BitTorrent Community After SuprNova Shutdown 377
prostoalex writes "Folks from MonkeyMethods.org have researched the BitTorrent world after many popular destinations (SuprNova among others) have been shut down. Since BitTorrent always relied on the presence of trackers and servers hosting them, MonkeyMethods decided to see whether the shutdown impacted the BitTorrent community. So has the shutdown of centralized SuprNova had any impact? "In this case, centralization is a feature, not a necessity. Just look at del.icio.us most popular and you'll see BitTorrent sites every couple days, as people uncover new places to find the files they're looking for.""
Finding things is harder... (Score:3, Interesting)
It's funny, though, that they would tear down SuprNova but somehow TorrentSearch slipped through the cracks, and so there is still some activity out there.
The big question now is whether or not exeem will be worth a damn.
Re:Finding things is harder... (Score:2, Insightful)
BTW:
isoHunt ownz
Shareaza is the best client for windows ever, though I wish there was a port to linux. One last thing, can anyone suggest a good (full-featured)Client for linux?
Re:Finding things is harder... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Finding things is harder... (Score:3, Interesting)
Shareaza has a BT client built-in, along with eDonkey, Gnutella and Gnutella 2. It's a great concept (a FOSS-based all-in-one P2P app) and it's a pretty slick looking app but unfortunately the performance is nowhere near any of the standalone apps for the various protocols it supports. (I have verified this in side by side testing.)
Azureus is what I use, although it's got some issues as well.
Re:Finding things is harder... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www.mininova.org/ [mininova.org]
Exeem, well that looks like it is a bit of a failure in my opinion. They have allowed people to rate downloads and attach comments etc. It has become a place to advertise and exeem also contains spyware. Edonkey nostalgia basically..
I doubt that the (MPAA / RIAA)'s efforts will have a lasting effect since suprnova was replaced fairly quickly and I think the replacement is actually better.
Re:Finding things is harder... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Finding things is harder... (Score:3, Insightful)
It also connects to a centralized server, which really defeats the point of a decentralized tracker.
---
Buy "Bob" [subgenius.com]
Why is it difficult? (Score:2)
Large files quite often do download faster than they do from the web so it's a major bonus.
My impression was that SuperNova was mostly full of links to illegal material, and hardly the point of bittorrent - even though many used it for that.
thoughts on exeem (Score:2)
Re:thoughts on exeem (Score:2)
Re:Finding things is harder... (Score:2)
Back under the bridge, troll. It would be REAL smart for someone to distribute kiddie porn via bittorrent, given that you have to do it through a CENTRAL WEBSITE.
full text (Score:4, Informative)
Date: January 10, 2005
WARNING: "Monkeyin' Around" contains rambling and wild speculation on the future of digital media. Do not operate heavy machinery while reading. Read the first edition here. Visit our blog at http://blog.monkeymethods.org.
What the heck is this article about?
After the recent shutdowns in the BitTorrent community, notably the popular site SuprNova.org, many were left wondering if BitTorrent was on its last legs. You can read some of the coverage here . Since this happened, many people are asking: How big of a blow are these shutdowns? Is BitTorrent dead or dying?
Well, we had the same questions too, and decided we wanted to understand the distribution of torrent files on the Internet. Using this information, we can examine issues such as centralization and other important factors.
(If you want an introduction to BitTorrent, please read this Wired article and this FAQ)
Okay Sherlock, what did you guys do?
Well, first thing, we have some pretty interesting data lying around. One of the initial projects we decided to do as part of Monkey Methods was TowerSeek.org , which is a true crawler-based BitTorrent search engine. Unlike other sites that simply mirror either Google's torrent search functions (try "filetype:torrent induce" for example), SuprNova, or some other site, we wanted to build a real search engine that crawled the Internet automatically. We'll write more about this project soon, but you can give it a whirl right now.
As part of the backend, TowerSeek.org has a database of links to torrent files, which we realized could be used to understand the distribution of files on the Internet. This would tell us a couple important things:
How centralized are torrent files on the Internet?
