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The Internet Archive Starts Seeding Over a Million Torrents

An anonymous reader writes with news that The Internet Archive has started seeding about 1,400,000 torrents. In addition to over a million books, the Archive is seeding thousands and thousands of films, music tracks, and live concerts. John Gilmore of the EFF said, "The Archive is helping people to understand that BitTorrent isn't just for ephemeral or dodgy items that disappear from view in a short time. BitTorrent is a great way to get and share large files that are permanently available from libraries like the Internet Archive." Brewster Kahle, founder of the Archive, told TorrentFreak, "I hope this is greeted by the BitTorrent community, as we are loving what they have built and are very glad we can populate the BitTorrent universe with library and archive materials. There is a great opportunity for symbiosis between the Libraries and Archives world and the BitTorrent communities."

180 comments

  1. Next move by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 5, Funny

    The *AAs start suing the Internet Archive.

    --
    "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    1. Re:Next move by webmistressrachel · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Actually it provides plausible denial for encrypted torrent traffic. Breaking the encryption for purposes other than download is being complicit. It puts and end to the Star I AA's case, finally!

      --
      This tagline was transcoded to result in at least one smirk. If you experience failure to smirk, please consult your Gen
    2. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Yes, because all of that "I was just downloading a Linux distro has gone over so well in the past.

      Sure, more legitimate content would improve the case of plausible deniability, but it still comes down to scare tactics to try to get you to settle, even if you truly did nothing wrong.

      Defending yourself in a court of law is an expensive proposition.

    3. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      What is an AA?

    4. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Funny

      It's that place you go when you've become powerless over your al...wait, what?

    5. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Alcoholics Anonymous.
      Automobile Association.
      American Airlines.
      Anti-aircraft.
      Anti-aliasing.

    6. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Never mind I get it. He means *AA as in RIAA, MPAA, GNAA, etc...

      Although that latter seems to have embraced torrent for distributing its film.

    7. Re:Next move by geogob · · Score: 5, Funny

      Assorted Assholes. aka. RIAA, MPAA, GEMA... list is long.

    8. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Gee, that last one must be a bunch of assholes, they don't even have the common decency to end their acronym in AA.

    9. Re:Next move by Arancaytar · · Score: 5, Informative

      They're German, and AA mostly stands for "Association of America".
      (The G isn't for "German"; obviously if they had that in the name it'd be "D".)

      The "bunch of assholes" part is accurate however.

    10. Re:Next move by Arancaytar · · Score: 5, Insightful

      "flooding the torrent channels"?

      That is so not how BitTorrent works.

    11. Re:Next move by Tapewolf · · Score: 2

      What is an AA?

      They provide a car breakdown/recovery service in the UK.

    12. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

      ...flooding the torrent channels...

      That is so not how BitTorrent works.

      You are correct. RFC 5694 - Peer-to-Peer (P2P) Architecture: Definition, Taxonomies, Examples, and Applicability clearly states that "BitTorrent traffic MUST NOT: FLOOD the CHANNELS, CLOG the TUBES, or OVERLOAD the TRUCKS."

    13. Re:Next move by RaceProUK · · Score: 5, Funny

      What is an AA?

      It's a bit bigger than an AAA.

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    14. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Troll

      "GNAA" sounds like a deaf person trying to talk

    15. Re:Next move by RaceProUK · · Score: 1

      flooding the torrent channels.

      Mod parent down -1, Talking Out Of Arse.

      --
      No colour or religion ever stopped the bullet from a gun
    16. Re:Next move by SteveFoerster · · Score: 2

      It's short for MAFIAA.

      --
      Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
    17. Re:Next move by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      and do not forget the GEZ

    18. Re:Next move by Tastecicles · · Score: 3, Interesting

      "To no man shall be sold or denied natural justice."

      One of the core principles of the oldest written constitutional document in existence: Magna Carta.

      If you have to bankrupt yourself to fight a lawsuit then you're not doing it right.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    19. Re:Next move by someones · · Score: 0

      Troll

    20. Re:Next move by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

      Nothing a few poker chips can't clear up I'm sure.

      --
      "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
    21. Re:Next move by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      What is an AA?

      Alcoholics Anonymous. You're anonymous, do you drink?

      What's the difference between a drunk and an alcoholic? Alcoholics have to go to meetings! (I saw that on a drunkard's t-shirt once)

    22. Re:Next move by MrNiceguy_KS · · Score: 2

      Oh, come on! I heard that exact phrase used by one of the techies in an episode of 24

      --
      Redundancy is good And also good.
    23. Re:Next move by Fjandr · · Score: 1

      In GEMA's case, it roughly means "multitudes of assholes."

    24. Re:Next move by b4dc0d3r · · Score: 1

      It's nice to take a philosophical stance, but in reality a successful defense of a misdemeanor will probably cost $15k USD.

      Court costs plus a lawyer would be affordable on their own, to most people. It's the expert witness that gets expensive. The prosecution will try to throw out enough technobabble that it sounds like you are quite obviously guilty.

      Then you have to pay someone who has professional standing to refute that argument, and explain how you were doing nothing uniquely bad. And their time and travel costs are not cheap.

      An example: The prosecution says if you were using encryption, which most people don't do, then obviously you were trying to hide something. Your witness has to be able to explain that everyone uses SSL when using online banking, and identity theft is not something you want to risk, and that knowledgeable people are moving towards encrypting everything. But you saying it as the defendant is not authoritative enough to undercut the prosecution's expert. You need one at least equally recognized as an expert to say the same things.

      It should not be expensive, but it is. Even worse is to bankrupt yourself and still lose because you chose the wrong witness, or because the lone knowledgeable holdout on the ury gave in because they can't afford that much time off work. As long as your being principled, why not go solve world peace, and convert everyone to renewable fuel? I'm sure it's as easy as quoting a few lines from a nearly forgotten document.

      Or did you have some practical insight as to keep costs low when defending yourself, without guaranteeing your loss?

  2. Already abused by spammers.... by John+Bokma · · Score: 0

    httxx p://ar xxx chive.org/details/ Chea pAlpra zolamWitho u tAP r e sc riptionA lp r a zo la mWi thFr e eDrConsultation

    URL mangled for obvious reasons...

    1. Re:Already abused by spammers.... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Not anymore. :)

  3. How about Freenet? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    Could the Internet Archive ever validate Freenet in the same way? Show that it can be used for fault tolerant archiving of static data, and not just subversive/illegal speech?

    1. Re:How about Freenet? by MartinG · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I don't think they are trying to "validate" bittorrent. That's just a side effect of what they are doing. They are simply using one of the most efficient and cost effective ways of distributing data because it helps them, and possibly makes a better experience for the users.

      freenet offers anonymity but they don't really need that here. Bittorrent also offers fault tolerance, doesn't it?

      --
      -- MartinG To mail me: echo kewyjlcxyzvjfxbqwh | tr bcefhjklqvwxyz .@adgimnoprstu
    2. Re:How about Freenet? by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      Hash matching provides that fault tolerance. If segment hashes don't match then the file corrupts. The Bittorrent protocol is written to deal with that by rejecting segments with unmatched hashes. Freenet not needed, because anonymity is not required here.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    3. Re:How about Freenet? by brit74 · · Score: 1

      I don't think they are trying to "validate" bittorrent.

      I'd bet $100 that the EFF is trying to validate BitTorrent. They have a history of trying to protect and validate Torrents (and piracy). Examples:

      "EFF Releases ‘Switzerland’ to Test if Your ISP is Throttling BitTorrent" - http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9677/eff_releases_switzerland_to_test_if_your_isp_is_throttling_bittorrent/
      "EFF defended StreamCast Networks, the company behind the Morpheus peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software, in an important case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 23, 2005" - http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/

    4. Re:How about Freenet? by Em+Adespoton · · Score: 1

      Freenet cannot be used for archiving data; it is designed specifically to distribute "live" data (data in motion). Freenet only keeps data as long as people are actively using it. If nobody uses a file for a while and something else becomes more popular, the ignored item will be overwritten with the new item.

      Torrents, on the other hand, last for as long as there is a seeder available (and assuming perfect distribution, can even survive periods of no seed available, as long as there's at least one client with each of the parts).

  4. SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Oh, wait, you don't want to?

    Fine, I'll ask the Russians instead. They always have what I want, in the best format possible, for free.

    This is what enrages me the most today. Everyone is busy off complaining about piracy and bullshit, when they're not making their products readily available in a format I can actually use. I've lost count how many times I've walked into BestBuy holding a bundle of $20 bills only to be turned away because they don't stock something. The last time I went there it was for a Disney movie for the kids- only to be told point blank by the salesman who went into the back looking for the Bluray disk that Disney had stopped producing them (this was a year old movie- hell, we had it in theatres up until about 4 months ago) so that they could re-release it again in a special edition in a few months and charge full pop once more.

