Official BitTorrent Search Opens 309
starrsoft writes "The official BitTorrent search has debuted. The search engine was built by BT inventor Bram Cohen. The question? Will he get sued? The BT search seems to be down right now. (It'll really be down after this story is posted...) Spiegel has more (En): "Naturally other sites such as Bitoogle, Isohunt, SuprNova or Torrentspy have tried before, but either they became fast a goal of legal attacks on the part of the industry or they furnished rather durchwachsene [??] results. BitTorrent search however proves with first tests [that it is] as...Google...fast. The results come from a large number [of] more well-known and unknown... sites, and...permits sufficient restricting to the inquiry, in order to obtain really relevant results.""
Speedy (Score:5, Informative)
So fast that the browser times out on a search for "mozilla". Hopefully they'll get those kinks worked out soon.
Bandwidth generously provided by Hot or Not
That explains everything.
Will he get sued?
I still think that anyone trying to sue Bittorrent or a generic search engine would have a hard time of it. Bittorrent has so many legal uses that it just isn't funny. Here's some example of legal torrents:
Privateer Remake [filerush.com]
OpenOffice [openoffice.org]
Star Trek: New Voyages [blogsite.org] (legal fan made)
FreeBSD [freebsd.org]
Star Wars: Revelations [panicstruckpro.com] (legal fan made)
Xandros Free Edition [xandros.com]
Mozilla Firefox [mozilla.org]
Doom 3 Demo [filerush.com]
America's Army [slashdot.org] (now for Linux and OSX)
I could go on, but I think you get the point.
In other news... (Score:1, Informative)
Durchwachsen (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Speedy (Score:5, Informative)
Read the ToS (Score:5, Informative)
2. Online Conduct
You agree that you will not use the Site or the Services:
* to develop, generate, upload, post, display, transmit, disseminate or store information that: (A) infringes any third party's intellectual property or other proprietary rights, including, but not limited to, using third party copyrighted materials, without appropriate permission, using third party trademarks without appropriate permission or attribution, or using or distributing third party information (whether or not protected as a trade secret) in violation of a duty of confidentiality or otherwise; (B) is or, in BitTorrent's sole discretion, would have the tendency to be, defamatory, libelous, harassing, pornographic, an invasion of privacy, obscene, abusive, illegal, racist, offensive or harmful or otherwise objectionable; (C) constitutes unsolicited promotions, advertising or solicitations for funds, good or services, including junk mail and spam; (D) otherwise violates this Terms of Service in any way; or (E) obstructs or otherwise interferes with the normal performance of another person's use of the Sites or the Services;
Seems they are covering a few legal holes.. but will it stand against RIAA/MPAA's pack of lawyers?
Just use google? (Score:3, Informative)
http://www.google.com/search?q=filetype%3Atorrent
Firefox Seach Plugin (Score:5, Informative)
We have a new expression: zero-day features!
Re:Durchwachsen (Score:3, Informative)
In the article, it may be translated to "mixed".
However, "eher durchwachsen" is just a very polite way to say "almost, but not always, completly crap".
Re:I think he'll get sued but... (Score:3, Informative)
Someone further up in the thread put it perfectly. I believe the metaphor went like this -
If you asked me for some illegal drugs and I said, "Sure, here you go," I'd most definitely be going to court over that. However if you asked me for some illegal drugs and I said "Joe Bloggs on the other side of town might be able to put you in touch with someone who has the drugs," the case against me would be much less concrete.
In the case of the torrent search engine, you aren't pointing someone directly at the illegal goods. Far from it. Years ago if you linked directly to DeCSS, you're sued. However if you linked to a website that had links to DeCSS you'd have a hard time finding someone that could successfully prosecute you. With torrent search it's more like linking to a website(the torrent) that links to a website(the hosting BT user) that links to the file(the file on the host's compy).
Re:Speedy (Score:5, Informative)
The judge in the Napster case defined the litmus test that has been used by successive generations of P2P software. His decision is also what got Kazza off the hook.
