Posted on 10/04/2004 10:10:02 AM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
New technology threatens to do to Hollywood what Napster did to music. BitTorrent is much faster than file-swapping software used to exchange movies and music over the Internet. BitTorrent can transfer a feature-length film in about two hours -- a fraction of the 12 hours it typically takes with file-sharing services like Kazaa. ... the speed of the download actually increases with the number of people sharing a particular file.
BitTorrent ... imperils the movie studios' most lucrative source of revenue -- the $17.5 billion the industry reaped last year from DVD sales and rentals.
BitTorrent is a departure from the file-sharing technologies that allow one computer user to obtain a file directly from another over the Internet. Napster popularized file-swapping. When the courts shut down Napster in July 2001, file-swappers switched to Kazaa, which offered a new type of file-sharing program that quickly became the world's most popular ... . Both Napster and Kazaa created self-contained networks that allowed individuals to search for and obtain [files].
BitTorrent isn't a permanent network. It is a software tool that spawns impromptu networks of computer users, all of whom are seeking the same digital file. What makes it speedier than Kazaa is the notion of reciprocity. Anyone downloading a copy of [a movie] is simultaneously exchanging portions of the movie they've already downloaded with others.
It's like a group of people sitting around a table, all trying to assemble a complete version of the hot-selling book "The Da Vinci Code." The book's owner has distributed the pages so that no one has a complete copy. Thus everyone copies and distributes the pages they have in exchange for the missing pages. The swap continues until everyone has the entire book.
Once a download is completed, the network disconnects and disappears without a trace.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
Anime-fix bump... isn't bittorrent great?
Like stealing the San Jose Mercury News' intellectual property by posting this article here? Pity. Shame.
I'm inclined and it will be impossible to stop this. Bittorrent is decentralized and there's nobody for the industry or lawmakers to focus on.
intellectual property...
*yawn*
now that we have copyright in perpetuity... i have little respect for this concept.
they will never be able to stomp out file sharing... NEVER... they have been trying to police how geeks string 0's and 1's together for over 20 years now with NO SUCCESS.
better to dump their archaic distribution models.
For those who think bittorrent isn't traceable, think again...
It can be easily traced, contrary to popular belief.
"Like stealing the San Jose Mercury News' intellectual property by posting this article here? Pity. Shame."
Only an excerpt of that intellectual property is posted here. You can find excerpts of movies online already. They're called trailers.
Stealing is stealing, IMO. You steal a movie. Others steal cars. I guess it's all relative, eh?
Seems to me like I remember some Biblical admonition against stealing, but what do I know? I'm a godless atheist.
Wrong!
The IP addresses can be traced.
I know for sure that many cable companies (like Time Warner), once served with any form of legal notice, will give you up in a heartbeat. They watch for people downloading MP3 music, keep a list ready, and when asked, turn it over.
I'd bet you a million dollars they are monitoring bittorrent, waiting to be contacted by the RIAA.
The only real untraceable thing out there is the MUTE network, and from my experience, there is a severe lack of participants.
Be greater if I hadn't mistakenly grabbed the original Appleseed movie instead of what I thought was the new, CG, one =/
Note: the CG Appleseed movie is NOT available to buy in the US nor are there any plans for it to be, so don't go screaming at me for copyright infringement, etc.!
I download unlicensed anime only. I'm pretty sure there are no copyright violations involved. It's a wonderful way to get hold of stuff I'd have to wait years before seeing, if it ever got licensed over here.
I'm curious... the cable companies can probably tell who's likely to be downloading music and movies, but can they tell what's being downloaded? There's a lot of stuff out there that the RIAA has no authority over, and 1s and 0s look alike...
From Zeropaid.com concerning Bittorrent:
My BT days are over
There are also absolutely legit uses of such software. When major/large software releases swamp servers, BitTorrent lets lots of people get legitimately free gargantuan files quickly. New versions of Linux, free/public-domain movies, large games, etc. all use tremendous resources to distribute both in sheer size (hundreds of MB or more) and demand (thousands of simultanious downloads), but that is trivialized by having the recipients "pay" by loaning their own computers as interm servers.
I think they just keep a log of files which are being transferred -- they probably monitor default ports, etc.
It's too slow for my taste. If you want speed, go IRC!
And it is still traceable...it's just more of a pain to do so.
The only software designed to be untraceable is FreeNet, but it's nowhere near ready for prime time, and therefore not something that is widely used.
OTOH, selling people on a movie that's utter dreck OTHER than the highlights shown in a trailer is a sort of theft as well: a "bait and switch".
I recall seeing figures that file-swappers bought MORE music than non-file-swappers, on the average.
Why ? They already KNEW which of the latest "big act" was good (Evanescence comes to mind. . .) and which were utter dreck (Britney/Christina/boybands).
But unlike bittorrent, it downloads from one host at a time.. Soon that will be changed.. Mute Download
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