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Norwegian Broadcasting Sets Up Its Own Tracker

eirikso writes with an interesting story from Norway; the state broadcaster there has decided to put up some of its content on BitTorrent. "The tracker is based on the same OpenTracker software that the Pirate Bay has been using for the last couple of years. By using BitTorrent we can reach our audience with full quality, unencrypted media files. Experience from our early tests show that if we're the best provider of our own content we also gain control of it."

4 of 187 comments (clear)

  1. Re:War! by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Will this mean war? Norway vs the EU! nay! against the whole world!

    They have a decent amount of oil & gas, which the EU and others desperately need.
    They also have healthy fish stocks, through fairly competent management of fisheries. The EU regularly howls of unfair competition in fish, as the EU has rapaciously plundered its own stocks, and continues overfishing at destructive levels.

    It's the EU that will cave in, not Norway. Disclaimer: I'm not Norwegian, but did visit there twice (1983 and 1998), and changed plane in Oslo a few times.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
  2. Re:Somebody catch me... by eirikso · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Of course it can. It's out there. We know that. We're not talking COMPLETE control. That's not possible unless you lock down your content in a safe vault. But if you're the best provider people will come to your place to get it. Giving you better control. We're getting traffic FROM the pirate bay on the content that we have released as torrents. Because more people are seeding from our tracker. In general, people don't bother to redistribute as long as we provide unencrypted high quality files.

  3. Re:Somebody catch me... by Darkness404 · · Score: 4, Interesting

    As for the "Money" bit, you do realized this is a fully government funded organization don't you?

    Yes, but if I was a Norwegian citizen and they asked me to vote on something that would slightly raise taxes to pay for upgrades, new shows, etc, I might actually vote for it because the government in this case is actually using taxpayer money responsibly.

    --
    Taxation is legalized theft, no more, no less.
  4. It is all about being able to demand license fees by xiando · · Score: 4, Interesting

    Norsk Rikskringkasting (NRK) is financed through a "license" which they can by law charge everyone who owns a televison set or other equipment which is able to get TV broadcasts. c They have been trying to claim a whole range of ludicrous things in order to demand license fees from more people than those who are listed as TV owners in their database for years.

    NRK actually tried to claim that everyone who owns a telephone also has a television and asked for permission to demand that everyone registered with a telephone pays the TV license. They were, luckily, denied when they tried that one. Now they are trying to claim that everyone who owns a computer can view their content and should pay a television license.

    NRK setting up a BitTorrent tracker does look like a good thing - at first glance. But do not get fooled: This is all about getting a new Norwegian law which would say that everyone who owns computer technology must pay NRK a yearly fee. It is that simple. This is all about the money. That they use BitTorrent is in itself a good thing. Their motives are absolutely not.