BSA Reacts to 'New' BitTorrent 326
An anonymous reader writes "It seems the Business Software Alliance isn't afraid of the new, tracker-less BitTorrent beta. While it concedes it will have to 'regroup', Tarun Sawney, BSA Asia anti-piracy director, said BitTorrent files could still be identified. 'BSA has traditionally sought the assistance of those hosting the actual pirated files. With or without the tracker sites, someone still hosts the infringing files.'"
So what? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So what? (Score:3, Informative)
For help with that... try this [methlabs.org]
Vive la BitTorrent! Morte du le BSA!Re:So what? (Score:3, Interesting)
Just to clarify:there are two basic approaches to creating a protected network: making every member of the network anonymous, or creating a trusted network in one way or another.
Projects like I2P and Tor go the first route of making network members anonymous. Freenet does this too, currently (we'll see what the future holds).
PeerGuardian is a tool to block nodes that are known/suspected of being untrustworthy from accessing your computer using IP filters. While
Re:So what? (Score:2)
This "Peer-Guardian" software does not provide anonymity.
And it does not protect you from anyone (RIAA, Government, not even your
mom).
It's not much more than a blacklist. If the RIAA wants to play sherlock they'll probably just use some random AOL dialup. Go figure.
Someone slap these kids over with a cluestick.
Rodi - an alternative to BitTorrent? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Rodi - an alternative to BitTorrent? (Score:2, Informative)
If your ISP still allows IP address spoofing they need to be hit with a clue-stick.
Re:BSA?!? (Score:3, Funny)
Re:BSA?!? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:So what? (Score:2)
Correct (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Correct (Score:2, Insightful)
It makes the system more fault-tolerant.
Re:Correct (Score:2)
Re:Correct (Score:2, Informative)
This can number into hundreds or thousands of users, with the number constantly changing as people finish their downloads. And if one or more of those seeds happens to be in a foreign country, it may take months or be outright impossible to
Re:Correct (Score:2)
I'm not sure they want to do this immediately: if they can keep enough people going through the "$3000 a pop" lawsuits, then they are generating revenue while cowing other potential sharers. Given that their figures for financial loss are p
They have to distribute it to find the guilty... (Score:2)
I don't know if a court of law would buy that line of arguments, but that's the way I see it.
Re:They have to distribute it to find the guilty.. (Score:2)
Re:They have to distribute it to find the guilty.. (Score:2)
They may have resouces, but "clue" aint one of them.
Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:3, Insightful)
All the CEOs who fund the BSA should be tried for treason, and if convicted, placed in the electric chair, and electrocuted to death. And do the same for their lapdog politicians who give them this power.
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:5, Insightful)
Democracy would fix this just fine. Except for the fact that neither communism nor corporationism don't have anything in common with democracy.
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:2)
Yeah, whatever. But every task needs to start somewhere: an acknowledgement of the problem, a statement of a solution to solve the problem, etc.
WE NEED TO HANG (or fry) SOME POLITICIANS. That should be really obvious by now. So, if we need to do that, we need to SAY SO, first. I am saying so.
If you agree, then say so. We can go from there. But first we need to acknowledge the problem, and state our goal
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:2)
You are thinking of some form of dictatorship. In civilised countries and in the USA, the courts try people.
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:5, Insightful)
Software and other content developers trying to protect themselves from pirates is hardly Feudal serfdom.
It's more possible than ever to collect movies, music, and software (that you never paid for) than ever before. Expect corporations to overreact to that theft as much as possible and for equity imbalances to result.
If you were as vocal about protecting the rights of content producers as you are about protecting the rights of "the people", maybe there would be more balance in the situation.
Those of us in the middle are willing to pay for what we use and ask to be paid for what we create. As usual, you warring factions at the extremes make it difficult for the more reasonable people to just live their lives in peace. Nice job.
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:5, Insightful)
It is not possible for every activity to result in somebody getting paid. Neither is this a reasonable goal.