    I've gone into more music stores then I can remember looking for CDs of good music (none of this modern day auto-tuned bullshit or the crap where there's some white boy rapping through a telephone effect patch to hard-panned deep beats), and I almost never find what I'm looking for. Then I land up having to either buy the CD from Europe or direct from the band and waiting ~4 weeks for it to show up in the mail- and I've still got to go prod the Russians for a nice FLAC copy to listen to in the meantime.

    Hell, there's been TV series I would HAPPILY pay for to watch and enjoy with my family if I could actually get them on DVD or BR. But no, because of licensing-this-and-licensing-that, once again I'm being denied the ability to PAY FOR my entertainment by the VERY SAME people who sit around bitching and complaining about piracy all day long.

    About half a year ago I got a letter from my ISP basically complaining about the fact that I'd been downloading stuff and someone else was angry about it. It was funny at the time because had I been able to get what I was looking for locally- or even off the internet and mailed to me- I wouldn't have pirated the stuff. After searching the internet for a few hours and finding nothing, I turned to my usual set of trackers and had the thing downloaded in 2 hours. It still makes me chuckle to think that someone out there was peeved enough about me downloading their product to actually complain to my ISP about it, even though their product was made of unobtanium *anywhere*.

    If these people don't want to take my money when I'm literally holding it out to them, arms outstretched, begging them to take it- and all I get in response is a resounding "NO.", I have no sympathy for any of them. The fact that BT is still going stronger then ever today is awesome. Maybe one day the corporate fuckheads of the world will wake up and figure things out, and start taking my money in a sane manner so that both parties can benefit from the exchange.

    -AC (for obvious reasons)

    1. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 3, Informative

      After searching the internet for a few hours and finding nothing, I turned to my usual set of trackers and had the thing downloaded in 2 hours. It still makes me chuckle to think that someone out there was peeved enough about me downloading their product to actually complain to my ISP about it, even though their product was made of unobtanium *anywhere*.

      Exactly. I download a ton of stuff over the internet, mostly older movies, TV series and documentaries in foreign languages, because it's just not available anywhere. It's illegal alright, but the legal risk to me, which is already very low, is made even lower by the fact that (1) the stuff I download isn't exactly prime-time material and (2) there really are no other sources for it, and that's a bloody good excuse I reckon.

      I just don't understand why copyright holders don't grok that people prefer clicking twice in the comfort of their living room to visiting a brick-and-mortar store, or scouring the internet in search of a legit copy of the stuff and finding nothing, or finding something and going through the typical online store shopping cart rigmarole, then waiting a week for the stuff to arrive.

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    2. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

      The fact that BT is still going stronger then ever today is awesome. Maybe one day the corporate fuckheads of the world will wake up and figure things out

      Or perhaps they'll just throw-in the towel and stop making the baubles you covet. And maybe then you'll realise how much of your short life you wasted sitting in front of the TV.

      If we are fortunate we have 80 years on this Earth. Grab a camera and go OUT THERE and write about what you see. Make a differencein your community. Write a book. But please, I beseech you, stop sitting watching pointless crap on TV.

    3. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Rosco+P.+Coltrane · · Score: 4, Informative

      If we are fortunate we have 80 years on this Earth. Grab a camera and go OUT THERE and write about what you see. Make a differencein your community. Write a book. But please, I beseech you, stop sitting watching pointless crap on TV.

      Why do you assume people who watch TV automatically watch pointless crap and waste their lives?

      Yes, 95% of TV is crap. But the remaining 5%, which I watch from time to time, makes me discover other parts of the world I'll never go to, explains scientific discoveries to me, teaches me history, tells me what's happening in the world, lets me practice other languages, exposes current issues in society, etc.

      The non-idiotic part of the idiot box can entertain you intelligently without taking very much of your time, if only because there isn't much of it in between ads, reality TV shows and the Olympics. Of course, if you don't dig these things, then TV certainly has the capability of making you very dumb indeed.

      --
      "A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
    4. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Dunbal · · Score: 5, Funny

      And maybe then you'll realise how much of your short life you wasted sitting in front of the TV.

      Says the guy who wastes hours of his short life in front of a computer monitor. Oh wait, no, he's only here 5 minutes a day folks, he's not like "the rest". Sounds like someone is suffering from "I'm a special princess" syndrome. Why do you think that you are significantly different from everyone else who posts here, princess? And no, you can't have a pony.

      --
      Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
    5. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

      I wish we had a law saying that you can obtain something for free if the copyright holders refuse to sell it to you. This would keep a lot of this horrible litigation from ever occurring.

    6. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by swell · · Score: 3, Informative

      Intellectual property law is designed to protect the creator's right to control the property. It carries no obligation to make the property (or music or movie) available to others. It simply prevents others from doing so for the duration.

      Some copyright holders seem to believe that scarcity can be profitable. Thus Disney can bring out Snow White every 30 years and make a killing, whereas if it was always available the price would have deteriorated considerably. And somehow they are able to protect their copyrights forever...

      --
      ...omphaloskepsis often...
    7. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by K.+S.+Kyosuke · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Intellectual property law is designed to protect the creator's right to control the property. It carries no obligation to make the property (or music or movie) available to others

      One could argue that the whole purpose of copyright is to benefit the society by stimulating the creation of new works that the society can then enjoy, but the part where the works exist but are denied to society under any terms kind of makes the copyright pointless, so the question is whether it should even apply to those cases.

      --
      Ezekiel 23:20
    8. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      >> stop sitting watching pointless crap on TV.

      > Why do you assume people who watch TV automatically watch pointless crap and waste their lives?

      He didn't. He said stop sitting watching *pointless* crap.

    9. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

      This is a shining example of misapplication of copyright. When copyright was originally implemented, there was only one way to publish something: you printed it, bound it, and published it as a book (which people were then free to resell). It was never intended to allow the copyrighter to control *how* the work was distributed, because the question didn't arise.

      Now, copyright has the unfortunate side-effect that the copyrighter can control the form in which a work is published, where it's available, etc. This is actually fairly simple to remedy: allow anyone to publish the work, provided that they provide (say) 50% of revenue to the person who holds the copyright.

    10. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by fwarren · · Score: 2

      Groucho Marx sums it up best

      I find TV very educational. Everytime someone turns one on, I go in the other room and read a book.

      --
      vi + /etc over regedit any day of the week.
    11. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Coming from the guy who's browsing pointless crap on the internet.

    12. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by SteveFoerster · · Score: 2

      So what you're saying is that 95% of TV gives the other 5% a bad name?

      --
      Space game using normal deck of cards: http://BattleCards.org
    13. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by MightyYar · · Score: 2

      The nice thing about IP law is that it is just that... a law. You can change it to say anything you want.

      If we decide to put in a penalty for not making stuff available, we can do that.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    14. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Not just "could argue". The stated purpose is "to promote the sciences and useful arts". The only argument against it is by ignoring that stated purpose entirely.

    15. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by WillDraven · · Score: 2

      Has anybody mathematically proven that the current copyright laws are detrimental to the sciences and useful arts? If we could do that maybe we could get some laws struck down as unconstitutional. (I know, I'm dreaming...)

      --
      This is my sig. There are many like it but this one is mine.
    16. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      95% of everything is crap.

    17. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I am a creator. Copyright doesn't stimulate me. Creating does.

    18. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I am with you.

      I live in a latin american country.

      I have directTV with all the U.S. channels, I pay a small fortune to have them. They will not broadcast a show for a year(s) after first broadcast, that is in reruns in the States. Sometimes at all. They will not show a new movie in the theatre for months after its released in the States. Hell, not even the frigen news channels such as CNN are the same. They have "international" editions (politically scrubbed so as not to offend the rest of the World). Which is fine, just give me the option to choose.

      Then they bitch about why I was forced to go to torrents to get the entertainment I wanted, and was willing to pay for. The U.S. state department IP cops are constantly harping on the country I live in about the piracy problem, because everyone else in the country has the same problem legally accessing content that is simply not made available at all. I am a native English speaker, it is even worse if you have to wait for a Spanish subtitle to be broadcast locally.

    19. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You will eat the shit that's dished to you, and you will like it. And you will buy more. And you'll tell your friends to buy it. And you'll set a great example for why the rest of the world wants to be just like you when you do these things.

      And if you make the mistake of not choosing to do these things, we will label you an economic terrorist. And terrible things will happen to you.

      Choose wisely, citizen.

