes2k.com

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    Does it go on forever?
  9. Re:Anime by PylonHead · · Score: 3, Informative
    Wow, did you even read the article you linked to? Let me post the conclusion for you:


    Conclusion

    Legally, there is no difference between "fansubs" and "bootlegs". In the eyes of the law, both could be seen as damaging to the market. Regardless of whether or not a title has been technicaly licensed in North America, it is illegal. Lack of enforsement of copyright laws in terms of unlicensed fansubs maybe the result of several different factors. Some companies may believe that the early introduction of the title to North America is beneficial. Others may simply tolerate a "fan-activity" as long as it does not become too damaging to sales. And yet other companies may not want to or be able to invest the time and money necessary to prosecute foreign violations of their copyright.

    In the end, regardless of ethics, or motive, fansubs are technicaly illegal.


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    # (/.);;
    - : float -> float -> float =
  10. Ibiblio by nitrocloud · · Score: 2, Informative

    Ibiblio has torrents for a lot of their content. The seeds are some of the main servers and therefore are fast, plus the added client bandwidth probably helps a lot too.

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    Karma: Good, or bust!
  11. Public Domain Torrents by optikSmoke · · Score: 2, Informative

    Public Domain Torrents has torrents of movies in the public domain in various formats. Some hidden gems in there, though I don't know how much of a "community" you could say they have.