There were no "content producers" for most of human history, yet people made music, works of art, and so on. It will be different, neither better nor worse, if the world returns to a state where people are not paid for making digital recordings.
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:3, Interesting)
Evidence for this ? I used to think this till I spoke to people I know working on tours. The cost of touring is massive and the artists tend not to make huge sums of money so do still need recording revenue. Also how do you propose that you come up with the large deposits needed to secure the venue bookings and down-payments for the sound and lighting crews etc if they don't get paid for recordings.
I dont think the econo
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:2)
Lighten up, Francis.
"Don't ever touch me, or I'll KILL YOU!"
If you were as vocal about protecting the rights of content producers as you are about protecting the rights of "the people", maybe there would be more balance in the situation.
Yeah, there ya go! And if the antelope greased himself with lard before being eaten by the lion, it would really help the lion swallow that darn antelope. THe antelope should really be more considerate....
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:2)
Haven't heard that one before. At first I was thinking you forgot this is a Family Friendly Forum.
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:2)
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:2)
tr.v. electrocuted, electrocuting, electrocutes
1. To kill with electricity: a worker who was electrocuted by a high-tension wire.
2. To execute (a condemned prisoner) by means of electricity.
So we should electrocute them to death to death and until they are no longer livng, and also dead?
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:2)
Treason is defined in the Constitution as aiding or abetting an enemy of the USA. "Enemy" can be interpreted in more than one way. I see the big corporations as our greatest enemy. You put ME on the Supreme Court bench, indict these sellout politicians for treason, and I will vote to fry these politicians who sell out our country to the corporations.....
Re:And therein lies the problem...interpretation. (Score:2)
All the CEOs who fund the BSA should be tried for treason, and if convicted, placed in the electric chair, and electrocuted to death. And do the same for their lapdog politicians who give them this power.
and in response, you wrote:
Would it not be reasonable to interpret one who threatens U.S. politicians with execution an enemy of the U.S.?
Oooh, aint that "freedom of speech" thing a real bitch when you're naught but a programmed sheeple?
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:2)
No this is just capitalism at work.
And what I am suggesting is DEMOCRACY at work. Ain't it a bitch?
Basically, you don't like what is going on,
You are correct, sir!
therefore, you should start your company, get support from others who share your goals, and then setup some sort of group call the anit-BSA (or whatever).
No, what I am going to do is start a movement to CORRECT our political culture. It has happened many times in the past. Heads rolled. Leaders got their attitudes adjusted. And thin
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose that if you got enough people on your side to create a direct vote to remove copyright protection it would be democratic. That doesn't mean it wouldn't be right.
What you do for a living? If you do anything which isn't directly involved in the production of hard, physical goods, I hope you'll come to see the hypocracy in your stance.
The reason copyright protection exists is that creating content takes work, and while the physical n
Re:Fry the BSA members in the Electric Chair (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is it in my interests to make theaters better? There will always one thats too cold or too hot or the fact that I must leave the movie find a manager, complain and then have the manager return and disrupt things again to address the situation.
None of this is an issue in my own house! I never said that I wasn't willing to pay for content. The is
Re:It says alot about Slashdot... (Score:2)
All the CEOs who fund the BSA should be tried for treason, and if convicted, placed in the electric chair, and electrocuted to death. And do the same for their lapdog politicians who give them this power.
And in response, you wrote this:
It says alot about Slashdot...that the parent is actually modded up as insightful for making comments about murdering people over copyright laws.
Got a problem with reading comprehension, or are you are just another programmed little sheeple?
I am serious (Score:2)
You need to understand something. THe United States of America kills people every day. Not just in war, although we have killed tens of thousands of innocents lately in Iraq. But also our policies kill people. Like for example, our lack of a national healthcare system kills 18000 Americans every year because they lack basic healthcare. THat is why Americans have shorter life expectancies that people in NW Europe or Canada or AUstralia, where they have universal healthcare. Our politicians would rather that
Shared responsibility (Score:5, Interesting)
What bittorrent is about is being able to send very small but verifiably authentic parts of the file - but is that enough for them to prove the person has the infringing content?
