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Study Finds 0.3% of BitTorrent Files Definitely Legal
Andorin writes "It's common knowledge that the majority of files distributed over BitTorrent violate copyright, though the exact percentage is unclear. The Internet Commerce Security Laboratory of the University of Ballarat in Australia has conducted a study and found that 89% of files examined were in fact infringing, while most of the remaining 11% were ambiguous but likely to be infringing. Ars Technica summarizes the study: 'The total sample consisted of 1,000 torrent files—a random selection from the most active seeded files on the trackers they used. Each file was manually checked to see whether it was being legally distributed. Only three cases—0.3 percent of the files—were determined to be definitely not infringing, while 890 files were confirmed to be illegal. ' The study brings with it some other interesting statistics; out of the 1,000 files, 91 were pornographic, and approximately 4% of torrents were responsible for 80% of seeders. Music, movies and TV shows constituted the three largest categories of shared materials, and among those, zero legal files were found."
Seriously. Anyone else try to download Alien Swarm on Monday?
Yeah, you know what I'm talking about. Let the "cloud" be an opt-in, "use THIS much of my up/down" defined thing so that anyone either downloading a game or willing to serve as a content node for a game is then using their bandwidth to - effectively - make the "It's FREE AND YOU CAN GET IT NOW!" statement from Valve actually MEAN "get it now" and not "you can watch Steam poop itself every time you try for it until you magically without any explanation get a slot!"
In certain circumstances, BT is potentially a Damned Handy thing for content distribution.
(In other circumstances, it's a damned aggravating thing that makes lawyers salivate, but that's not what I'm talking about here)
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What do I buy when I buy a record?
Do I buy the right to listen to that song? Let's say I bought the Spice Girls record back in 1997, and I suddenly want to listen to it. Unfortunately it's old, and horribly scratched up. Do I need to go out to a store and buy a new copy? Is it really immoral to pretend i made a copy of it and download it from bittorrent? Thus, is that copy of Spice Girls really illegal in my case?
100% of legal gun ownership results in legal use.
Going to the shooting range is legal use.
Hunting is legal use.
Letting it sit in a drawer is legal use.
Despite what you see on the news, violent crime in America is at an all time low.
Only a few percent will ever be in a position to witness a violent crime first hand, and since most people do not carry guns every where they go, they are only likely to be able to use a gun in defense in cases of home invasion.
I think you would be hard pressed to say that 0.3% of gun ownership results in illegal use.
I don't recall the exact figures, but there are something like 100 to 200 million guns in the us and only a few thousand shooting homicides, and a few tens of thousands of armed robberies a year.
And free tech support advice from someone who does tech support for a living, might not be as free as you think it would be?
Free car maintenance advice from a mechanic might not be as free as you think it would be?
Free health care advice from a medical professional might not be as free as you think it would be?
Hehe, I'm not sure what you are asking your tech support guy and mechanic to do that you would be concerned with STDs...
I suppose you might have a point on the last one thou!