    20. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      or to be mandatory to de-list as 'out of print'
      for a copyright holder if not directly available.

      at which point the copyright dies.

    21. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by niftydude · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Has anybody mathematically proven that the current copyright laws are detrimental to the sciences and useful arts? If we could do that maybe we could get some laws struck down as unconstitutional. (I know, I'm dreaming...)

      It's a nice idea: the problem is that the only maths our current crop of politicians understand is how to calculate how much money is being contributed to their re-election fund, and by whom...

      --
      You can never know everything, and part of what you do know will always be wrong. Perhaps even the most important part.
    22. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      We art a pony Princess of the Moon, thou insensitive clod!

    23. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by nitehawk214 · · Score: 1

      This is a shining example of misapplication of copyright. When copyright was originally implemented, there was only one way to publish something: you printed it, bound it, and published it as a book (which people were then free to resell). It was never intended to allow the copyrighter to control *how* the work was distributed, because the question didn't arise.

      Now, copyright has the unfortunate side-effect that the copyrighter can control the form in which a work is published, where it's available, etc. This is actually fairly simple to remedy: allow anyone to publish the work, provided that they provide (say) 50% of revenue to the person who holds the copyright.

      Perfect, I am giving away stuff for free. Here is your 50%, Mr. MPAA Member.

      --
      I'm a good cook. I'm a fantastic eater. - Steven Brust
    24. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Oh, wait, you don't want to?

      Fine, I'll ask the Russians instead. They always have what I want, in the best format possible, for free.

      This is what enrages me the most today. Everyone is busy off complaining about piracy and bullshit, when they're not making their products readily available in a format I can actually use. I've lost count how many times I've walked into BestBuy holding a bundle of $20 bills only to be turned away because they don't stock something. The last time I went there it was for a Disney movie for the kids- only to be told point blank by the salesman who went into the back looking for the Bluray disk that Disney had stopped producing them (this was a year old movie- hell, we had it in theatres up until about 4 months ago) so that they could re-release it again in a special edition in a few months and charge full pop once more.

      I've gone into more music stores then I can remember looking for CDs of good music (none of this modern day auto-tuned bullshit or the crap where there's some white boy rapping through a telephone effect patch to hard-panned deep beats), and I almost never find what I'm looking for. Then I land up having to either buy the CD from Europe or direct from the band and waiting ~4 weeks for it to show up in the mail- and I've still got to go prod the Russians for a nice FLAC copy to listen to in the meantime.

      Hell, there's been TV series I would HAPPILY pay for to watch and enjoy with my family if I could actually get them on DVD or BR. But no, because of licensing-this-and-licensing-that, once again I'm being denied the ability to PAY FOR my entertainment by the VERY SAME people who sit around bitching and complaining about piracy all day long.

      About half a year ago I got a letter from my ISP basically complaining about the fact that I'd been downloading stuff and someone else was angry about it. It was funny at the time because had I been able to get what I was looking for locally- or even off the internet and mailed to me- I wouldn't have pirated the stuff. After searching the internet for a few hours and finding nothing, I turned to my usual set of trackers and had the thing downloaded in 2 hours. It still makes me chuckle to think that someone out there was peeved enough about me downloading their product to actually complain to my ISP about it, even though their product was made of unobtanium *anywhere*.

      If these people don't want to take my money when I'm literally holding it out to them, arms outstretched, begging them to take it- and all I get in response is a resounding "NO.", I have no sympathy for any of them. The fact that BT is still going stronger then ever today is awesome. Maybe one day the corporate fuckheads of the world will wake up and figure things out, and start taking my money in a sane manner so that both parties can benefit from the exchange.

      -AC (for obvious reasons)

      I am a huge mickey rourke fan. Im also a big fan of Bukowski. I couldnt find a copy anywhere and I thought for sure amazon would carry it and sure they had a copy for $250 or so for a dvd. you know that sounds like a good price. I did some digging on the usual trackers and couldnt find a copy. this led me further underground to a site that carries out of print movies. Why was it out of print. Oh because you know same issue you had they want to charge even more for an old movie while offering nothing of value to the consumer all because of his resurgance.

    25. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by robot_love · · Score: 1

      I'm not sure that's possible. However, you can show it "likely" to be true by analyzing industries that do not have intellectual property now, and industries that did not have intellectual property, but now do.

      Fortunately, someone has already done this work for you. Search for "Against Intellectual Monopoly", a freely available book, which explores this very issue.

      --
      .there is enough of everything for everyone.
    26. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Tastecicles · · Score: 3, Interesting

      High five to Parent! I'm also a creator, and happily post under my handle because I like a little recognition every now and again.

      What really bugs me is the fact that when I release stuff into the Public Domain these days I have to coat it with a generous helping of licenses that tell people they can basically do what they want with the content - in my opinion, this is a natural right, not something that can be taken with one litigious hand and grudgingly *sold* back with the other. This I believe distracts the consumer from the real message of the content: the aesthetic value of whatever medium the content happens to take. How do I make my money then, I hear some naysayers ask... simple really: I let my public domain work speak for itself and get paid through commissioned work (which, because I already have a brand. I don't mind transferring ownership of that work to the client because the idea is theirs, I just point the camera or hit the "record" button and capture their content for them. Art as a service).

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    27. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by ZombieBraintrust · · Score: 1

      In the US that is the purpose of copyright. I believe in some parts of Europe they believe that is a natural property right.

    28. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      He is talking about his free time at home. Wasting time on slashdot instead of doing what your paid to do is different.

    29. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by ZorinLynx · · Score: 1

      You can't have my woona! Nobody can have my woona! MY WOONA!!!

    30. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by swell · · Score: 1

      I understand that the US government reserves the right to take control of intellectual property under certain circumstances (national security? not sure what else).

      If an invention, discovery or entertainment production were judged terribly essential to life on earth, the government could make it available to us despite the creator's stubborn urge to keep it from us.

      So if that book you want is out of print, ask the government to step in.

      --
      ...omphaloskepsis often...
    31. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Sarten-X · · Score: 2

      Write a book. But please, I beseech you, stop sitting watching pointless crap on TV.

      How about I write a screenplay? Maybe I'll even take that screenplay and some actors, and make a TV show. Maybe someone will watch it, and understand the artistic message that inspired my show. Maybe it will give someone hope that this difficult time in their life isn't that bad. Maybe it will convince someone to finally get outside and exercise. My art could change the world, if not for that jackass who thinks it's just pointless crap.

      --
      You do not have a moral or legal right to do absolutely anything you want.
    32. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      This has been suggested in the past, and would instantly be sidestepped by selling a copy of whatever for a million dollars. There, it's technically for sale, you can't complain. And the best part is, if you're caught downloading it illegally, they can claim a lost sale (or god help you if it was a torrent... thousands of lost sales), and when all the legalese and claimed damages are said and done, you'll owe them more than the GDP of earth.

    33. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by mcgrew · · Score: 1

      Math doesn't apply. Lawrence Lessig took copyright lengths all the way to the SCOTUS, who ruled that "limited times" means whatever Congress says it means. The only way to get is changed is with legislation -- and good luck with THAT.

    34. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Yes, 95% of TV is crap. But the remaining 5%, which I watch from time to time, makes me discover other parts of the world I'll never go to, explains scientific discoveries to me, teaches me history, tells me what's happening in the world, lets me practice other languages, exposes current issues in society, etc.

      I spend all day long reading about scientific discoveries, history, happenings in the world, other languages, current issues in society, etc. It's more like 95% informative, and 5% crap.

      If only you TV junkies could pry yourselves away from the tube long enough, you too would understand intuitively just what a waste of time it is.

    35. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Fjandr · · Score: 1

      Oh, it's easy to change it with legislation. The problem is that the easy change is limited to lengthening the terms.

    36. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by cthulhu11 · · Score: 1

      I've lost count how many times I've walked into BestBuy holding a bundle of $20 bills only to be turned away because they don't stock something.

      What bad thing would happen were you to visit amazon.com or half.com?

    37. Re:SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY! by Lucractius · · Score: 1

      Insightful point you make there.
      the idea of "Art as a Service" has ties back to the Renaissance and the practice of 'Patronage' which provided us with some of the greatest artistic works of human history.
      Where all the copyright stuff has gone wrong is the length of time and the parasitic middlemen organisations.

      --
      XML - A clever joke would be here if /. didn't mangle tag brackets.
  5. Changing perceptions of BitTorrent...? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    By stuffing it full of even more movies and music?

    I think that just amplifies the fact that such systems have been hijacked by people that want to sit and consume "entertainment" for free.

