Thanks for the comment. I would put the.torrent file in the same class as a hyperlink - it points to other material, rather than containing the other material.
But again, the Betamax decision was, in part, about trying to go after a manufacturer of a device for helping people break copyright. Seems spot-on to me (but I could be wrong - the way the law works nowadays is getting downright S-T-R-A-N-G-E in some areas). What next - try to break down the "common carrier" status of ISPs? Oops, they've tried that, too. Damn!
Thank you, but I'm just repeating what others have noticed about you. Posting anonymously. Posting what are clearly lies (cf. the Betamax decision, misquoting the Reg to make it look like people have been convicted when none have, confusing the torrent file with the target file, and otherwise toeing the **AA party line). Sounds like a shill to me.
It's kind of telling that you didn't even bother commenting on my question: "how hard is it to pay for your media?"
Because it doesn't apply to me.
I pay for all my media. Blank media. On which there is a levy that goes to the music industry to compensate them for my use of their music.
It's the same solution you guys should use - work with the technology instead of against it.
Re:It's you who are to blame-Soverign decisions.
on
Examining Bittorrent
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· Score: 1
The trackers themselves are legal. The site you pointed to in the Reg article was hosting the files themselves, not just the trackers - not the same thing.
The trackers themselves contain no copyrighted material, just pointers to the shared file, just as a link to copyrighted material on a web page is not itself an infringement of copyright.
You really need to brush up on the technology involved, and learn the difference between a tracker, the shared file, etc., because right now, you come off as being, shall we say, uninformed.
BT isn't limited to those ports in any way, shape or form, and many users use different ports.
Of course not, as I pointed out in another post. However, the VAST majority of torrent traffic is on the standard ports. You've got to measure *something*.
I hope Blizzard has a plan B for next year, when all the major ISPs (in the US anyway) are forced to block BitTorrent traffic.
You can configure bittorrent to listen to non-standard ports, just as you can configure apache to listen to http requests on non-standard ports if your ISP blocks port 80 to try and keep you from running a porn^H^H^H^Hweb server from home.
Considering the nature of Bittorrent and how decentralized it is, how would you even measure such a thing accurately?
I mean, in a centralized system like Sharman (KaZaA) it would be fairly trivial -- KaZaA even tells you when you start it up how many gigs are currently being traded.
Simple - monitor the amount of data going to the ports bittorrent uses - ports 6881 and up (the original stopped at 6890, limiting you to 10 instances, but now it just keeps climbing:-)
Yeah, right. Only an insignificant fraction of torrent traffic is legit. You really think that the scheme will remain legal because of these few users?
That's all it takes - see the Betamax decision. However, you might also want to take a look at the stats (below) for why people get high-speed internet.
... again...
BitTorrent and the likes will be shut down in 2005. Mark my words. Since most of the traffic I see (I am an admin) is illegal, I'll shed no tears. It's you who violate copyrights who are to blame for the crackdown and the eventual clampdown on the internet - not RIAA, MPAA or any other corporation.
How are we supposed to "mark your words" when you post as an AC? Also, you seem to think that downloading music is illegal everywhere, when it's not. Not everyone lives in the US of BushCo. Also, the servers holding the torrent files are not breaking any laws.
From the article:
A few performance problems are revealed, which will hopefully be addressed in future p2p systems.
According to a survey conducted by British ISP Homecall, 23 per cent of Britons are getting broadband for the porn, and it's by far the most important factor in getting wired. 12 per cent cited access to music videos, 8 per cent access to movie trailers, and a gratifying 9 per cent for radio, which is undergoing a renaissance in the UK. Sometimes new media can be the best thing to happen to old media.
If this protection became widespread, I'd bet on a compromise shortly after it does, possibly within weeks to a month. So how much would record companies have to pay for this, and how much are they going to jack up our CD prices because they did so?
I think this is where the real "cost of piracy" comes in. Not in the piracy itself, but in the idiotic measures they pay for in attempts to limit access to paid-for media.
Just goes to show they still don't "get it". The time of the "natural monopoly" surrounding anything dealing in information is over.
Mind you, it won't cost as much as the other factors in a CD:
coke for the music execs
whores for the music execs (I know, kind of redundant - should be "whores for the whores")
fast cars and fat wallets for the music execs
payola from the music execs to radio playlist directors
fast women and loose crack for the radio playlist directors (or is that "loose women and fast crack")
studio overhead - later charged back to the performers
Notice there's nothing in this list for the people actually making the music? Just do a google for "courtney love does the math".
Choice quote:
All of those independent promotion costs are charged to the band.
Since the original million-dollar advance is also recoupable, the band owes $2 million to the record company.