Do torrent sites follow the 20/80 rule?
How long is the Long Tail?
These questions are all important because they concern vital (and interesting) differences between BitTorrent and other P2P protocols. Unlike Kazaa, Gnutella, and any others, BitTorrent has a fundamentally "web-based" interface. That means you go to a website in your browser (preferably Firefox), click on a link from that trusted site, and download. So you would expect these sites to vaguely follow the same distributions as websites on the Internet.
Also, through the same mechanisms, the architecture of BitTorrent is far more centralized than other P2P networks. For each file, there is a central "tracker" that keeps track of what clients have what pieces of the file, so clients can talk to each other and download efficiently. Kill the tracker, and you kill the ability of any client to trade files with each other. It is for these reasons that BitTorrent is almost more similar to a direct-connect protocol like FTP or HTTP than a P2P network like Kazaa.
All of these architectural differences make it interesting to look at the data. To answer the questions from above, we did some UNIX pipe-fu to dump out the pages from the database, aggregate them, sort them, and put them in an Excel friendly format, all in one step. 5 minutes later, we were analyzing away.
What did you find?
We found a lot of interesting things. First of all, it should be noted that the dataset was from early December, and thus preserves the distribution of torrents before the recent site shutdowns. It may be interesting to look at this data again in a couple months and see how it has changed over time.
The first thing we did we to simply take the mean, median and mode:
Mean
176
Median
3
Mode
1
Wow. That's a very skewed distribution. It's clearly biased towards a smaller number of sites with many torrents, followed by a long, long tail. In fact, 1 torrent at a domain is the most common statistic. Let's take a look at the graph:
Figure 1:
Ah ha! We can see that this is the classic Zipf Law distribution, at least it looks like it from first glance. How close
Re:full text (Score:5, Insightful)
My apologies, troll, but bittorrent sites are every bit a "community". I use one quite frequently, and indeed would continue to even if it weren't for its...erm...content. (Sure I'll tell you where the site is, I'd love to see it go the way of suprnova, and you'd have to register to see for yourself anyway.)
The users there know each other well, have helped each other with everything from technical problems to real-life crises, and of course discuss torrents and their content. To say that this doesn't constitute a "community" is ridiculous.
And yes, contrary to popular belief, many torrent users DO purchase what they download. But since effectively NO stores will allow you to return open DVD's or software, and movie theatres certainly will not refund your money if the movie sucks, it's generally wise to "try before you buy". (Yes, of course, there are those who never do buy...chances are, those never would have in the first place.)
Where do we draw the line? Is it illegal to loan a friend a movie? Invite the friend over to watch it? Give a book to someone after we're done reading it? All of these things cut into the creator's potential profits. To me, the ethical line (and yes, I know the legal one is in a different place) is here: Did you make money off someone else's work? If yes, you have done something unethical. If no, you have shared, and that's all.
For you to say that making a copy of something equates to stealing it is dumb. If I figure out how to build a computer by studying a Dell, am I "stealing" from Dell by buying components and doing it myself next time? Or doing the same for a friend? Your argument would indicate the answer is yes.
Re:full text (Score:2, Informative)
I'm having trouble seeing how this is a fuzzy area...
If a penny saved is a penny earned, the same logic can be applied to 'lost sales' (defining this can be a grey area, but stay with me for a second) and in doing s
Sure, it made an impact. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Sure, it made an impact. (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Sure, it made an impact. (Score:5, Insightful)
SuprNova was nothing special. It was not the best thing since sliced bread. It was a below-par site.
There, said it.
SuprNova was the Kazaa of websites. It was full of broken trackers, passworded files, membership only trackers and your crappy re-encodes. People from other sites used it to advertise their own trackers; stick a few torrents up for a week and watch the traffic flow to your site. SuprNova was a site that was too busy and only served the average masses who wanted The Incredibles in Real video format.
That was my opinion of SuprNova.
Re:Sure, it made an impact. (Score:3, Insightful)
I respectfully disagree.