    1. Re:Changing perceptions of BitTorrent...? by EzInKy · · Score: 3, Insightful

      To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

      Forgoiong a discussion on whether or not the "entertainment" in question actually promotes Progress or is useful, it does seem to say that after a certain period of time that "entertainment" will no longer be protected by an "exclusive Right." Certainly you don't have a problem with the Constitution, do you?

      --
      Time is what keeps everything from happening all at once.
  6. These Guys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    "ephemeral or dodgy items that disappear from view in a short time."

    Do these guys even know what pirating is like? Have they even seen it? Most of the time pirated stuff is more reliably available, in a faster time, and often of a higher quality than you can buy legally.

    1. Re:These Guys by jamstar7 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Plus, they tend to not have that annoying 'don't pirate this movie' warning and a 20 minute run of trailers for movies you don't intend to see and you can't break out to the main menu to actually, I dunno, watch the fucking movie you put in the player.

      --
      Understanding the scope of the problem is the first step on the path to true panic.
    2. Re:These Guys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I think with words/sentences like "ephemeral" and "disappear from view in a short time" they're refering to the fact that the lastest Batman movie is a hot item in the "bittorrent universe" when it's new, but 5 years later noone gives a crap about it anymore. It rings true to me, the latest movie might have 30.000 seeds on the pirate bay, but search for an old movie and you'll be lucky if it has 10. In terms of long time archival of important or interesting data, that is a very short time.

      I would agree with you that the use of dodgy seems out of place, especially when talking about bittorrent, but when talking about digital piracy in general, and not just the last few years (so think napster, kazaa, edonkey, etc) dodgy things (virusses, malware, etc) have been a significant part of it. Come to think of it, if one were to use the pirate bay without a healthy amount of geekish common sense (like checking the comments, like going for the torrents that are uploaded by a longterm community member of sorts and featuring a green or purple skull) one is likely to run into quite a lot of dodgy stuff even today. There's plenty of torrents out there that are RAR or ZIP archives password protected accompanied by a link to a paysite and things of that nature.

    3. Re:These Guys by Tom · · Score: 1

      This.

      I watched a few DVDs (again) recently - and being unable to get right into the movie pissed me off so much, mostly because I wasn't used to it anymore.

      Some Linux players did it right - ignore all the "don't skip me" flags and jump right to the start of the movie when the DVD is started. If I want the menu, I can click one button.

      --
      Assorted stuff I do sometimes: Lemuria.org
    4. Re:These Guys by oldmac31310 · · Score: 1

      Which is only a problem if you use windows.

      --
      http://www.acetonestudio.com
    5. Re:These Guys by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0
  7. There's your problem... by bluemonq · · Score: 0

    "I've lost count how many times I've walked into BestBuy..."

    Why would you ever walk into a store when you could get what you want off of Amazon?

    1. Re:There's your problem... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Ever try to download something from amazon with linux? They dont make it easy

    2. Re:There's your problem... by tepples · · Score: 1

      Ever try to download something from amazon with linux? They dont make it easy

      Are you referring to the lack of official DVD and BD playback software shipped with GNU/Linux distributions?

    3. Re:There's your problem... by tepples · · Score: 1

      Because it showed up not available on Amazon either.

    4. Re:There's your problem... by desdinova+216 · · Score: 1

      I think the GP was wanting something without waiting a few days for it to ship.

    5. Re:There's your problem... by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      I don't think there is a DVD/BD player shipped with Windows 7 either...? At least, I've not found one in fifteen months of looking...

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  8. And where does all this content come from? by Grayhand · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Take away the profit and you take away the reason to create new content to share. It's not a popular argument but it's a realistic one. Share copyrighted material and eventually the copyright holders stop producing new content. Not because they are being mean or greedy but eventually they run out of resources. It's not even an argument. If it costs a 100 million to make a movie and there's no profit as in you take a loss, how long until you stop making movies? Yes I know fan movies will save us all but are you honestly pirating fan movies or "The avengers"? This is a fight we all will loose. I know being realistic makes me a troll and I promised myself to stay out of this loosing battle but as a movie fan and some one that works in the industry I see the end coming and no one will be happy with the final outcome. I loose my way of life and everyone finds themselves pirating old movies. The pirates winning means no new movies. That's the reality of what we are facing.

    1. Re:And where does all this content come from? by hyades1 · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Movies used to be made and paid for on the basis that they'd be seen ONCE. Now the entertainment corporations want multiple kicks at the can. They want their first run theatre rights, which they've always had, PLUS DVD, Netflix, cable television, regular television and merchandizing revenue.

      You aren't being "realistic". You're not even a troll. You're an industry bum-kisser. Why don't you tell us all how much money "The Avengers" made, then try to tell us again how the industry is bleeding to death.

      --
      I've calculated my velocity with such exquisite precision that I have no idea where I am.
    2. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      No, you are a troll because the movie industry is making record profits despite the economy and rampant piracy. If they were actually losing money or not profiting, then your argument might have held some credence. But no, they are fat cats trying to cut down on our share of the cheese (aka they are greedy bastards). That said, we "pirates" still go to the movies and buy DVD s of movies we like enough to watch more than once.

      And I would not care of Hollywood didn't produce anything new. It's mostly crap anyway.

    3. Re:And where does all this content come from? by darkfeline · · Score: 2

      There's a couple of problems with this. First of all, no one's taking away profit. New movies are still being made since BitTorrent first came out and since movies were pirated (basically forever); obviously they're turning a very VERY healthy profit. Second of all, you don't need a big budget to make a good movie. In fact, I'd argue that a big budget gets in the way of making good movies, since priorities start getting seriously warped once large numbers come into play. Finally, the pirates can't "win". That doesn't even make sense since they don't even have a goal. I guess you could call them getting a copy of a movie/DRM-cracked media "winning", in which case it's pretty much guaranteed then; the pirates "win". They're not trying to drive content creators out of business; in fact, many "pirates" are perfectly willing to pay and in some cases have paid; they just prefer having a non-DRM/free format/unrestricted/digital/&c. copy.

    4. Re:And where does all this content come from? by TemperedAlchemist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      Do you know what happens with all of that money earned by litigation against piracy? It goes directly back into the pockets of the anti-piracy groups. That's right -- while the industry kicks and screams about those poor starving artists in court, they don't lift a finger to help them out with the money that should go to the artists.

      So don't go pointing your fingers at the pirates. Point your fingers at the people who license and manage the content. They're the ones controlling its distribution and taking a good big cut of the profits for themselves. What, you think the writers and actors behind Game of Thrones had any control over whether or not they could make their stuff available on hulu or netflix?

      Please, if you actually think that you need to pull your head out of the lala land the MAFIAA have created. It's not that people really aren't willing to pay -- it's that companies like HBO try their darnedest to give potential customers the worst treatment ever. Let's face it, would you go to the DMV and pay a fee, stand in line for hours, and then talk to a lady that's got an attitude OR would you rather click a few buttons and have your new registration appear right in front of you for free?

    5. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Dr_Barnowl · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Duh - "The Avengers" lost money. Every film that Hollywood makes loses money. Especially the ones with the biggest box-office numbers.

      Didn't you know, the entire industry is funded by multi-billionaire philanthropists? The only reason they insist on you buying tickets is so they can count how many peoples lives they are enriching.

    6. Re:And where does all this content come from? by biodata · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Most of the best content comes from passionate people making it because it is the thing they want to do most in life. This is true in the arts, music, science, sport, and most other areas of cultural production. Recessions tend to produce a cultural flowering, because people have more time on their hands, so more time to devote to their passions. We used to need huge business enterprises to do DISTRIBUTION, but we have that sorted now thank you. Having less big budget movies being made does not make me think our societies will become a cultural desert, although, as a movie fan and someone who works in the industry I can see how you would be worried. And by the way the pirates are entirely winning, and no, it isn't meaning no new movies. This is flawed thinking.

      --
      Korma: Good
    7. Re:And where does all this content come from? by rufty_tufty · · Score: 3, Informative

      Let's assume I pirate everything I can. Let's then count how many ways the media industry makes money off me.
      Let's say I go out on a date to the moves. *check*
      Perhaps I realise the cinema AV system is better than my home one, so for movies that are quite AV intensive I make sure I see them there *check*
      I listen to music on the radio *check*
      I still buy books because I prefer the dead tree format *check*
      Still go to the theatre
      Still go to concerts
      Still watch TV (with adverts)
      etc

      Even if I did pirate rampantly there is still a healthy income stream there, I see no reason why this would kill off the entertainment industry. Remember "Home taping is killing music"

      --
      "The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
    8. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      You don't understand. Plenty of people, if not most people, *want* to pay for movies and other content. Most of the problem is sellers not understanding the market, and wanting to keep their exorbitant prices and inconvenient distribution methods. Those two factors (cost and convenience) are the problems they should be addressing, instead of claiming they are poor while sleeping on beds of money and doing bogus accounting so that people like you don't get a fair share. I mean, according to Hollywood accounting, practically every major film already loses money, and the whole industry should be deeply in the hole. Yet, somehow, mysteriously, this multi-billion-dollar revenue industry keeps on going despite its "unprofitability".