My guess is that this is going to be made into law in the US in the near future - that if they get a single BitTorrent packet from you that belongs to an infringing file, it's enough to convict you of a crime and haul your behind in jail.
-- Arik
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it your contention that by making only a part of a work available that you and your friends aren't infringing on a copyright? A "small but verifiably authentic" part of a file is content infringement just as much as a significant portion of a book would be.
Two dilemmas (Score:5, Interesting)
What if you and your 10,000 friends each stand a in line and each of you are holding a paper citing a line from the book. Are each of you just using your citation rights?
Re:Two dilemmas (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Two dilemmas (Score:2)
Re:Two dilemmas (Score:3, Informative)
In reality, the distributors want something - they want the copyrighted work. Now there is the origional altruistic individual, who donates his bandwitdth or whatever to distribute the file. But everyone else has to download the file in order to distribute it. Now some of those people might have their own legal copies of a particular work,
Re:Two dilemmas (Score:2, Insightful)
> But what if you and your 500,000 friends stand in
> line and each hold a letter and each will show it
> to people for $12/500,000 per letter. Are you
> infringing on the copyright?
Wouldn't that be you and 25 friends? I mean, I missed the part where there are 500,000 letters in the english language
The Alphabet Song? (Score:2)
Try to wrap... (Score:2)
Kjella
Re:Two dilemmas (Score:2, Interesting)
What if you and your 10,000 friends each stand a in line and each of you are holding a paper citing a line from the book. >Are each of you just using your citation rights?
This is equivalent to (weakly) encrypting the book before distributing it, and here's why:
In order to verify the authenticity of the parts, the recei
Re:Two dilemmas (Score:2)
If you're using a fragment of a document to cite for purposes of criticism or review, no infraction.
If you're using a fragment in conjunction with thousands of others to re-assemble the work in its totality and distribute it without authorization, that's a copyright infraction.
It's really pretty cut and dried.
Who's showing the book? (Score:2)
When the list-holder calls a person name, that person shouts his/her byte.
Who's showing a book that can be represented, in a particular code, by say 1,000,000 8 bits bytes? Each person has only one byte. The list holder has only a list of persons.
Matters get more complicated if yo
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:5, Insightful)
The analogy fails because you invoked the idea that I and my friends are selling parts of the book for a dollar. We are not selling anything; as a matter of fact, we pay for the bandwidth, tho that is irrelevant. What if we sat on the corner and let passers-by read our portions? Are we stealing then? The who **AA argument rests on the fallacy that just because it's electronic, the old traditions and laws should be junked. Frankly, they're using this to give themselves rights under law they always wanted, but never could get. They're using the newness of the technology to redefine copyright as ownership, which is NOT what copyright is about. Not to mention that the new copyrights are now eternal, which breaks the original deal the constitution's writers had in mind, which is: make cash for a bit, then the work goes into the public domain forever to enrich all. The deal was broken, so all bets are off. Change the copyright laws so that copyrights expire in twenty years after publication, and then we can talk. Right now, copyright=ownership for eternity. A free marketplace for ideas can't exist like this.
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:2)
Your own analogy fails because the case of people walking by and reading it, or even checking out in a library, doesn't allow someone else sell it or give it away to others as my example and the reality of pir
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:5, Interesting)
Yes, because the clients broadcast how much of the file they have.
If you don't think thats enough for a warrant, go down to the local police station and start shouting that you're carrying a pound of crack.
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:2)
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:2)
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, they would.
(And thereby upload to others themselves at the same time.)
Not if they set it up behind a firewall. Sure, it'll be slow as hell, but they only need to request enough of an uncompressed ISO to confirm that it is what it says it is (ie, if they know where on the ISO their installer is, they can grab that chunk of data and prove that the file being distributed contains their installer, which is, of cours
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:4, Interesting)
In such a case, there are existing "turkey laws" that apply. Selling a pound of powdered sugar and calling it cocaine carries the same penalty as selling real cocaine. Such laws only apply to drug sales, and for any other sale, the charge would actually be simple fraud.