I do agree with other comments, the web page was crappy, javascript and frames and popups and crap, but not your comments. Also others did use them as advertisement for thier own trakers.
But, Suprnova required no logins, I almost never found passworded files, almost everything I found there worked without difficulties. Did I mention no logins? That's why I used them.
Combine that with them being one of the more popular sites, that meant they were more likely to have the wierd th
Thanks! =D (Score:5, Funny)
Not really affected at all. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Not really affected at all. (Score:2, Informative)
Slashdot as tracker (Score:2, Funny)
Re:Slashdot as tracker (Score:2)
SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:5, Insightful)
And the laws of supply and demand don't go away just because you try to put laws in their path. You barely even slow them down. The old Soviet Union found that out when black markets sprung up to provide the things the Soviet Union's system couldn't. And the ??AAs of America, much as they try to ignore it, are currently finding that out with the things that are springing up to provide the copyright cartels won't.
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:2, Insightful)
The heroin market is a perfect example of this, and lately methamphetamines. Recently there was a prominent article in one of the major papers (either LA or NY Times I think) about the growing Meth underground economy. In fact it's gotten so bad, several of the Midwest states are in the process of enacting laws to limit over-the-counter allergy pill sales and have drugstore clerks record the identity of purchasers. We're talking about Nyquil and Tylenol Cold here, pretty innocuous stuff. But
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:2, Interesting)
If the filesharing doors were truly thrown open, then you could still make a big budget film and make money on it. How? By controlling the supply. Sell tickets in advance for 'jaws 5' and start filming when you have got $90,000,000.
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:5, Interesting)
You've already answered this. Supply and demand. If enough people really want to see $100 million plus movies, they'll pay to see them. They'll realise pretty quickly that if they don't pay to see spider man, there's not gonna be a spider man 2. And if they refuse to pay, then they didn't want to see it so badly in the first place. Most importantly: All the future unmade movies have no right to exist. If the movie industry ends, so be it. I like big some big budget flicks, and I pay to see them at the cinema, even tho I have a broadband connection and azureus and I don't have to.
Besides wich even if copyright were thrown out monday morning, the ??AA are still free to excercise whatever technological means they please to stop (most) people copying their garbage.
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:2, Insightful)
Anyway in the end it's all about entertainment. If nobody made movies people would entertain themselves in other ways. Maybe theater would make a come back, maybe people would read more, maybe they would just go out in the park and play more.
People have found ways to amuse themselves for thousands of years without movies and they would do
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:5, Insightful)
Any attempt to artificially prop-up prices will be defeated by the black market (ergo BitTorrent).
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:2)
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:2)
And they don't want to lock up the internet (well they do, but that's just a side item), they want to lock up everything that could remotely be used to copy anything, which could as a side benifit restrict new 'content creation' to those with enough $$ to buy digital certs.
This is a big reason for 'trusted computing' (trusted by them, not you), the broadcast flag, no-copy watermarks, the dmca, etc.
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND (Score:3, Informative)
Or my supply of MP3s.
Dupe (Score:2, Insightful)
Exeem! (Score:2, Redundant)
Conclusion: BT is not going anywhere anytime soon.
Re:Exeem! (Score:5, Informative)
Firstly, Exeem is ridden with adware and spyware. I can't speak for everyone out there, but to me, this does not exactly keep on in the spirit of Suprnova.
Second, because Exeem is decentralized, it will eventually become just another Kazaa, Morpheus, etc etc, as the *AA starts seeding fake files.
As to the statement that BT is not going anywhere soon... well, who knows. BitTorrent has known issues with NATs and firewalls... and hopefully some future generation of BitTorrent (or a similar product) will be able to find solutions to these common ailments. As it is, leechers are a significant problem for many torrent networks.
Re:Exeem! (Score:3, Informative)
Are you certain that is true? It seems the protocol deals with the leacher situation pretty effectively already. I mean you just have to try bring in a bittorrented file with out the proper port forwarding to see how slow things move for leeches. The only other leech issue I can think of is people who close their client as soon as the transfer is over. But again the protocol deals with that. I would say my share rating is general
Re:Exeem! (Score:4, Interesting)
Except Empornium [empornium.us]. Empornium has a permanent user share ratio that when it fall below a certain amount, (like .2 or something) you can only upload data. Empornium has several problems, but leechers isn't really one of them.