      It isn't the pirates out there that are the problem, it's the pirates at the top that are running the show and want to keep things exactly the way they are. If that whole perverse system collapses in on itself, I don't care. Real movie makers with real businesses will arise, and I'll buy product from them. I don't pirate stuff now, and I won't in the future, but if I have a decent alternative to paying these Hollywood ripoff artists, I'll gladly redirect my purchases.

      You aren't being a troll for being realistic about the fact that people have to be paid in order for quality works to be made, but the extent of irrationality in the current movie industry with regards to accounting is hard to accept. If that huge scam collapses, I trust that creative people will find a way to make good films regardless.

    9. Re:And where does all this content come from? by BeanThere · · Score: 1

      I do wonder if that leaked net profit statement was the one for the taxman, or the one for the shareholders.

    10. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      Jesus, loose != lose. Why is this so fucking difficult?

    11. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Card · · Score: 4, Interesting
      Ever heard of Hollywood accounting?

      Hollywood accounting (also known as Hollywood bookkeeping) refers to the opaque accounting methods used by the film, video and television industry to budget and record profits for film projects. Expenditures can be inflated to reduce or eliminate the reported profit of the project thereby reducing the amount which the corporation must pay in royalties or other profit-sharing agreements, as these are based on the net profit.

      How it works

      An example is the Warner Bros. television series Babylon 5 created by J. Michael Straczynski. The series, which was profitable in each of its five seasons from 1993–1998, has garnered more than US$1 billion for Warner Bros., most recently US$500 million in DVD sales alone. But in the last profit statement given to Straczynski, Warner Bros. claimed the property was $80 million in debt. "Basically," says Straczynski, "by the terms of my contract, if a set on a WB movie burns down in Botswana, they can charge it against B5's profits."

    12. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Grimbleton · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, could you explain what share of this cheese you're entitled to, having done nothing to contribute to the making of it?

    13. Re:And where does all this content come from? by ledow · · Score: 2, Insightful

      So your solution would be what? Following through your logic, we should all give them money if they've said they've had something pirated. We should pay for something that others didn't. Because without us doing that, we'd have no movies. A bit like those rich people who "fund" the ballet (which is also pretty profitable, I'd like to add)?

      Or maybe they should stop treating movies solely as a way to make themselves rich and actually, you know, make something people can enjoy watching. Let's ignore the fact that virtually no movie you've ever heard of has ever really made a loss (but according to LucasArts, Return of The Jedi still isn't profitable despite a 10x difference between sales and the cost of making it).

      The top 4 in my country, by sales, at the moment are:

      The Dark Knight Rises (which number Batman film?)
      Ice Age: Continental Drift (Ice Age 4?)
      The Amazing Spider-Man (which number Spiderman film?)
      Magic Mike (A dance-movie)

      Collectively, they've taken some hundreds of millions of pounds and cost much less to make. But it's shite like that that stops me going to the cinema. I never *used* to have problems finding something worth watching, but in the last 10 years I haven't seen anything at a cinema that was worth the entrance price for an adult.

      Every night I have the same dilemma of "finding something to watch" on TV. More than 50% of the time, I end up watching pre-recorded media that I purchased (most of it at least 10 years old, some of it virtually unobtainable now). The rest, I watch free-tripe-that-I-can-cope-with or do something else entirely. There is literally about a day's worth of new programming that I would watch spread over the entire year and hundreds of channels.

      I don't claim to be too cultured to watch some tripe now and then, but really I buy all my stuff on DVD **AFTER** having watched it (usually for free on TV or at a friend's house). There's just too much junk for me to wade through, and the profits that are made out of me make it the only viable way to purchase movies. I don't purchase music at all. Ever. Not once. Because I don't listen to it.

      But the industry's solution to this is not to improve their content, or change their target, or provide archive footage for a reasonable price, but to penalise *me* for other people being criminals.

      I have to wade through DVD adverts (and actually now have been forced to rip the DVD's I own onto drives with UOP's removed just to avoid that), I have to deal with the industry wanting to monitor my connections, cut me off, turning YouTube into a mess of adverts and DMCA notices because there's a five-second clip of their music on a home video, forcing their copy protection on my TV cables (HDCP), attempting to make timeshifting illegal, increasing the amount of junk legislation and bogus lawsuits and chasing criminals in Russia to stop their pirating, and millions of other knock-on effects. Hell, even making some countries citizens pay tax on a blank disc.

      If you want my custom, respect me. Put your archives online, for a reasonable price in a reasonable format. If I can get the "genuine" download for £1 compared to some rip-off for free, I *will* go for the genuine download. So long as I don't have to install DRM, Silverlight, or some other junk just to play a video file. And, no, I wouldn't copy it and give it to my friends - my friends aren't cheapskates and would buy their own copy for £1 too. Let me download the movie the same day its released, wherever I happen to be. Let me get it on DVD and not just Blu-Ray. Let me not have region restrictions, UOP's and ten minutes of trailers.

      Then you might see some money back from me. At the moment you get minimal money because you treat me like an idiot and/or a criminal, so I don't resort to piracy, I just stop consuming your products (in the same way, if a restaurant piss me off, I don't steal their food, or con an advantage on their "all-you-can-eat" deals, I just never eat there eve

    14. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      The frightening thing is that I'm not certain whether he was serious or whether he was joking.

      If he wasn't joking, might I add my own "duh" - If every film that Hollywood makes loses money, why has Hollywood not gone bankrupt? Why do they spend such enormous amounts on making movies if they're for certain going to lose it?

    15. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Whooooooooosh!

      Well, at least recalibrate your sarcasm detector...

    16. Re:And where does all this content come from? by NatasRevol · · Score: 1

      Everything more than 20 years old?

      --
      There are two types of people in the world: Those who crave closure
    17. Re:And where does all this content come from? by cheekyjohnson · · Score: 1

      Take away the profit and you take away the reason to create new content to share.

      What's with these "no new content" arguments? I highly doubt that there would be no new content whatsoever. That supposes that there are no people that would create free content simply because they love doing so, no people that would raise money using crowdfunding, and no people that would raise money with concerts (or some other method). The point is, I find it extremely highly unlikely that no new content would be created.

      Yes I know fan movies will save us all but are you honestly pirating fan movies or "The avengers"?

      That would depend on the person, wouldn't it?

      I see the end coming and no one will be happy with the final outcome.

      If they seriously can't find a way to earn money, I think they should fail, and they can take their ideas with them.

      I know being realistic makes me a troll

      1 + 1 = 3.

      I know being absolutely correct makes me a troll...

      See? I just said I was absolutely correct and demonized anyone who might suggest otherwise. That must mean I am correct!

      --
      Filthy, filthy copyrapists!
    18. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Hotawa+Hawk-eye · · Score: 1

      \begin{LionelHutz}
      There's the truth *frowning and shakes his head* that we tell the IRS and anyone with a contract entitling them to a share of the profits, and the truth *grinning and nodding his head* that we tell our Swiss bank accounts.
      \end{LionelHutz}

    19. Re:And where does all this content come from? by FitForTheSun · · Score: 1

      My understanding is that the Star Wars franchise, so far, is "not profitable".

    20. Re:And where does all this content come from? by brit74 · · Score: 1
      This sounds like fun. Let's use your argument to justify shoplifting. Obviously, shoplifting is wrong and hurts businesses, but I can use your argument to show otherwise:

      There's a couple of problems with this. First of all, no one's taking away profit. [Products] are still being made since [shoplifting] first came out and since [products] were [shiplifted] (basically forever); obviously they're turning a very VERY healthy profit.

      See? I just proved that shoplifting doesn't harm anybody!

      in fact, many "pirates" are perfectly willing to pay and in some cases have paid; they just prefer having a non-DRM/free format/unrestricted/digital/&c. copy.

      That's why non-DRMed stuff doesn't get pirated, right? I can't see any evidence that non-DRMed products get pirated at a lower rate than DRMed ones. In fact, it's been about three years since companies abandoned DRM for music, yet music sales revenue continue to fall. I don't see the slightest evidence that people have switched back to buying digital music. People have always been able to rip their CDs (i.e. no DRM). I wonder why the music industry hasn't rebounded.