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:2)
My old sig used to be: grep "meaning of life"
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:2)
The fact is you are *knowingly* abetting in illegal activities when you join a BitTorrent hosting copyrighted material. If part of the file is verifiably authentic, then it can be used to prove innocence or guilt. Are you actually trying to argue that a 'legitimate' BT packet (such as one belonging to a Linux ISO) might somehow also work in the context of
Blocks (Score:5, Interesting)
Each block is, say, 128 KB.
Each block contains bits that are indistinguishable from random noise.
Each block has a number, which is its hash. Block numbers are much longer than in the example below.
Each block may have come from a different IP address, indeed, even through a different network protocol (Gnutella, OpenNap, Mute, Http, etc.)
You obtain a list of reassembly instructions through another network and reassemble the blocks as follows. (Each block you downloaded is labeled with a B, and the content blocks of the reassembled result are labeled with a C.)
C1 = B224 xor B166
C2 = B287 xor B948
C3 = B569 xor B982
C4 =
C5 =
etc....
Blocks C1, C2, C3, etc. taken together form a copyright infringement.
Which IP address sent you the infringing work? Each block may have come from a different address? Each block is not infringing content.
Which block is infringing? The first block of the infringing reassembled file C1, was formed from B224 and B166. So was B224 infringing? Or was B166 infringing?
B224, when combined with a different block in the network results in a portion of The Declaration of Independence. B166 when combined with yet some other block from the network results in a portion of The Bible.
Maybe the infringer is who gave you the list of reassembly instructions that told you which blocks to obtain and how to reassemble them? But this information is not directly a copyright infringement. In fact, it may be a fairly short text file.
Note that I did use double the download bandwidth to obtain my copyright infringing material. But for that cost, I raised a whole bunch of questions about who to blame. And I did not suffer the horrible performance of Freenet. (I have not tried Mute.)
(This is an idea I read somewhere.)
Such a hypothetical Blocks p2p system could potentially be designed with the swarming advantages of BitTorrent. Each block could be available from multiple sources -- even multiple network protocols.
Re:Shared responsibility (Score:2)
That is the problem. If you want do defend yourself you might want to hire a lawyer, who is more expensive than the settelement the bsa might offer to a typical file-sharer.
Arrrgh! (Score:5, Funny)
Megnet links (Score:2)
Re:Megnet links (Score:2)
Magnet links will work eventually, heck once they start getting published you'l
BSA Reacts to 'New' BitTorrent (Score:4, Funny)
I2P (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:I2P (Score:3, Insightful)
Quick solution: don't use threaded connections. Use NIO instead. I will look in to this.
Luring people to I2P now is not useful for development
I2P is an open source project. "Luring" people is essential for its growth. If I2P core team did not want outside input they should close the project until a future time. This is unlikely their belief since they are posting bounties and
So, in real time we hash the payload to a (Score:3, Interesting)
DMCA violation trumps copyright violation any day.
The BSA, Microsoft and the definition of Extortion (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The BSA, Microsoft and the definition of Extort (Score:2)
There's a lot of room in the word "undue". For instance, "I'll sue you if you don't give me back my iPod" isn't exactly extortion. Nor is the policeman who says "Put your hostage or I will shoot you" committing extortion. I'd even hazard to say that the theatre that sells popcorn for $7 isn't committing extortion, but YMMV.
The
Blaiming Technology is fruitless. (Score:5, Insightful)
Things like Price. $100 and up is a lot of money for the average home user. Money that can be used for car payments, paying Rent/Mortgage. And paying $100 on a product you don't even know you really want or will use for only a couple of months can be a big waist. $25-$85 is the normal sweet spot for what people are willing to pay for most software.
Things like convenience. Going to the store and finding the product that you need now. Or going online and filling out all your personal information and getting placed on the stupid mailing lists and then paying for the product. Or go and get a pirated version with no questions asked.