If all of the million records are sold at full price with no discounts or record clubs, the band earns $2 million in royalties, since their 20 percent royalty works out to $2 a record.
Two million dollars in royalties minus $2 million in recoupable expenses equals... zero!
How much does the record company make?
They grossed $11 million.
It costs $500,000 to manufacture the CDs and they advanced the band $1 million. Plus there were $1 million in video costs, $300,000 in radio promotion and $200,000 in tour support.
The company also paid $750,000 in music publishing royalties.
They spent $2.2 million on marketing. That's mostly retail advertising, but marketing also pays for those huge posters of Marilyn Manson in Times Square and the street scouts who drive around in vans handing out black Korn T-shirts and backwards baseball caps. Not to mention trips to Scores and cash for tips for all and sundry.
Add it up and the record company has spent about $4.4 million.
So their profit is $6.6 million; the band may as well be working at a 7-Eleven.
> The company got its start by offering a tool to > identify pornographic images
Actually that sounds really useful - I can put it in a bulk download script and avoid picking up junk non pornographic images.
Wouldn't it just be easier to just make me a friend and get your daily porn dl script from my journal?
Of course, you're welcome to contribute whatever you've already got...
Mind you, it must have been a blast doing the development and testing of their product (I won't say "tool" - developing their tool is a job for V14GRA).
"Could it be broken? I'm sure that somebody must be able to do it," said Graham Oakes, the head of Los Angeles-based Ezee Studios, which represents First 4 Internet. "But is there a generally known hack that has been put on the Net, or have any of the record label IT people found a hack yet? No."
So it's only a matter of time...
The company got its start by offering a tool to identify pornographic images
Humans are no tougher than civilization as a whole.
Sorry, but that's obviously a false assumption. Humans existed before civilization, and can continue to exist after civilization falls - just not as numerous. So again, as I said, the survival of the species is not connected to the survival of civilization.
I never mentioned "average Windows user". Last I looked, Windows users don't have access to commands like "dd" or the ability to mount devices as "/dev/hda1", etc.
Also, it only takes a "friend of a friend" to do it, and make a batch file available for anyone to be able to copy the relevant files from an installed copy to a new install directory, and another batch file to copy those files from the install directory to the appropriate directories on another machine, and run regsrv32 on any ocx, etc.
Then it's a simple matter to post the 2 batch files on the net. The batch files themselves are perfectly legal (especially since they have a legit use as being able to make working bakups of legitimately obtained software).
The statistical risk of humans getting wiped out in the next 100 years due to a super volcano or asteroid or comet impact is 1 in 455.
Even a nuclear war wouldn't completely wipe out humans. Sure, civilization wouldn't survive, but there's a big difference between survival of civilization and survival of the species.
We'd still survive as a species, along with the rats and the cockroaches. As a species, we're amazingly tough.
It's still easy to defeat the registry (for all programs, not just trialware and shareware) by copying it, installing the software, then copying it again, and doing a diff.
You can also isolate all the files needed for any install by copying the partition (dd if=/dev/hda1 of=original.partition), installing, then copying the partition again (dd if=/dev/hda1 of=new_partition), and again doing a diff.
Once you have the list of files modified/installed, it's no big deal to make your own install proggy (or make an installshield for it if you want to look really professional)
No matter what you think of "twitter", his point about getting rid of the registry is valid.
It's the biggest headache in terms of trying to clean out stuff.
Think about it - you can spot a modified config or ini file just by looking at its' "modified date" (Windows) or MTIME (linux). Suspicious that spyware/adware has modified some files - just search for files modified by date. You can't do that with the registry.
How many programs, even after removal, leave junk in the registry? It was a bad idea to begin with, and it's just gotten worse with time.
Spyware companies LOVE the registry. System administrators HATE it. That alone should tell you something.
I originally talked about video - you then switched to audio by saying you'd have something useful within 30 seconds (it is impossible to get useful video in 30 seconds of downloading - see below).
Either that, or you're mistaking kbits and kbytes.
With a popular seed, the startup time is longer, so they get nothing much. With an unpopular seed, they don't get bandwidth, so again, 30 seconds from start to finish gets them next to nothing. A seed for a DVD takes longer to start downloading anything significant as well, due to the much larger file size.
The only exception is if you're in the same area as someone else who has what you want already, and even then, you're limited to his/her upload cap.
So, to recap - video - you won't get enough to watch in your 30-second window between start and finish - half a second if you're lucky, and if you don't get the other stuff (greetz files, attribution files, etc).
An audio torrent MAY get going quickly, but only because of the relatively small size compared to a DVD. But audio downloading is not an issue for most of the world.