    21. Re:And where does all this content come from? by oldmac31310 · · Score: 1

      You're such a looser!

      --
      http://www.acetonestudio.com
    22. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Share copyrighted material and eventually the copyright holders stop producing new content.

      Fine. Others will produce content. Not everybody in the world does everything for profit. (See e.g. open source movement, creative commons.)

      If it costs a 100 million to make a movie and there's no profit as in you take a loss, how long until you stop making movies?

      Movie makers cannot make filthy shitloads of money any longer? So what. People will start to read more or go to the theaters again.

      There used to be professional piano players in every tavern; they lost their job. Popular theatre houses were making entertainment for the masses (e.g. Shakespeare); most of them have closed. Perhaps there will be no more fancy movies. So what.

    23. Re:And where does all this content come from? by gl4ss · · Score: 1

      the share/interest-holders of the various in-between corps get their profit statements in the form of a check. that's why the movies never make a profit.

      --
      world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
    24. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Jedi+Alec · · Score: 1

      I'm sorry, could you explain what share of this cheese you're entitled to, having done nothing to contribute to the making of it?

      Considering it's our taxes at work that makes the very concept of "intellectual property" possible in the first place...quite a bit actually.

      Copyright is a fictional concept made possible by We, the People, collectively maintaining it is in our best interest that there be some degree of control for artists over how their works are distributed and under what conditions.

      Circumstances (the internet, making billions of copies without significant cost or effort) is changing the deal. Instead praying that it does not change any further, adapt.

      --

      People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
    25. Re:And where does all this content come from? by Grimbleton · · Score: 1

      Right so... nothing. You contributed nothing. Just wanted to clarify that.

  9. Technical Details please by bug1 · · Score: 1

    Thats a lot torrents to seed, i assume they arent just running a tracker.

    What sort of setup do they have, what bittorrent software do they use ?

    1. Re:Technical Details please by Shikaku · · Score: 1

      http://techie-buzz.com/how-to/what-are-web-seeds-bittorrent.html

      I'm guessing it's just webseeds beyond just running the tracker.

    2. Re:Technical Details please by rufty_tufty · · Score: 1

      remember this is archive.org an organisation that frequently* snapshots the entire** internet. Their IT infrastructure is something quite impressive.

      *okay sites that are updated frequently get more refreshes - you can watch back in time and see how news sites react to world events, but blogs less so.
      ** okay only really websites that are static and don't have a robots.txt

      --
      "The weirdest thing about a mind, is that every answer that you find, is the basis of a brand new cliche" -
    3. Re:Technical Details please by NerdmastaX · · Score: 0
  10. Torrents should be used for software updates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

    A really good use for torrents would be software updates.

    If a big software company (say, Adobe or Microsoft) would seed their patch releases as torrents, it would instantly bring torrents into the general public mindshare as a legitimate downloading tool. More importantly for the companies involved, it would also save them vast amounts of bandwidth (especially for the bigger files).

    For a company like Adobe or MS, what's not to like about that? They don't even need to worry about the piracy danger, because with patches, anyone who can use it would already have the software installed.

    1. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Some companies already do this - Blizzard distributes World of Warcraft and its patches through torrents. The download tool is just a pretty and dumbed down torrent client, with the .torrent file embedded in the downloader's executable. It can actually be extracted and opened with a different client, like uTorrent. Pretty neat system.

    2. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by agentgonzo · · Score: 2

      I'm not an expert on torrents, but I would imagine that the main reason is that they're telling the users to essentially get the update from an unvalidated source (other torrenters). I know that there are restrictions in how torrents work (verifying hashes of the downloaded chunks etc) but there is a possible attack vector in people poisoning the torrent feed and trying to push malicious packets to consumers.

      Secondly, the cost/bandwidth associated for the companies isn't a major factor. It may look a large sum of money to us laymen, but in the scope of the cost of the software development, the cost of distribution is tiny. Companies work based on risk. There is little risk associated with them serving all the updates via HTTP and a low cost. The risk associated with distributed via torrent is higher and so not worth it for Adobe/MS etc.

      A third point is user experience. At present, Bittorrent clients aren't incorporated into *all* browsers, meaning that less tech-savvy users won't be able to download the updates unless they install a BT client or the updater is written to download via BT. Then there is the fact that ISPs throttle BT heavily so downloads for end-users *can* be slow. Then there's the uploading - many people may be on bandwidth caps so it's not worth Adobe/MS risking problems by inadvertently blowing customer's broadband limits with their BT uploads.

      In short, whilst some companies (Blizzard I think, but a major game anyway) may distribute updates via BT, for a lot of companies it's just not worth the extra hassle and potential problems and it's just *easier* in pretty much every way for them to distribute via their own HTTP servers. Also, CDNs help save on bandwidth a LOT.

    3. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      I'm not an expert on torrents, but I would imagine that the main reason is that they're telling the users to essentially get the update from an unvalidated source

      Good thing you started with the disclaimer since the protocol automatically hashes every chuck making this a non-issue.

      Bittorrent clients aren't incorporated into *all* browsers

      Who the fuck uses a browser with integrated torrent client? And more to the point, who the fuck updates their system via a browser?

    4. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by agentgonzo · · Score: 1

      Good thing you started with the disclaimer since the protocol automatically hashes every chuck making this a non-issue.

      But who do you get the hash from? If it's from a peer then the hash could presumably be poisoned too?

    5. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      But who do you get the hash from? If it's from a peer then the hash could presumably be poisoned too?

      Then I would suggest they set it so you're always getting the hash from the original source. There. Solved that problem. That was easy.

    6. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by agentgonzo · · Score: 2

      I'm not trying to tell you how to set up BT correctly, I'm giving you reasons why companies *may* prefer just to serve the data via HTTP - easier and less hassle and risk for them to server via HTTP rather than BT. At some point it's going to be cheaper for them to pay for excess bandwidth than do investigations, trials, risk assessements etc.

    7. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by ledow · · Score: 1

      Didn't Steam hire the creator of BitTorrent (Bram Cohen, I think) to work on how it distributes its software updates?

    8. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by progician · · Score: 3, Insightful

      OK, man, but your argument has been countered successfully. The BT protocol works out of the box the way how validated downloads work: they send you a hash, and once you downloaded, it will check if the file produces the same hash as the source. Can the hash be faked? Sure, there are some ways to do that, but that is a problem with HTTP downloads as well. From a cost and technical point of view BT should be perfectly legitimate choice for a company to distribute their shit.

      The real deal here is the bad reputation of BT in the media. There's a whole crusade against file sharing and BT in particular, the technology is associated with criminals, hackerz, child pornography, necrophilia, and communism. Can you imagine the suits in the director board meeting taking the chances for such an association? They rather pay for bandwidth. As a side effect, our internet infrastructure is distorted with having terrible download/upload speed ratios and you have to pay a fortune just for getting a static ip with a decent upload speed. If central repository distribution is a business model that became supported by many parties, including ISPs, cloud service providers, social media and audio/video streaming.

    9. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by agentgonzo · · Score: 1

      OK, man, but your argument has been countered successfully

      One of the reasons behind my argument, yes, but the main reason that I was pointing to with a few examples (risk-averseness) you've basically agreed with "Can you imagine the suits in the director board meeting taking the chances for such an association?"

    10. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

      I'm not an expert on torrents, but I would imagine that the main reason is that they're telling the users to essentially get the update from an unvalidated source

      Good thing you started with the disclaimer since the protocol automatically hashes every chuck making this a non-issue.

      But if there's ~1000 chunks, you only need a hash collision (SHA-1, so not easy) with any one chunk, plus a small botnet to seed the bad chunk initially, to effectively DDOS the download -- any peers getting the bad block will propagate it from there, and a whole lot of people get a successful, but corrupted, download.

      Hundreds of (typically) 256k chunks * hundreds of pieces of software * dozens of updates a year, and building a table big enough to occasionally DDOS one does start to become (barely) plausible in the near future.

      I've considered this principally as an MPAA weapon -- just build the biggest SHA1 table you can afford (since you're looking for junk data, use chunks with 20 bytes of data and 256k-20 of 00, thus only storing 40 bytes per entry), scrape all new torrents off TPB, demonoid, etc., and attack any with a chunk hash found in your table. Not sure there's so much use for "hit some % of downloads, selected completely at random" w/r/t software updates, but it is a plausible attack.

    11. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by petermgreen · · Score: 1

      But who do you get the hash from?

      The hashes come from the torrent file.