Finally no real good reason to buy. When you buy the programs at the store you no longer get useful documentations like the good old day you just get the media and sales stuff on other programs the company makes or install directions in 1000 languages. I wish every program came with a manual the explains all the features in it, and a real paper manual not a PDF or html documentation where it is more difficult to flip to some page and find a cool feature.
Stop blaiming people who make the tools that make our lives easier the companies to think about making our lives easer,
Re:Blaiming Technology is fruitless. (Score:2)
Fear? (Score:2, Funny)
Or are they just self-rightious overreacters that think that everything technological that doesn't come from them is a threat to their god-ordained, constitutionally protected business model?
Trackers won't get hosed - Will Swarms Balkanise ? (Score:2, Interesting)
A more interesting question might be will this lead to other problems as swarms split and fragment. You may end up joining a tiny swarm cut off from the main swarm and thus get no bandwidth.
Or stuck in a swarm with no seeds.
Bram is very Clever though and I believe he has thought of this - can someone explain it to me though?
Bittorrent is designed to scale well and to ease the load on the Seed.
The problem w
Taking Down Torrent Sites Doesn't Work (Score:3, Insightful)
The anti-piracy people should look to solve their problem a different way. Why are people pirating things? Maybe it's because of the price. People certainly don't get a thrill out of piracy in the same way that people do other illegal things. Stop making moves $10 to go to, stop making someone pay $1/song, stop over-charging and blaming increasing charges on piracy when that is a complete lie. It's time to attack the problem elsewhere - not in those sharing the files.
Re:Taking Down Torrent Sites Doesn't Work (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Taking Down Torrent Sites Doesn't Work (Score:4, Insightful)
I remember when the excuse was that paying $18 for an album or $3 for a single was too much and unfair, but if only, (IF ONLY!) some benevolent content distribution god were to swoop down from the Heavens and offer music for a reasonable price like, say, $1 a song, it would grind piracy to a halt because everyone downloading illegal songs is doing it in protest of outrageous prices.
I also remember 20 years ago when we would make bootleg copies of G.I. Joe cartoons (2 20 minute episodes to a tape if I remember correctly) from the VHS rental place because official copies started at $58, roughly the price nowdays of DVD season set (and in some cases, 2 seasons and up.)
$20 too much to pay if you want to see a movie in the theatre? Then wait 6 months and the DVD will be available in Walmart for that much and on Amazon for less. VHS tapes used to start with a street date of over $100 so Blockbuster and others could have a safe rental window before the general public could purchase the movie at an affordable price but DVD (which is easier to pirate. No fancy TV capture cards or miles of coaxial to worry about, just software you can get from download.com) shattered that creating a $20 street price the day it's released.
No matter what the cost is, someone is going to come along and say that's too much, I won't pay! Someone else is going to say why would I pay that when I could get it for free. A third someone else is going to say that price is fair for what I get, I have no problem paying.
I haven't made any elaborate spreadsheets of movie prices throughout the years, but but over-all, we're talking about a 60 percent decrease in product price (lets not get into the math of accumulating season sets back then... $58 for 2 episodes times 10 or 20...) and that is without factoring in inflation. How much is a 1985 $20 worth in 2005?
So I guess with all that said I agree with you that "increasing charges" is a lie, just not in the way you seem to feel.
When in doubt, fight copyright with patents! (Score:3, Funny)
Sharing is Sharing, Stealing is Stealing (Score:4, Interesting)
If you don't like the price of a movie, don't pay it, but also.. don't steal it. There's people who make that stuff for their living. They spend lots of time and energy on it in the expectation that many people will be interested in buying a copy for personal use. It doesn't matter if you think that's a valid profession, or morally correct. it's their business. Their life. And if they wouldn't sell you the copy if they knew you were going to turn around and give it away for free to everyone you could, on a massive basis, on the world-wide internet, that means that if you do, you're lying and stealing and violating their trust.
Sharing can't happen without trust.
