File-Swap Software Poses Threat to Hollywood (BitTorrent)

San Jose Mercury News ^ | 9/27/04 | Dawn C. Chmielewski

[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.

[Larry381]

Actually what hollywood really should be afraid of (beside a Bush victory) is the mass renting of dvds which are very easily copied, usually in less than 10 minutes.

[MineralMan]

" guess it comes down to this:

Are intellectual propery laws just? Are copyrights just? I mean, it's one thing to call taking a fruit which you haven't paid for a theft, and then taking something else intangible, like a file, theft. When you take a file, no physical entity has been removed from the producers -- they have their masters.
"

Those are excellent questions, and they are answered in the Constitution. Some disagree with the copyright laws, and there is a venue in which they can be changed. Anyone may lobby the legislature for such changes.

As it stands today, it is illegal to make such copies. The correct response to that, if you disagree, is to work to change the laws to allow you to copy any movie, recording, or whatever, as much as you want.

As someone who has created intellectual properties, I can assure you that the master copy is not the product. The product is a copy of that master copy, whether it be a book, a magazine article, a piece of software, a recording of music, or a movie. If I have the exclusive right to make such copies, through the copyright laws, then your unauthorized copy is as much a theft as if you stole my master copy from me.

As I said earlier, you can do as you please. Just don't ask for my respect if you do steal copyright works. I doubt you care about my respect, but there it is.

[MineralMan]

"Should the colonists who violated acts of Parliament have all been fined, imprisoned and their goods confiscated?

Should Congress be accountable for violating the Constitutionally imposed limits on copyright?

And while we're at it, should the colonists have all been hanged for taking up arms against their king? That was illegal too."

As for your first question, a war was fought over these issues. Many died. They were willing to fight and die over the issues you raise. Are you planning a war over copyright? Are you willing to fight and die over copyright issues.

Question 2: Congress is always accountable. Every two years, we elect an entirely new House of Representatives and one third of the Senate. If this issue is important enough to you and others, then work to elect legislators who agree with you.

Question 3: It's the same as question 2. Again, are you planning to go to war over your "right" to make illegal copies of a movie. If so, then go for it. If not, then stop breaking the law until you get it changed.

[weegee]

You could always buy bootleg pressed DVDs off ebay for around $8 (vs. the $50 Japanese market price).

Some would be happy here because you paid someone for something (even if it wasn't theirs to sell). The bootlegs look so good that it is hard to tell them from official merchandise.

Just because it is cheap does not impugn the authenticity of the license. Typically it takes someone pointing out details or titles to determine what is bootleg merchandise.

Ebay does not appear to be doing much to cancel the listing of such auctions. Heck, they even have a lot of bootleg, no box, videotape sales going on there.

[FlJoePa]

"Yes, your IP address is shared by the tracker and other peers downloading the same torrent."

Can't you just use a proxy server to avoid detection?

[Ciexyz]

bump with no comment

[Arthalion]

BitTorrent is effectively "unstampable" for two reasons.

The first and largest is that the RIAA/MPAA have only been able to stamp out Napster/Morpheus, et al because they have shown in court that the primary purpose of those networks is to infringe copyrights. BitTorrent, on the other hand, has been around for quite a while and was simply designed as an efficient tool to move large files across the Internet without overloading a single server. It has a huge number of legitimate users and is heavily utilized in the Open Source community. It's true that people DO use it to infringe copyright, but the RIAA/MPAA will never be able to show that infringement is its primary purpose. Without that, their cases will fail.

The other reson any lawsuits will fail is the lack of any real NETWORK. Unlike Napster, Gnutella, and the other file swapping applications, BitTorrent doesn't let you search for MP3's or video files across the network. You have to locate a download on your own and download the torrent file, which will allow you to connect to people sharing THAT FILE ONLY. It's not an efficient way to locate pirated films and music, and doesn't qualify as "file sharing software" under any of the currently accepted legal definitions.

If anything, the RIAA/MPAA will have an easier time controlling BitTorrent downloads than with previous file sharing tools. Because BitTorrent doesn't allow people to share their file lists or search for specific movies, BitTorrent pirates have to rely on websites and chatrooms to locate the torrents they want to connect to. Killing piracy simply requires them to shut down the websites directing people to the pirated material...something already covered by current law that they don't need a lawsuit to accomplish. If they find a webpage with illegal torrents, they just need to C&D the websites host and shut it down. That'll keep BitTorrent piracy out of the mainstream while preserving it for legitimate users.

[Bonaparte]

You continue to evade, MM.

Question 1 asked you whether the colonists should have been brought to justice for violating the law, ie. acts of Parliament. You addressed another question entirely, a question that wasn't asked and that addressed the practical aspects, not the principle that you've been arguing from.

Question 2 asked whether Congress should be held accountable. You advise holding them accountable with our votes, but that hasn't borne fruit. Every successive Congress continues to violate the 1st Amendment re constitutionally imposed limit on duration of copyright. This is a clear pattern of criminal activity. Am I correct in judging that you advise us to continue trying to adjudicate this with a measure that has never worked? What is the point in doing that?

Question 3 you answer the same way as question 1.

In case you haven't noticed, file sharers (consumers) have gone to war economically. Congress and the courts have failed to protect us from the industry's trade abuses, so we are adjudicating the matter ourselves -- just as our forefathers broke the law to defend themselves against England's trade abuses.

But you don't need to answer these questions, MM. You've already conceded that you would tolerate an artist robbing his label in retaliation for being cheated by them. Last time I checked, that would be illegal too. According to the law, being robbed does not legally entitle you to rob the robber. So I already know how far your adherence to "principle" goes. You embrace the exceptions that please you -- just as I do.