Not on a workplace network without reason (Score:2)
Which is something that sysadmins working at sites that get charged for download volume are happy about. If you don't have control of the firewall and don't have a good reason to give to whoever is as to why you should have a tunnel in for large amounts of traffic, then you shouldn't be using it. I use bittorrent myself - from home. If people have reasons other than purely personal ones to download torrents at work, which will happen in the future, it is
Re:Not on a workplace network without reason (Score:2)
Would'nt emailing the porn home defeat the purpose of downloading it at work? The crafty abuser of company bandwidth would burn a disc or transfer the porn to their iPod/pocket drive
I'm just sayin'
Re:Exeem! (Score:3, Funny)
I disagree, suprnova became rather overrun with ads by the end, I would say eXeem keeps exactly in the spirit.
BitTorrent was never designed for Piracy. (Score:5, Insightful)
One falls, others rise (Score:5, Interesting)
I understand that Loki was around while Suprnova was still up, but I never used it. Now I use it.
Re:One falls, others rise (Score:5, Funny)
Re:One falls, others rise (Score:2)
As a grammar Nazi myself, thank you.
Understand this at least (Score:2)
You compared Suprnova to LokiTorrent as if it was slower when you mentionned the "much better transfer rates".
www.torrentspy.com (Score:4, Informative)
No logins. No bs. Just lots of torrents.
Re:www.torrentspy.com (Score:3, Funny)
Re:One falls, others rise (Score:3, Interesting)
With each iteration of P2P apps/networks/protocols, less and less involvement is on the party hosting it. With Napster, IIRC, their servers stored the specific information of where to get the songs. Then kazaa tried to distribute that amongst other servers/nodes. Others services did similar operations, but I don't know too much about them so I can't comment. Now we have bittorrent.
Bittorrent is similar to asking
Re:One falls, others rise (Score:5, Informative)
That's often illegal. Remember, what Napster basically did was to tell people who, precisely, was distributing music illegally.
Basically there's three different ways to infringe a copyright.
Direct infringement is when a person infringes on any of the exclusive rights listed in 17 USC 106, 106A, or 602. 106 is the important one of those, and among the rights it lists are the exclusive rights to reproduce (which downloading infringes on) and to distribute (which uploading infringes on).
However, recognizing that sometimes there will be parties that should be held liable despite not performing the infringing act themselves, there are the other two ways. That there should be this indirect liability at all is not unusual; it's fairly common in many areas of the law.
Contributory infringement only exists where there is an underlying direct infringement. Where a party, with knowledge of a direct infringement, induces, causes, or materially contributes to the direct infringement of another, it is also liable for the infringement.
Vicarious infringement also only exists where there is an underlying direct infringement. Where a party, regardless of knowledge, has the right and ability to control the direct infringement of another, and derives a sufficiently direct financial benefit from the infringement, it is also liable for the infringement.
These are what brought down Napster. They're frequently used to bring down venues of all kinds, whether online or off. For example, the owners of flea markets where vendors would sell infringing works have been held liable.
There is a degree of a safe harbor for ISPs in specific thanks to 17 USC 512, but in order to be protected from litigation, a variety of specific requirements must be met, and some of them require affirmative action on the part of the ISP (e.g. registering a contact with the US Copyright Office). So many that might have gained some protection if they'd tried to get it, end up without it. Other times, when you're wondering how someone can possibly still be in business, it very well may be because of this.
Still, with regards to torrent trackers, and sites involved with the BT scene, there's likely a very significant danger of some form of indirect liability attaching even for comparatively minor things, like acting as a facilitator to an infringement.
Re:One falls, others rise (Score:2)
Re:One falls, others rise (Score:2)
No seriously.
