100 P2P Users Upload 75% of Content

An anonymous reader writes "Researchers say that about 100 people (called pirates in the article) are responsible for 75 percent of all downloading on BitTorrent (and the same group does 66 percent of all uploading), and says that the way to shut down the p2p network is simply to disincentive that relatively small number of people. The other large group identified in the study were people (such as from copyright enforcement agencies) who uploaded fake content to frustrate other users. No suggestions were made about how to prevent people from uploading fake content — but it was suggested that the first group could have their ad revenue cut or could be heavily fined."

Comments

Little Confused

[Anrego]

I don’t really get (and the article didn’t really seem to explain) how these elite uploaders of the pirated content receive this ad-revenue. Are they saying that the people who post the bulk of the infringing torrents on various networks receive ad-revenue from the indexing sites (where the ads would be displayed)? I don’t understand how ad revenue flows from the indexing sites to the users who upload the content.

It almost seems like these guys asked themselves “why do they do it”, looked at a torrent site, saw the ads, and just said “ah, that’s why” and wrote a paper.

Also, the suggestion in this article to provide “disincentives” to the people uploading the bulk of pirated content is kind of obvious and silly. If the media industry had any way of actually doing this, it would have been done a long time ago. I think it’s already recognized by most people that the bulk of pirated content originates from a small number of sources. I can’t imagine that big media hasn’t been trying unsuccessfully to shut this group down for quite a while.

Unless I’m missing something, this whole article comes across as another one of these ridiculous studies where after 3 years of research and a few million dollars they reveal that fire is hot and scissors can be sharp. I file this right next to

Re:Little Confused

[Anonymous Coward]

It's Slashdot's new automatic tl;dr feature. The plan is to keep cranking down the character limit until Slashdot resembles a threaded Twitter. Then it really will be time to leave.

Re:Little Confused

[Seumas]

This "study" is complete bullshit. The only source of data for their study are two sites. One is Mininova, which doesn't deal in material that infringes copyright and hasn't for a year and a half. The other is The Pirate Bay, which I don't even know what the hell the current status is, because I remember they sold themselves, then they didn't sell themselves, then they did and created two new public indexers, then were going to go legit and . . . whatever. Anyway, the point being, who the fuck still uses TPB and how is it a relevant source of data on Bit Torrent anymore?

So, the source of their data is clearly flawed. They're stressing points about "piracy" when one site isn't even "piracy" related and the other is . . . whatever the fuck it is, anymore.

Second, they claim that 100 people are responsible for almost all of the UPLOADS (that is, 100 people are responsible for almost all of the content being put out there). You can assume that they're counting scene release accounts as one person, when they're probably many more. Also, again, they're saying that 100 people are responsible for that much content . . . ON THOSE TWO SITES. Not "all of bit torrent". That would be fucking absurd of them to claim *that*.

And, finally, yes, they actually do say that the incentive for most of the uploaders is that they get revenue from ads on the indexing sites as well as money from VIP subscriptions to the sites for faster bandwidth. All of which is essentially bullshit, unless there is some secret deal where TPB and other sites are cutting big checks to Axxo and Klaxxon and all these other guys who are out there spreading content around, which I doubt.

It seems that these "researches" simply can't grasp the idea that a lot of these people get a kick out of sharing for sharing's sake and that respect (and maybe credits toward their future download ratio at private sites) is all they're looking to receive.

Re:Little Confused

[StikyPad]

You were starting to ramble, so we

eh, ever heard of 'the scene'?

[Anonymous Coward]

These people don't really seem to understand the P2P hierarchy. Content gets pirated by groups, who release it to top sites, which sell slots to people and have affiliations to closed torrent trackers. The users of those trackers then leak the stuff to the public p2p networks. So yes, there may be a closed group doing the actual leaking, however, that does not mean the content does not exist and that no-one will take their place once they are gone. It's utterly ridiculous to think you will stop pirating by attacking the lowest part of the food chain.

The research is complete garbage

[rs1n]

Here's a quote:

"In our opinion," the authors of the study conclude, "the success of BitTorrent lies in the availability of popular content which is typically protected by copyright law, and people who take the risk of publishing that content do it because they receive an economic benefit. If in the future these users lose their incentive, either because of a decrease in advertising income or due to having to pay very expensive fines, BitTorrent would very likely cease to offer this content, which would make people stop using the application on a massive scale."

These people have no clue how torrents and seeding works. When someone completes a torrent, they can choose to then seed that download. There is no economic incentive there whatsoever. The seeder gets absolutely nothing out of seeding. All it takes is one person to make an initial seed, and then if each downloader joins in seeding that content, then the number of seeds grows exponentially. Anyone can create a torrent, and anyone can seed. These guys make it sound like there is some sort of main repository from which all other downloaders get their torrents.

To those 100 people uploading all the content:

[Locke2005]

I'd just like to say, "thank you!"