      --
      note: i'm known as plugwash most places but i screwd up registering that here somehow in the past and now can't register
    12. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by dywolf · · Score: 1

      I would love if patches for software were archived and torrented. Know how hard it is sometimes to find old software patches, for games or apps, but mostly games, that are essential to their use?

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    13. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by dywolf · · Score: 1

      That's standard user/buyer beware. There is a minimum knowledge level for things. True, you make more money by not setting the bar too high, but like driving a car requires a demonstraed set of skills, that many people still lack, usage of slightly advanced internet tools also requires a set of skills, mainly being smart about what you and from where, and checkin the AV now and then.

      --
      The guy who said the election was rigged won the presidency with the second-most votes.
    14. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by someones · · Score: 1

      Who guarantees, taht downloading from http://example.com/ will really lead to your company's Servers?
      DNS Poisioning is a well known and very frequent attack scheme.

      Basically all your arguments AGAINST BT could be evened out by arguments AGAINST http(s)

    15. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by someones · · Score: 1

      BT Chunk hashing is afaik not single layer.
      Each chunk has a hash + every X chunks have a hash + the whole file has a hash.
      Happy colliding ;)

    16. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by Tastecicles · · Score: 2

      um... bad blocks aren't generally propagated; my client junks the bad block and rejects any further packets from the source, and looks elsewhere for a good version of that block. Hashes are good. Poisoned torrents usually start off like that and are initially seeded by people intent on poisoning the torrent pool from the off (ie null files or malware designed to fuck up your day, seeded by **AA agencies on farms to look like insanely popular movies/albums. I've seen this happen, those torrents don't live long).

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    17. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by NerdmastaX · · Score: 0

      Some companies already do this - Blizzard distributes World of Warcraft and its patches through torrents. The download tool is just a pretty and dumbed down torrent client, with the .torrent file embedded in the downloader's executable. It can actually be extracted and opened with a different client, like uTorrent. Pretty neat system.

      yea my old roomate found that out when the apartment shut off his internet for using bittorrent...

    18. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      I toyed with the idea of torrenting drivers for obsolete hardware. I have PCI cards that still work, and drivers for them that still run under XPSP3 - those that still prove useful are even now plugged into my museum piece of an Athlon running almost on a daily basis. The problem is, when you're beyond the realms of graphics cards and into RAID controllers, composite video capture cards, professional soundcards, multiport network controllers, SATA arrays, IDE stacks, printers, scanners, faxes, jukeboxes, et cetera, then you're going from a few hundred MB or a GB or two (if that) of data to several Terabytes (my basic repair kit consisted of four (yes, 4) dual layer DVDs containing common/generic drivers for a wide range of devices). Rapidly the collection (as has been my experience) becomes unmanageable and it becomes easier once again to simply Google it. I've even tried using a database of FCC identification tags, which every PCI device has printed on the card track, but building the database has proven too much for my poor fingers... time to rethink... may be a good time to clear out that pile of drives and reclaim the space. An extra 3TB would come in handy...

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    19. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by cryptizard · · Score: 1

      When people say that SHA-1 is collision resistant they mean that, through all the uses and applications of SHA-1 for the last 20 or so years, no one has ever found two inputs that result in the same hash. No matter the scale of your application, the chance of finding one is incredibly small. You need approximately 2^64 inputs to find a collision, which means your table for keeping track of these things will be on the order of 2^64 * 256k (value in table) * 128 bits (index in table) = 2^94 bits or about 219 yottabytes. According to wolfram alpha, that is 3.7*10^9 times the size of the internet. Good luck with that.

    20. Re:Torrents should be used for software updates by progician · · Score: 1

      You misinterpreted that sentence. What I said was that there has been a sustained smear campaign and scare tactics against the torrent protocol, which is why most of the major businesses avoiding to use it. HTTP/S, and indeed most of the internet protocols suffer the similar problem as does BT, but there was no similar campaign against HTTP/S while it is clear that people share stuff on websites too. The whole thing has nothing to do with risk-awareness, more to the sheepish flocking of business-types.

  11. Oh, this should be fun.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    as my ISP actively interferes with p2p traffic..

  12. Sends the wrong message.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's shocking that a once responsible organisation takes it upon itself to blur the distinct in the public mind of the role played by torrents in the distribution of files. Much effort and money has been expended to educate the public and their political representitive as to the true negative impact of this technology on the economic welfare of the managers of content creators.

    This wrong minded attempt to compete directly with current content with alternatives that are outside the control of the industry leaders shows the miss use of public moneys in an othrwise open market and I feel certain that come review of that funding influent will be brought to bear that will effect either that funding or the management structure.

    Other key words: feedom, open markets, children, economy, health, security

    1. Re:Sends the wrong message.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      Astroturfing industry troll.

    2. Re:Sends the wrong message.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

      You forgot the biggest keyword: LITIGATION /wardrums

  13. Lots of good content in there... by dotancohen · · Score: 5, Informative

    ... for instance, here are audio recordings of Asimov's Foundation Trilogy:
    http://archive.org/details/IsaacAsimov-TheFoundationTrilogy

    _This_ is what the civilian Internet was intended for: spreading information and culture.

    --
    It is dangerous to be right when the government is wrong.
    1. Re:Lots of good content in there... by jank1887 · · Score: 1

      that is awesome. just curious though. there are some publication localities and time periods where public domain is difficult to determine.

      http://wiki.librivox.org/index.php/Copyright_and_Public_Domain#Determining_Copyright_Status_in_the_United_States

      This page doesn't list good bibliographical data. a review/comment mentions 'BBC sound lab'. I know these guys are diligent, but am I missing something?

    2. Re:Lots of good content in there... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Guys, the best thing about archive.org is the FACT that the musicians there specifically authorized the archive to legally provide this music free of charge. This is live recordings. You know, promoting their art by offering live music for free, to interest you enought that you buy their studio releases, see their live shows, and request them on the radio (rarer and rarer, but there are still some stations supporting indie music).

  14. Hot lists by millette · · Score: 4, Informative

    I had trouble getting to the hotlist, I was finally able to reach the page and Coral too. Here are the 2 cached pages:
    http://bt1.archive.org.nyud.net/hotlist.php
    http://bt2.archive.org.nyud.net/hotlist.php

  15. Not so easy... by AliasMarlowe · · Score: 2

    I wish we had a law saying that you can obtain something for free if the copyright holders refuse to sell it to you. This would keep a lot of this horrible litigation from ever occurring.

    So instead of refusing to sell, they can just set the price for dealers/distributors to be absurdly high - it's still available for sale. Example: for extended periods, Disney could set the wholesale price of a licensed copy of a particular movie on DVD/BR to about $200million. Then, for a limited time, the wholesale price could drop to $20, so retailers can sell it for about $30 or so. Problem solved, and largely indistinguishable from the present, where Disney simply refuses to sell particular movies for extended periods to maintain their pricing power.

    --
    Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. - Voltaire
    1. Re:Not so easy... by Alex+Belits · · Score: 1

      But that's Disney purposefully manipulating things, still with intention to sell their movies.

      Most of the time companies either never ever release their movies and TV series in a usable format, or do it so late, people forget what those things were about. The effect on the company is the opposite -- Disney probably makes more money by behaving unethically (they do it to products with lasting popularity, creating the impression of rarity, and everyone who is interested still ends up buying), those companies make less money by behaving unethically (unless they have an instant cult classic, popularity wanes when there is no way to watch those things -- they even lose money on TV ads and TV/movie franchises).

      --
      Contrary to the popular belief, there indeed is no God.
    2. Re:Not so easy... by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      I read a story several years ago about a company (I can't remember who it was) that refused to sell a product that would have made an absolute killing. Another company decided to take up the slack and fill the hole in the market with a similar product, which the first company took upon itself to litigate. Sometime during the court process, the first company then did release the product, but at such a high unit price it was basically unsellable.

      Had the court missed this tactic the first company would have won its suit hands down. The court didn't miss the tactic, and ordered the litigious jerks to pay the defendant's costs and compensation for malicious slander.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  16. Does Warehouse13 count? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    That's science, right???

  17. Wouldn't work because they ARE willing to sell. by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 1

    There was a dutch version of The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy. As a naive kid I inquired how it could be obtained. The NOS would very happy to supply the copyrighted material. All I would have to do was pay a sound engineer to make the copies. The price was... well... rather high doesn't do it justice.

    But it is available... for a price...

    You can probably get any movie you want to. For a couple of million.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  18. The wrong business model by SmallFurryCreature · · Score: 2

    The content industry doesn't have the business model of making a sustained profit, they have the business model of making MORE AND MORE AND MORE MONEY! If the content industry was run by the supermarkets, your example would work. But it is not. It is run by people who make wallstreet bankers look wholesome and they want ever more cash from you.