I'm not joking. The racket of a million amateur musicians having fun producing their own tunes could never hurt as much as say, another Lil' Jon song.
not only lokitorrent... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:not only lokitorrent... (Score:3, Informative)
Someone mod this guy down... he's either flat ignorant or actively trying to screw over TorrentReactor. Either way, he's a prick.
Comparison to Napster (Score:5, Interesting)
But once all the other P2P apps came along, again we lost some of the consolidation of files. But people still adapted, and people began learning what networks were good for certain types of files.
Today with bit torrent, we are able to have entire trackers devoted to types of content, such as anime, tv shows, etc, and even before Suprnova and others went down, I still checked a few BT sites for all my files. However, I have to admit, it was pretty damn convenient to just go to Suprnova (which I think easily had the best interface and site mapping) and take a gander at what had been added that day.
I hope mininova takes off, because I enjoy it, but it really doesn't have the traffic or variety it needs yet to be a big competitor. Torrentreactor is still going strong, and so are several others. Frankly, I wish there was a markup language for bit torrent files that could include info such as what type of file it was (tv show, movie, song, album, etc), and possibly what season/episode, recording method, duration, etc. That way that info could be used with an RSS feed and I could REALLY tailor a personal site to all my needs without having to check each of the seperate sites.
Re:Comparison to Napster (Score:2)
For example, would it let me set it to download Naruto 120 when Anbu releases it, or would it just go ahead and grab the Dattebayo version that just came out? Or would it just grab all Naruto out there?
another great tracker... (Score:5, Funny)
Strangely, I haven't gotten a full download yet...everything seems to be corrupted, but I suspect that is a problem with my mach$#AESDFCVB...
LOST CARRIER
dont compare eXeem to Kaaza.... (Score:3, Interesting)
No more waiting as in eMule. And I dont think I have successfully downloaded any file from Shareaza recently.
Also the built in comments/rating system is the thing that will prevent the network from being MP**'s playground. If aint work work for you, let others know.
Personally, I am gonna implement a Java/.NET based client for this as soon as the protocol stabilizes (which should happen in a couple of months when we hit 1.0.)
~~~ 0wn3d
Re:dont compare eXeem to Kaaza.... (Score:2)
Admittedly I'm not to fond of how they took out the sort on collum feature, but it was causing issues for a few people.
Mycroft
Mycroft
Re:dont compare eXeem to Kaaza.... (Score:2)
This is why Ive always found it quite stupid the pirates us BT, edonkey is a much better p2p protocol. Again, it is only because there is so much being shared that you have to wait so long.
But think about this, if everyones upstream is the same in both BT and emule (which it is), then the overall th
Re:there is a difference.... (Score:2)
You cant deny that if everyones upload is the same with BT as it is in emule, the network as a whole has the same throughput. The amount uploaded=amount downloaded. If they are the same, the throughput is the same. Theres nothing else to it.
People think downloads are slower etc. But it is just because of the amount shared, which causes people to have la
In a word... (Score:5, Informative)
Sure... Suprnova was a great place to meet your warez/gamez/moviez/mp3z needs... but it wasn't exactly the only Torrent site out there -- it was just the largest. As the *AA continues to go after every target within their lawyers' reach, the Torrent sites in Sweden, Russia, and other places are growing at break-neck speeds.
Basically, as long as their are "safe-harbors" for the trackers things will continue.
For all you pirates out there that want a good laugh, check out The Pirate Bay's legal responses to the *AA [thepiratebay.org].
Simple solution - create .torrent list of servers (Score:4, Insightful)
It's a very socialism-meets-meritocracy (aka (Bergeronian) idealogy, but it would certainly work.
Re:Simple solution - create .torrent list of serve (Score:2)
Why not create a
That's actually what I'd assumed Exeem was going to be - it's the natural and logical successor to a moderated torrent list like Suprnova. But don't worry I have a feeling that it's one of those ideas that's too good not to happen sooner or later.
Google! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Google! (Score:4, Informative)
You can possibly close a tracker and you could even censor Google I suppose, but there's no way you can stop people from simply checking out where all the traffic is going. The only solution is to simply shut down the Net or accept that the consumers themselves are, in fact, the real owners and controllers of the media.