As I understand the case, the judge said that a technology would be legal if it was demonstratably useful and intended for legal purposes. Napster failed that test, because there simply wasn't an existing base of legal music files at the time. Kazza succeeded because it was able to show that its design allowed for any type of file regardless of legality.
Similarly, this search engine should be legal as long as it stays within the bounds of a generic service. If it starts favoring particular sites, then the owners are going to be in trouble. Also note that the owners of the search engine will need to promptly remove any links requested by someone claiming a copyright, in order to sustain carrier status under the DMCA.
It will (presumably) tell users where to get information (.torrent files and their associated trackers) on where to get copyrighted content. Is this enough for a case?
Definitely not. Distributing copyrighted material is not illegal. Illegally distributing copyrighted material is illegal. I realize most people around here don't catch the distinction, so I'll attempt to explain.
You see, when the Mozilla Foundation produces a release of FireFox they have an automatic copyright on their work. That copyright gives them the sole control over its redistribution. In MF's case, they decide to freely allow for BitTorrent distribution and redistribution. That is their right as a copyright holder. However, when George Lucas produced Star Wars III he chose to only allow for distribution to theaters under a royalty agreement. Redistribution is not permitted (except for perhaps companies who create film copies on behalf of Lucas) and thus is illegal if found on a P2P network.
Owner of torrent website was just arrested (Score:4, Informative)
What makes this so amazing is, this was not shut down because the RIAA sued, or because they made threats. The FBI raided the house, arrested the owner, and shut the website down. I wonder what the FBI will do with the server logs??
This has to be the dumbest waste of taxpayer money ever. Lets go after places that share music and tv shows.
google (Score:1, Informative)
www.elitetorrents.org shut down by the feds (Score:2, Informative)
From the article: U.S. law enforcers said on Wednesday that they have shut down a computer network that distributed illegal copies of "Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith" before it appeared in movie theaters.
Federal agents executed 10 search warrants and seized the main server computer in a network that allowed people to download nearly 18,000 movies and software programs, including many current releases, the FBI and Homeland Security Department said.
The Elite Torrents network, found online at www.elitetorrents.org, relied on a technology called BitTorrent that allows users to quickly download digital movies and other large files by copying them from many computers at once.
The network signed up 133,000 members who collectively downloaded 2.1 million files, according to the Immigration and Customs Enforcement division of the Homeland Security Department.
Visitors to the Web site on Wednesday saw a notice that read, "This site has been permanently shut down by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement."
Re:Speedy (Score:2, Informative)
>test that has been used by successive generations
>of P2P software. His decision is also what got...
^^^
The judge in the Napster case was Marylin Hall Patel. I had lunch with her a couple of times in college when working on a mock trial. Smart lady.
Lady being the operative term here
No seeds / peers stats (Score:2, Informative)
This also leads to the question how often the data is updated. Since no actual seed / peer stats are displayed, I guess the database is update not that often. The other torrent search sites aren't updated that often, either but it seems to me that the official bittorrent search is updated even more seldomly.
This pretty much makes it uninteresting for me. I want to know how many seeds and peers a torrent has so I can judge the speed to expect and how long the torrent will still be alive. A loose term like "Fast" doesn't cut it for me in that case.
Re:Speedy (Score:4, Informative)
Have you been to their site? They have explicit permission to create these episodes. In general, Paramount has stated that they don't mind too much as long as no one is making money off of their trademarks. Same thing with the Star Wars film. George Lucas has given quite a bit of leeway to fans in creating works based on his universe.
I'm 99.5% certain of the legality of all the torrents I've linked to. Even in the (extremely slim) chance that one of them is contested by a trademark or copyright holder, that's for the otherwise upstanding distribution sites to sort out.
Re:Speedy (Score:3, Informative)
So if Google has to filter out protected content per the DMCA, why wouldn't this search engine have to?
Re:BitTorrent.com is also using filetype:torrent! (Score:4, Informative)