Slashdot Mirror
Simple solution - post with an account. After all, all ACs DO look alike.
Most torrent sites make it clear that postings of torrents by users are the property/responsability of the user, not the site (like what you see here on slashdot: " All trademarks and copyrights on this page are owned by their respective owners. Comments are owned by the Poster. The Rest © 1997-2004 OSTG"
But again, the Betamax decision was, in part, about trying to go after a manufacturer of a device for helping people break copyright. Seems spot-on to me (but I could be wrong - the way the law works nowadays is getting downright S-T-R-A-N-G-E in some areas). What next - try to break down the "common carrier" status of ISPs? Oops, they've tried that, too. Damn!
BTW - love your sig.
It's the same solution you guys should use - work with the technology instead of against it.
The trackers themselves contain no copyrighted material, just pointers to the shared file, just as a link to copyrighted material on a web page is not itself an infringement of copyright.
You really need to brush up on the technology involved, and learn the difference between a tracker, the shared file, etc., because right now, you come off as being, shall we say, uninformed.
And, yes, I DO have a constitutional right to copy music off the net - it just happens that MY country's constitution is not the same as yours.
... again ...
How are we supposed to "mark your words" when you post as an AC? Also, you seem to think that downloading music is illegal everywhere, when it's not. Not everyone lives in the US of BushCo. Also, the servers holding the torrent files are not breaking any laws.From the article:
Well, since, according to El Reg http://www.theregister.co.uk/2004/12/08/brit_net_The stats:
All the above are LEGAL.Mind you, it won't cost as much as the other factors in a CD:
- coke for the music execs
- whores for the music execs (I know, kind of redundant - should be "whores for the whores")
- fast cars and fat wallets for the music execs
- payola from the music execs to radio playlist directors
- fast women and loose crack for the radio playlist directors (or is that "loose women and fast crack")
- studio overhead - later charged back to the performers
Notice there's nothing in this list for the people actually making the music? Just do a google for "courtney love does the math".Choice quote:
And this is using generous-to-the-band figures.Here's a link to the whole article suitable for printing
Of course, you're welcome to contribute whatever you've already got ...
Mind you, it must have been a blast doing the development and testing of their product (I won't say "tool" - developing their tool is a job for V14GRA).
Sort of like the company offering this "copy protection" - they're going through the motions, even though it's ultimately pointless.
Or have you forgotten this story http://slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=02/01/11/181625 8&mode=thread
I never mentioned "average Windows user". Last I looked, Windows users don't have access to commands like "dd" or the ability to mount devices as "/dev/hda1", etc.
Also, it only takes a "friend of a friend" to do it, and make a batch file available for anyone to be able to copy the relevant files from an installed copy to a new install directory, and another batch file to copy those files from the install directory to the appropriate directories on another machine, and run regsrv32 on any ocx, etc.
Then it's a simple matter to post the 2 batch files on the net. The batch files themselves are perfectly legal (especially since they have a legit use as being able to make working bakups of legitimately obtained software).
We'd still survive as a species, along with the rats and the cockroaches. As a species, we're amazingly tough.
You can also isolate all the files needed for any install by copying the partition (dd if=/dev/hda1 of=original.partition), installing, then copying the partition again (dd if=/dev/hda1 of=new_partition), and again doing a diff.
Once you have the list of files modified/installed, it's no big deal to make your own install proggy (or make an installshield for it if you want to look really professional)
It's the biggest headache in terms of trying to clean out stuff.
Think about it - you can spot a modified config or ini file just by looking at its' "modified date" (Windows) or MTIME (linux). Suspicious that spyware/adware has modified some files - just search for files modified by date. You can't do that with the registry.
How many programs, even after removal, leave junk in the registry? It was a bad idea to begin with, and it's just gotten worse with time.
Spyware companies LOVE the registry. System administrators HATE it. That alone should tell you something.
Either that, or you're mistaking kbits and kbytes.
With a popular seed, the startup time is longer, so they get nothing much. With an unpopular seed, they don't get bandwidth, so again, 30 seconds from start to finish gets them next to nothing. A seed for a DVD takes longer to start downloading anything significant as well, due to the much larger file size.
The only exception is if you're in the same area as someone else who has what you want already, and even then, you're limited to his/her upload cap.
So, to recap - video - you won't get enough to watch in your 30-second window between start and finish - half a second if you're lucky, and if you don't get the other stuff (greetz files, attribution files, etc).
An audio torrent MAY get going quickly, but only because of the relatively small size compared to a DVD. But audio downloading is not an issue for most of the world.