    --

    MMO Quests are like orgasms:

    You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.

  19. Ladies and Gentlemen, Build your mirrors! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1

    How many of us have useless machines that we can convert to Torrent Mirrors for our local community library?

    1. Re:Ladies and Gentlemen, Build your mirrors! by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      Mod parent up. I've run a Public Domain Torrent mirror for years. It has the entire Project Gutenberg archive on there (as of May this year), and a significant chunk of the eTree LMO. If you've downloaded anything off either of those two sites over BitTorrent over the last five years or so, chances are good you got some of that data off of my server.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  20. Good start, needs organization by cellocgw · · Score: 0

    Search term: "scifi"
    Categories found:
    sci-fi 40 books, subject
    Sci-fi 39 books, subject
    Sci-Fi 37 books, subject
    SciFi 5 books, subject
    scifi 5 books, subject
    sci-fi 3 books, time
    classic sci-fi 1 book, subject
    A sci-fi tv series set in the 23rd century 1 book, time
    sci-fi comedy 1 book, subject
    sci-fi fantasy; knights; elves; magic 1 book, subject
    blood; Emeraldia; Veranna; fantasy; scifi; Telling 1 book, subject

    They probably need to clean up their keyword lists :-). All the same, this looks to be a great site in the making.

    --
    https://app.box.com/WitthoftResume Code: https://github.com/cellocgw
  21. Cue the DMCA takedown notices in... by Tastecicles · · Score: 3, Interesting

    ...5... 4... 3... 2...

    I kid. I've used IA a lot. Their movie archive is awesome, I've discovered some real gems on there, and even managed to make a living making and selling compilations (yes, you can actually do that legally with the material on there, and a lot of other people do!)

    --
    Operation Guillotine is in effect.
  22. Why do you assume.. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    because statistically he is correct.

    Any exception is an outlier.

  23. What's rare/highly valuable that needs preserving? by GameboyRMH · · Score: 1

    I only have so many terabytes and megabits per second, which of these torrents should I help preserve? Anything? I mean they're pretty well-preserved already I think, and totally legit so it's not like anyone's trying to get rid of them...

    --
    "When information is power, privacy is freedom" - Jah-Wren Ryel
  24. great if actual content by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    I looked at the book section , and all I find is 'Buy cheap online '.
    I'll wait until they clean it up.

  25. word of advice by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    OCR the books, and put them in single pdf's .
    400 MB for a single book is ridiculous.

    I'll rework the one i'm downloading and put it on TPB.

  26. Shouldn't there be SOME filtering? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    So... really.. is "ImgurClopCompilationV2Repacked" REALLY worth saving on archive.org?

    This is definitely NOT the highest pinnacle of human achievement here. If anything, society could probably do better WITHOUT that particular data.

  27. What do you expect? The EFF is a pro-piracy. by brit74 · · Score: 0

    John Gilmore of the EFF said, "The Archive is helping people to understand that BitTorrent isn't just for ephemeral or dodgy items that disappear from view in a short time. BitTorrent is a great way to get and share large files that are permanently available from libraries like the Internet Archive."

    In other words, the EFF is working towards legitimizing BitTorrent so that illegal uses can continue unabated. I'll go ahead and say what I've been saying for a long time: the EFF has been a pro-piracy organization for a long time, and this is just another example of the EFF skulking around on the fringes of the piracy issue, trying to make moves that help pirates.

    Some more quotes from the EFF, just because I know Slashdot doesn't want to listen when I say that the EFF is a pro-piracy organization:

    "EFF: Piracy Not the Problem" - http://www.wired.com/culture/lifestyle/news/1999/09/21645
    "there is no evidence out there that "Internet piracy" is leaving us with fewer creators or fewer copyrighted works” - http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/12/most-pirated-movie-makes-heaps-money
    "EFF Releases ‘Switzerland’ to Test if Your ISP is Throttling BitTorrent" - http://www.zeropaid.com/news/9677/eff_releases_switzerland_to_test_if_your_isp_is_throttling_bittorrent/
    "EFF defended StreamCast Networks, the company behind the Morpheus peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing software, in an important case decided by the Supreme Court of the United States on June 23, 2005" - http://w2.eff.org/IP/P2P/MGM_v_Grokster/

    Dave Winer, an early supporter of the EFF: "I gave $5000 to the EFF when they started, I think it was in 1990, with the noble goal of protecting freedoms as our technology and culture move online. I think I have supported every cause the EFF has adopted since then, but that’s no longer true. I gave this a lot of thought, believe me, and had a long email exchange with Brad Templeton, the chairman of the EFF board of directors, and think they have become as radically polarized as the entertainment industry, and like Hollywood are now working against the interests of those they were meant to serve. The issue appears to be copyright, and it appears that the EFF believes there should be no copyright. The problem with the EFF position is that in order to remain consistent, they have had to say that copyright doesn’t exist — if a policy or law restricts what a user can do on the Internet then that is a bad policy or law. The courts can’t agree with the EFF. I don’t agree with the EFF."

    1. Re:What do you expect? The EFF is a pro-piracy. by jgrahn · · Score: 1

      John Gilmore of the EFF said, "The Archive is helping people to understand that BitTorrent isn't just for ephemeral or dodgy items that disappear from view in a short time. BitTorrent is a great way to get and share large files that are permanently available from libraries like the Internet Archive."

      In other words, the EFF is working towards legitimizing BitTorrent so that illegal uses can continue unabated.

      Huh? How did you pull that message out of the statement you just quoted?

  28. very good, but ... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    where are the magnet links?

  29. Site down!.. Slashdotted? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    :( you broke it guys!!.. damn you!!

  30. Only elected legislators can do that by tepples · · Score: 1

    You can change it to say anything you want.

    No, only elected legislators can do that, and guess who controls who gets to run for office.

  31. Eminent domain by tepples · · Score: 1

    So in other words, instead of the public domain, you're proposing putting works into the eminent domain. How would you go about calculating the "just compensation" for a Fifth Amendment taking?

    1. Re:Eminent domain by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      It's not property, it's a creative work that gets the name "intellectual property" via legislation. You change the law that defines "intellectual property" and the 5th Amendment has no bearing. Without IP law, there would be no IP - there would be nothing for the 5th Amendment to protect in that regard.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
    2. Re:Eminent domain by tepples · · Score: 1

      You change the law that defines "intellectual property" and the 5th Amendment has no bearing.

      The United States is a party to WTO treaties including TRIPS and Berne, and as long as WTO treaties are in force, the United States has to treat copyrights of foreign authors as property.

    3. Re:Eminent domain by MightyYar · · Score: 1

      Yes, but...

      There is a lot of wiggle room. For instance, copyright only is required by TRIPS to be 50 years, but it is much longer in the US.

      And of course, one could exit or renegotiate the treaties, with all that entails. The US is the primary driver of them anyway.

      --
      W..w..W - Willy Waterloo washes Warren Wiggins who is washing Waldo Woo.
  32. Intellectual property tax by tepples · · Score: 4, Interesting

    If copyrights are property, why aren't they taxed like property? Each owner of copyright in a work published more than x years ago would need to declare a self-assessed value of the copyright and pay a tax every few years based on a percentage of that value. Anyone else could put the work into the public domain by paying the copyright's full value to a government agency, which would perform a Fifth Amendment taking of the work's copyright.

  33. Windows 7 Starter or Home Premium? by tepples · · Score: 1

    I don't think there is a DVD/BD player shipped with Windows 7 either

    Are you talking about the Starter or Home Premium edition of Windows 7? Because this page implies that Windows 7 Home Premium includes DVD playback software. And I thought BD-ROM drives (and PCs including one) included a BD player app, just as DVD-ROM drives (and PCs including one) included a DVD player app until Windows Vista Home Premium and Windows 7 Home Premium made DVD playback a standard Windows feature.

    1. Re:Windows 7 Starter or Home Premium? by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      that page is lying, I just tried playing a DVD (completely at random I just put in The Full Monty, DVD9 Region 2 PAL) and it complained about not having a licensed playback component.

      Stock Windows does NOT have a functioning DVD player.

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    2. Re:Windows 7 Starter or Home Premium? by Tastecicles · · Score: 1

      addendum: I'm using Win7 Home Premium OEM, Service Pack 1

      --
      Operation Guillotine is in effect.
    3. Re:Windows 7 Starter or Home Premium? by tepples · · Score: 1

      Even if that is the case, DVD-ROM drives still tend to come bundled with a Windows player and not a Linux player.

  34. another great resource by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0

    within archive.org is the 1930 usa census. take that, ancestry.com