[MineralMan]

"You've already conceded that you would tolerate an artist robbing his label in retaliation for being cheated by them."

I have conceded no such thing. I merely asked if you were one of those who were harmed by those practices.

As for my answers to the two questions about colonial America, I answered fully. Had we not gone to war with England, then such lawbreakers would have been arrested. They chose to wage war instead, and won. Had they not won, then they would be obligated to follow the laws or face the consequences.

Should they have been arrested? Certainly, under the laws of the day. Instead, they founded a new nation, with its own set of laws. That is the alternative. It worked great.

As for the congress, I have no more to say about that. The mechanism exists to replace the entire Congress. Use that mechanism or not. It's up to you.

Essentially, this is all a silly issue, except that it involves illegal actions. You can spend considerable time downloading copyright material illegally, or you can spend some money and buy your own copy. I prefer doing things legally. That way I never worry about being fined or worse. It's also the right thing to do, and I do try very hard to do what's right.

[newcats]

Bit Torrent sucks. You are limited by the speed of the other person.
Newsgroups is the way to go!

[MineralMan]

"Clause 8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; "

Here is the relevant Clause:

Copyright is not for an unlimited time. Therefore, the Clause remains active. And there you are.

[MineralMan]

"Works Originally Created on or after January 1, 1978
A work that is created (fixed in tangible form for the first time) on or after January 1, 1978, is automatically protected from the moment of its creation and is ordinarily given a term enduring for the author's life plus an additional 70 years after the author's death. In the case of "a joint work prepared by two or more authors who did not work for hire," the term lasts for 70 years after the last surviving author's death. For works made for hire, and for anonymous and pseudonymous works (unless the author's identity is revealed in Copyright Office records), the duration of copyright will be 95 years from publication or 120 years from creation, whichever is shorter."

And here, from the Copyright Office, are the limits. Why so long? Because such works are the property of the author, and may be bequeathed to surviving heirs.

Eventually, however, it all goes into the Public Domain. There IS a limit, so the Constitutional limit is preserved.

[Bonaparte]

" I have conceded no such thing. I merely asked if you were one of those who were harmed by those practices."

And in doing so (asking if I was one of these cheated artists), you implicitly justified thievery on the part of the artist. No other interpretation of your remark would make any sense, unless of course, you were asking me that question out of idle curiosity -- were you?

Even if a file sharer is not one of those artists, he may well be one of the millions of cheated consumers and the justification would be the same.

All parties to this controversy are law breakers, every one of them. The industry, the Congress and the file sharers. In this area, rule of law has failed. That much has been clear for the longest time. Historically, whenever that happens, adjudication is had by other means, in this case, economic warfare.

[Henchman]

AZUREUS will give them a fit. Especially with XCOPY 321 Xpress to copy the coded videos. Not advocating it - stealing is stealing - don't do it.

[z3n]

"I never resorted to crippling my software to encourage payment. I thought that was a lousy tool. So, folks downloaded the software, used it, and are still using it, all these years later. I still get calls from people for support for programs they refused to pay for."

The software industry is almost as tough as the online media industry (but not quite). It is virtually imposible to get someone to pay for your services and the product of your work in the software industry (just as it is with online media), unless people absolutely need it.
Most of the software Giants (Microsoft, Macromedia, Adobe) have either taken over or started up those areas of software development that have any chance of being a market in which consumers will pay for software that satisfies needs that cannot be obtained elsewise.
I feel your pain.
In order to have a chance to run a profitable website (or web service), you need to have one in the top 500 on the internet (out of millions of sites). No one in this environment wants to pay. The internet is the bastion of a cruising and loitering mentality. Don't get me wrong. I'm not knocking it. The freedom of the internet is probably the only place in the world where I think concepts communism and capitalism should be freely allowed reign.
Unfortunately, it is not a good model for demonstrating the benefits of a free market. There is actually way too much competition for attention on the internet, and the vast majority of information and content supplied to the internet is uncompensated... and the software market almost as bad.

[sc2_ct]

It's too slow for my taste. If you want speed, go IRC!

Doesn't sound like you have it configured correctly. I had to de-tune my client because it was utilizing just about every Kbit/s that it could get from my ISP (I was downloading Red Hat Linux and some other OS apps at 2.3 Mbit/s and uploading at 425 Mbit/s for long stretches of time, making webpages take 2-3 minutes to load.

[Bonaparte]

Oh, by the way, if you really want to understand the constitutional limits on copyright, here is good article on that subject. The constitutional provision is intended more for the benefit of the public than for the benefit of the copyright holder and the Founders did not anticipate or want constant extensions of copyright duration whose effect was to ensure copyright in perpetuity, which is exactly what has unfortunately taken place.

Educate yourself.

[Bonaparte]

Oh, by the way, if you really want to understand the constitutional limits on copyright, here is good article on that subject. The constitutional provision is intended more for the benefit of the public than for the benefit of the copyright holder and the Founders did not anticipate or want constant extensions of copyright duration whose effect was to ensure copyright in perpetuity, which is exactly what has unfortunately taken place.

Educate yourself.

[Henchman]

BTW, some have posted some very legitimate uses for BIT TORRENT, so RIAA don't go nutz. There are numerous anonymizers that preclude IP reading and the ISPs are loath to give out customer info. Have fun guys. No one advocates stealing you prescious crap.

[Bonaparte]

Ah! I found you a graph that neatly demonstrates how abusive legislation has effectively kept copyright way out of range of the reasonable period the Founders envisioned in the Constitution.