Now, if you give it to a friend, and that friend gives it to a friend, etc. etc. and it remains low-level, then it doesn't matter what they think. It's none of their business what you do with it as long as it's basically private to you and your friends and family.
Now maybe you disagree with the particular place I've drawn that line. You may see the line at a slightly different place in the sand. Or think it's blurry. Or gray, or not so gray. That's a whole other argument.
But I think we would all benefit us all to identify a community-determined middle area where we tread softly, and broad side areas where we firmly plant our feet. I think we should all preserve and protect the practice of small-scale sharing of everything in the world, even in the face of pressure against this by The Man. I also think we should all preserve and protect the expectation of honesty in a market transaction, even in the face of painful desire for the latest and greatest popular piece of culture.
s/Return/Revenge/ (Score:2)
I smell fear (Score:5, Informative)
How about a torrent system where a file is... (Score:2)
I wonder how prosecution would work for someone who only had every 3rd byte of a music file which would only be assembled with other byte streams from other torrent locations. Nobody actually hosts the file itself, or even a recognizeable facsimile of the file.
Re:Copyright? (Score:5, Informative)
Are but the torrent files do they actually in fringe copyright??
It isn't the .torrent files they're talking about, it's the actual torrent data. They're probably just joining a tracker, and see which ip addresses try to contact their host... not sure if it is enough proof in court, but I can still see they're not scared of this indeed.
Re:Copyright? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Copyright? (Score:3, Insightful)
Brad
Re:Copyright? (Score:3, Informative)
If someone who owns the copyright to a material is allowing it to be distributed, then there is no offence.
Re:Copyright? (Score:2)
I may be wrong, but isn't it the UPLOADER (distributer) that is commiting the offence?
Then they should just connect to a tracker and see what pieces other hosts have made available, and record their ip's...
File Parts (Score:2)
Lets say you download 100%, but only share 50% of the pieces back out..
Is that enough to be called infringing? 75%? 25%?
Just an idea.
Re:File Parts (Score:4, Insightful)
Is "talking about" a "piece" of a book considered copyright infringement?
I was thinking a while ago that Azureus should be modified so that less than 5% of your outgoing traffic will go to the same peer. It would be tough to argue that you have given away "copies" of the song/program to anyone....
Friedmud
Re:Copyright? (Score:2)
But can the prosecute if I don't have the whole file? Is it copyright violation if I have a piece of a binary that happens to match theirs? Is that enough proof that someone has violated the copyright? Sounds tricky to me.
Re:Trackerless BitTorrent will never work (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Trackerless BitTorrent will never work (Score:2)
What about power outages taking out the tracker?
Too Simple (Score:5, Insightful)
So I suspect that you're wrong. By making publishing easier still, more will be able to put stuff up on their site that they couldn't before. True, most people lacking in resources will in this context be pirates, so the proportion of illegal use will go up, but that is a side-effect of enabling your average Joe to publish where they couldn't before, meaning that the quantity of legitimate use will also go up.
Re:Trackerless BitTorrent will never work (Score:2)
Is that a trick question?
Re:Trackerless BitTorrent will never work (Score:2, Insightful)
Trackerless BT is your friend (Score:2)
i have the largest collection of up to date linux iso's in my country. its a hobby as well as a job for me. so when The Linux Mirror Project [tlm-project.org] tracker went down a few days ago, it took down the best way i had of downloading ISOs. so yeah, i would say tracker-less BT has a legitimate use, and it is an important one.
SuchethaRe:Trackerless BitTorrent will never work (Score:3, Funny)
Right now: if the tracker _or_ the seeds go down then torrent doesn't work. The changes remove a redundant step and do NOT add any additional privacy.
The new
This means the MPAA actually has it easier: they don't have to "take" the tracker, they connect to a torrent like any other downloader and collect all of the addresses of all of the
Wrong, obviously (Score:2)
DT really is just an extens
Re:Who is sharing... (Score:2)
The new peer then attempts to make a connection with some or all of the peers in the list it received. Once communication is established between the new peer and one of the peers, both exchange a list of which pieces of the torrent they alre