Read 'em and weep.
Here's the trackers I've found mentioned in the responses to this article so far and that seem to be working.
Mininova
http://www.mininova.org/
TorrentSearch
http://62.212.84.26/indexx.php
Isohunt
http://s4.isohunt.com/
TorrentReactor
http://www.torrentreactor.net/
LokiTorrent
http://www.lokitorrent.com
Besides SuprNova was any other tracker closed at all? Sounds like this shutdown is all nothing more than self congratulating hype from big media.
Re:Google! (Score:2)
De-centralization is key here.
Re: (Score:2, Informative)
Enjoy (Score:4, Informative)
http://tracker.anime-fin.net:6969/
http://thehawks.org/hawks/bt/
http://gits.no-jutsu.com/gits/
http://bt.zhentarim.net/
http://www.anime-legion.net/
http://kaa.animeconnection.net/torrentpage/
http://www.animelab.com/anime.manga/bittorrent/
http://www.baka-updates.com/
http://torrents.chaotixubs.com/
http://www.animesuki.com/
http://www.animetorrents.com/
http://www.gotwoot.net/
http://www.spisoft.net/Honobono/
http://a.scarywater.net/ large
http://www.anime-kraze.org/
http://paikia-fansubs.no-ip.com:8080/
http://www.lunaranime.org/
http://bittorrent.frozen-layer.net/
http://torrent.thegreatbeyond.net/
http://www.makenshi.com/
http://www.onegaistudios.com/
Yes (Score:3, Insightful)
Judging by many of the replies in here, it has had an impact. Just not a negative impact, as the article implies.
Can't be sure (Score:3, Funny)
Overheard at MPAA offices.. (Score:5, Funny)
LD: John! Guess what my secretary just printed out and gave to me! It's the latest issue of SlashDots, the pirate newsletter!
ED: Lay it on me Earl, I just got back from golf and I'm ready to get to work, fightin' pirates!
LD: Okay. A prostate surgeon name "alex" just posted the Bit-Torment "master list" we've been looking for: it's at someplace called "delicious.com". As soon as my secretary gets out from under my desk, I'll have her check it out!
ED: No need Earl, entering "delicious.com" into Mosaic now
LD: Don't bother. I'll have the FBI pick up their computers and bring 'em right to you! Because I have that power John. Just a phone call away. BWAH HA HA HA !!!!
ED: Earl, DO IT! If those pimply-faced pirates have their way, I'll have to play golf in that club where they allow black people!
LD: Ouch! Hey, aren't we really doing this for the poor writers and set designers? HA HA!
Together: HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!
Go anonymous and shove it in their face! (Score:2, Interesting)
Technology that protects your privacy.
Now with three clients for all platforms.
Free, GNU, Open Source and a growing network.
http://www.planetpeer.de/wiki/index.php/MuteDownl
http://mute-net.sf.net/ [sf.net]
It's Not Dead. (Score:5, Informative)
Tons of torrent sites still exist: For everything (music/movies/games/etc):
ISOHunt [isohunt.com] (both BT and IRC)
VIP Torrents [vip-torrents.com]
For TV:
BTEFNet [btefnet.com]
TV-Swarm [tv-swarm.com]
TVTorrents [tvtorrents.ws]
And for those who are only into "legal" material:
LegalTorrents [legaltorrents.com]
Not to mention, most Linux distributions offer a BitTorrent alternative download method for obtaining the ISO.
So it's definitely not dead...
Remember kids, a watched torrent never downloads (Score:2, Funny)
Well, one thing is linux really needs another alternative to azureus. My system is running like a pig right now because of it. And yes I'm Java 1.5, helped a bit but not much.
I've searched but haven't found much, I even tried bitcomet in wine but no go.
