BitTorrent Community After SuprNova Shutdown

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...

Since the MPAA went on its rampage, finding the stuff I've personally wanted has become more difficult.

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...

well, suprnova has been replaced by mininova

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.

full text

Monkeyin' Around: Is BitTorrent Dead?

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

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.

Sure, it made an impact.

Instead of everyone focusing on SuprNova, people have found new places that they otherwise never would have bothered with. There are a number of smaller quality sites out there now. Most of them seem to be hosted in Sweden, Netherlands, Brazil, Russia and elsewhere.

Re:Sure, it made an impact.

I'll say it then because no one seems to have the bottle around here.

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.

Thanks! =D

I needed a few new links!

Not really affected at all.

The only effect SuprNova's shutdown had on me was to force redundancy on me- now, I get my files from a variety of sources. Sure, it's a little bit harder to browse what's new from 5 different pages, but it also keeps me focused on what I went looking for in the first place.

Re:The world will continue to spin

The old series... not this new crud on Sci-Fi

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.

SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Supply and demand, dammit. People just never understand this. The laws of capitalism don't refer to things that are necessary to create a capitalist economy, or things that are a good idea. They are natural laws. You can't escape them. There is no way out of the iron cage.

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

You don't have to worry about that: demand isn't just the amount of desire to buy something. In order for it to be called demand, the demanders have to have the resources to buy it.

Re:SUPPLY AND DEMAND

Movies will still get made, but they will be low budget indie-type movies made by artists for art's sake. And they will, 99% of them, suck donkey dick. I've seen low budget films, and they are just BAD. Good movies require millions of dollars to make. Name the last 10 really good movies you saw. Or 20, or 50. How many were low budget (something you or I could make) and how many had budget in the tens of millions?

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

Economics also says that marginal cost of production equals price in the long run. If the marginal cost to produce (i.e. copy) media is only the cost of moving bits, the price will tend towards zero.

Any attempt to artificially prop-up prices will be defeated by the black market (ergo BitTorrent).

Re:Exeem!

"Exeem is the declared heir to the SuprNova throne."

I have two replies to that statement:

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!

As it is, leechers are a significant problem for many torrent networks.

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.

BitTorrent was never designed for Piracy.

Bittorrent was designed to just host large files to a large number of people using a distributed system. It's the 'large number of people' thing which makes it bad for illegal file swapping. If 100 file sharers can find illegal content easily, then so can the copyright holders of the illegally copied content. If they want *privacy* with their fileswapping, then fileswappers should put a proxy function into a separate 'file swapper' client to allow you do download 'thru' another computer which would make tracking down the original user impossible... but a proxy function just increases the total sum of bandwidth used, which isn't what Bittorrent was designed to do.

One falls, others rise

I used to use Suprnova. Then it went down. Now I use Lokitorrent and I get much better transfer rates. It just goes to show the RIAA/MPAA that when you stop one website, another will take it's place and probably do better. This is the same as Napster to Kazaa.

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

It's its, not it's, unless you meant it is, then it is, otherwise it's its that's its.

www.torrentspy.com

http://www.torrentspy.com/ [torrentspy.com]
No logins. No bs. Just lots of torrents.

Re:One falls, others rise

These sites aren't doing anything illegal (as far as I know, which isn't a whole lot so please correct me if I'm wrong), but just telling people where they can find what in some cases are copyright infringements.

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.

not only lokitorrent...

... but TorrentReactor.net [torrentreactor.net] is also quite good...

Comparison to Napster

This is kind of like what happened when Napster first went down. Everybody panicked, but once people started communicating, people started to learn where html sites were that linked to songs or FTP servers. Then Kazaa came along and all was good again.

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.

another great tracker...

I got an email from someone I don't know (or maybe I read it on the net somewhere)...but I only use the tracker at xxaa.stuff4free.fbi.gov

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....

See if you added fullblown adware to the soup that eXeem is, then probably it would frustrate u as much as Kaaza does. However, one very critical improvement that eX(eem|lite|.*?) has is that it uses the Bittorrent protocol internally. So as long as you get the file with enough downloaders and seeds (which happens very quickly to gamez/moviez/pr0n) you are almost assured to get the file very quickly.

