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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."
The *AAs start suing the Internet Archive.
"A door is what a dog is perpetually on the wrong side of" - Ogden Nash
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?
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)
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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?
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.
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
... 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.
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
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
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
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" -
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.
How it works
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
...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.
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.