Suprnova shut down??? (Score:5, Informative)
Suprnova was conveniently taken down during the MPAA crackdown and was replaced with an advertisment for Exeem. Suprnova's operators effectively sold out its entire fanbase.
isoHunt's .torrent index stats (Score:5, Interesting)
From http://s3.isohunt.com/stats.php?mode=btSites [isohunt.com]
You can see smaller sites on the list relative to Suprnova (it had more than 30,000 torrents online at any one time), but total torrents available didn't change (60,000+ online). As I keep adding more sites, index size is getting bigger than before SN died actually, online torrent count is close to 70,000. Peers also remain at above the 1 million mark.
Rock is dead (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks. Thanks a lot. (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:first (Score:5, Insightful)
> "community" is affected
Well if you think about it you'll see there are many television shows that aren't shown in my country so I want to watch them. Also, many movies shown overseas that are not released in my country immediately
Are you saying I do not have a right to watch these? or follow them with my friends who might get them first? I will have to wait and wait months maybe a year to see them, by the time spoilers are posted everywhere? It should be illegal that they are forcing us to pirate (no I won't say theft!) these videos just to keep up with what other people are able to see. The internet is the great equalizer.
Best mac community on the web [tribbles.org]
Re:first (Score:3, Informative)
And the non-availability of something in a country often means that getting it "illegally" is not illegal. For example, canadian courts have consistently ruled that decrypting US satellite TV signals is not stealing, nor illegal because the US satellite TV providers are prohibited from selling their s
Re:first (Score:2)
Can you provide some links to document this?
Re:first (Score:2)
HOWEVER...
Australians can be extradited to the USA [nzherald.co.nz] for similar offenses that are not illegal in their own country.
Re:first (Score:2)
Also, there are lots of TV shows that are only shown on premium channels, like stuff from HBO or Showtime, that gets pirated along with all the other "free" TV.
Re:first (Score:2)
> premium channels, like stuff from HBO or Showtime, that gets
> pirated along with all the other "free" TV.
And since then regardless of being paid television or free to air, it is not being shown near me. So the producers are losing what, nothing at all? Not like I am going to pay for it anyway because that is impossible.
Since they make it impossible for me to pay for it then I do have the right to get it for free, no ifs no buts about it.
Re:first (Score:3, Insightful)
You don't have a right to any of this. You like to *think* you do, because that's how you've been justifying your piracy all this time. You're wrong.
I'm the first person to admit that I also download episodes of shows I wa
Re:first (Score:5, Interesting)
Ok, who cares how this illegal copyright infringement community is affected? How about the members of that community? I'm sure there's TONS of people on /. who have used those sites, and this is VERY relevant to us, whether you agree with our ethics or not.
You know, I'd really like to see some sources for your complaint of terminology used for movie and music copyright infringement vs. that of software infringement, because frankly I can recall seeing EVERYBODY being called swindlers, thieves, pirates, etc. I mean, didn't the RIAA start that campaign?
And if you already own a copy of the work, then it is not illegal. I know I've downloaded a movie on more than one occasion when my DVD got scratched beyond repair.
Re:first (Score:3, Informative)
No, it wasn't RIAA.
IIRC, the word 'pirate' has been used in that basic meaning since 1668, which actually predates copyright, which didn't appear until 1710. And remember, that was during the age when there we
Re:first (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry dude, downloading a copy of something you already own is copyright infringement. Technically, making a backup is also infringement. Fair use is only a defense against prosecution for such an infringement, and it is generally considered a strong enough defense to defend you in the case of duping your own disc for backup. But letting someone else dupe their disc for you is a lot harder to defend under the aegis of fair use.
For a relevant example - consider mp3.com. They came up with a service where you could purchase a copy of any of 80,000 different CDs they would pop your legit, original recording disc in the mail and then at the same time make it possible for you to immediately listen to a streaming mp3 version of the exact same album. Or, you could prove you had physical posession of the disc by inserting it into your PC's cdrom and running a validation program from mp3.com and they would also make the streaming version available to you, at no charge.
No question that you owned a legit copy because you just bought it and they just snail mailed it, or you had to physically put it into your computer. BUT, mp3.com lost big time in court and the settlement destroyed most of the money raised by their IPO and ultimately resulted in them being acquired and smothered by one of the RIAA members.