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

In a word...

"So has the shutdown of centralized SuprNova had any impact?"

In a word... No.

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

Why not create a .torrent file that contains a list of servers. Have a few people (that are held in high-esteem in the community) moderate it and circulate it. Other people could be added as moderators as they proved their committment to promoting the torrents.

It's a very socialism-meets-meritocracy (aka (Bergeronian) idealogy, but it would certainly work.

Google!

just add filetype:torrent to you google search.

Re:Google!

Nice one. And the del.ici.ous tip sounds good too.Can't imagine how a loophole like that can ever be closed. I mean how many references away from the file can you possibly go from a legal standpoint? Y
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.

Enjoy

Anime

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

So has the shutdown of centralized SuprNova had any impact?

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

I don't know if it's had any effect or not. The torrent I started downloading 2 months ago hasn't finished yet, so I haven't looked for anything else.

Overheard at MPAA offices..

LawyerDrone #252272 on phone to ExecuDrone #45435:

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 ..... woo, amazing! It looks EXACTLY like a food store. Fruit baskets and all. Those pirates are certainly crafty. I wonder how you get to the list? Probably a secret password. I'll try a few..

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!!!!

It's Not Dead.

No, I don't think it's dead.

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...

Suprnova shut down???

Suprnova was never shut down by the RIAA or the MPAA. The operators of Suprnova voluntarily shut it down after being payed by the company that developed Exeem.
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

With my work on indexing BitTorrent sites, I can shed some light: nothing changed.

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

It has been said that 'rock is dead' and many people predicted the demise of radio, cinema and TV. No, I don't think bittorrent will last as long as they have, but it's far from dead. When it does die it won't be missed - another P2P protocol will take it's place. In the meantime, leech away my friends - but give back what you take.

Thanks. Thanks a lot.

In unreleated, more recent news, Del.icio.us just received a cease and desist letter from the MPAA. The MPAA told reporters, "All people had to do was look at del.icio.us most popular and they'd see BitTorrent sites every couple days, as people uncovered new places to find the files they were looking for."

Re:first

> It's fucking illegal, people. Who cares how this illegal piracy
> "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

What a troll...but I'll bite.

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

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.

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

I'm with you on this one. Just like the parent's completely nonsensical statement "the fact that it's illegal is completely irrelevant," chronic pirates do tend to be hypocrites. Of course the fact that it's illegal is relevant. That's the whole reason the fight is going on.

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

"Besides, the whole "I pirate to get back at them," argument is silly."

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.

Gee, here's a counterexample, thanks

I'll identify the legal live music tracker at Etree [etree.org] for ya. Sure, some of the bands (a little over 800 of 'em) have their music available at The Internet Archive [archive.org], but the Archive requires explicit permission from the bands to host their material there. A lot of bands that allow taping/trading haven't (for whatever reason) opted in to the Archive. So the Etree site has tons of taper-friendly bands like They Might Be Giants, Primus/Les Claypool, Parliament/Funkadelic, Los Lobos, and GWAR, who aren't on the Archive, but who still allow (some of) their music to be traded.

I don't know why you say, "free software doesn't count." That seems pretty silly. Free software most certainly does count. Aside from updates to my Debian machines, I get most of my free software by BT. But there's probably more legal music trading going on on the Etree site every day than there is BT traffic in free software on the entire Internet in a month. So the argument is moot.

The point of BT is not to give you the fastest possible download. Its primary benefits are for the people offering files, who can offer those files to a lot more people than they would be able to if they had to use ftp/http. Those fast ftp/http sites you like? They're not fast because they use ftp/http. They're fast because they pay huge amounts of money for huge, fast pipes. I guarantee, if the guy offering the torrent that you're getting at 200kbps were using ftp or http, you'd be seeing speeds more like 2kbps.

But hey, if you don't like it, don't use it. Nobody's twisting your arm.