Here's a quickee link [theregister.co.uk] about the case and settlements.
Re:first (Score:5, Insightful)
I hate that all the mods are sympathetic to the so called "fight" as well. Why is it that those of us who are against piracy are considered flamers and trolls? That's pathetic.
Yeah, I hate the fact that legal music downloads have the restrictive DRM on it. So I don't buy music online - I buy used CDs and just rip'em onto my computer.
Aw - you can't see a TV show in your area? Have to wait a whole extra month to see that movie you wanna see? Tough shit - that still doesn't make it yours. It's someone else's property and they can distribute it however they please.
I've been saving up for a new car - but my childish impatience doesn't give me the right to come steal yours in the meantime.
I've downloaded quite a few songs illegally in my day, but I have no illusions that what I'm doing is "the right thing." I know it's illegal and I'm not proud of it. I don't think I mind people downloading stuff illegally so much as I mind the people trying to make excuses for it. There is no excuse - what you're doing is immoral and dishonest. We're stealing - not leading a revolution. Get over yourself, folks.
Now go ahead and mod this post down - I know most of my fellow pirates don't want to hear it anyway. See no evil, do no evil - or at least not admit to it.
Re:first (Score:3, Insightful)
The RIAA is putting software onto CDs that prevents them from being ripped. What will you when every CD has this?
Aw - you can't see a TV show in your area? Have to wait a whole extra month to see that movie you wanna see? Tough shit - that still doesn't make it yours. It's someone else's property and they can distribute it however they please.
If i
Re:first (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually, it's not. It's a band-aid solution for a band-aid kind of world and legal system. IP law is wildly out of control because they are deep pocketed interests greasing the legislators and practically no one to defend the commons against that kind of corruption.
What you are seeing is perfectly reasonable disrespect for "the law" because laws aren't really worth anything until we all generally agree to them - and many of us don't agree any more.
Anyway, laws about IP rights are pretty absurd if you ask me - in the main they serve no one but the protected few. They are a creation of law, a completely unnatural arrangement to benefit creators of useful things. Had the laws remained reasonable people wouldn't be so inclined to flout the law. After the most recent extensions of copyright (i.e. sucking Disney corp cock) most people well understood that IP laws had become completely insane.
Patent law now threatens the same thing. One cannot turn around without considering whose fucking "idea" one may be treading upon.
To be honest, that's a not a world I want to live in, but live in it I do. I have my own fixes for things that bother me.
For the record, I consider myself a deeply moral person. I also refuse to equate morality with what may or may not be "against the law" - laws change all the time to suit the needs of the few, and basically I don't give a shit any longer. We live under the "Golden Rule" where those that have the gold make the rules. It's an old joke, and its funny because its sadly so true.
What you are really worried about is that you are used to a society where the shots are called from the top down. Well, you might have to get used to a society where the street morality you so fear is agreed upon from the bottom up. Because the street, my friend, has its own uses for things.
Re:The world will continue to spin (Score:5, Insightful)
As someone who has seen both, I am sure you are in the minority with this opinion. The production quality of the new BSG series is top notch, certainly at least as good as the original, if not better.
Re:The world will continue to spin (Score:2)
Re:The world will continue to spin (Score:2)
No, the BT community is like the NEW Galactica. (Score:2, Funny)
If it was like the old Galactica, the MPAA would've had TorrentCasinoPlanet.com ready and waiting as soon as SuprNova went under.
Now, if they can only figure out which tracker has the hot blonde leading it along by its network cable . . .
Re:The world will continue to spin (Score:2)
I disagree (Score:2, Informative)
Re:I disagree (Score:2)
It would be pointless for them to sue a site owner they really don't have a case against...
It would also be pointless, or at the very least outside the realms of cost/risk-benefit, to sue site owners that they simply can't sue because they're in countries outside the American Corporate Empire's reach - they do still exist you know.
Gee, here's a counterexample, thanks (Score:3, Insightful)