End of BitTorrent?

Sleepy

bbc.co.uk wrote:

The movie industry and the man behind BitTorrent have signed a deal they hope will reduce the number of pirated films shared on the downloading network.

The deal covers films found via the bittorrent.com website run by Bram Cohen - creator of the download system.

It means bittorrent.com must remove any links to pirated films made by seven Hollywood movie studios.

As it only covers the bittorrent.com website it is unclear what overall effect it will have on net piracy

What is not known is how many of the 45 million users of BitTorrent search for files to download via the BitTorrent.com site. Many other websites let people search for so-called "torrents" or simply list the most popular ones for people to download and these sites could be unaffected by the deal.

The deal between the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and BitTorrent is the latest in a long line of moves to limit the illegal sharing of films via the net.

BitTorrent has become a widely used way for many to get hold of very large video files as the technology is very efficient at splitting up and sharing data.

Use of the system has proved to be a thorn in the side of the MPAA as it can make it hard to work out who is behind illegal movie sharing.

Under the deal Mr Cohen must stop people being able to find pirated films when they search via the bittorrent.com website. He has also agreed to speed up the issuing of notices telling people to stop illegal sharing.

"BitTorrent Inc. discourages the use of its technology for distributing films without a license to do so," said Mr Cohen in a statement.

Mr Cohen has reportedly raised $8.75m in financing to turn the BitTorrent technology and the associated website into a commercial download service. The deal is widely seen as giving that nascent service official approval.

Originally posted at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/4463372.stm

The big question now is will Bram Cohen actively help the likes of Media Sentry in their spying on the BitTorrent community? Will this result in any decrease of internet piracy using this technology, or is it a move by Cohen to ensure that whatever the use of the the protocol, he won't be cited in any law-suits that are attempted by the RIAA? Interested to hear what other think on this as I can't figure out what the real purpose of this is.

Mods: forgive me if this is in the wrong section but I didn't see anything forbidding the discussion of file-sharing protocols in the charter, only linking to resources to aid in piracy and this would seem to be the best forum for discussion of the technology and the events surrounding it.

aidan_walsh

The end of BitTorrent? No.
The end of BitTorrent being used to share copyrighted files? No.
The end of BitTorrent.com being used to share copyrighted files? Yes. To an extent.

The end of idiots thinking they're clever with "my cousin" or "linux ISOs *snicker*", unfortunately no...

DemonOfTheFall

Heres a nice fully legal website:
www.google.com

"whatever you want" filetype:torrent

who needs bittorrent.com, it sucked anyway.

clearz

First of all there are loads of other sites appart from bitorrent.com where you can find torrent files.
Secondly nobody owns the bittorrent protocol and there is plenty of far better software out there using this protocol appart from the original bittorrent client.
What this means is that all this is irevelent and will not put a dint in the torrent community's downloading habits.
But its nice to see the industrys finally starting to embrace sharing technology instead of trying to fight something they cant beat.

DonkeyStyle \o/

I didn't even know bittorrent.com existed... that's how vital it is to the operation of bittorrent I suppose. :rolleyes:

SouperComputer

LOL, didnt even know there was a bittorrent.com!

[edit] feck, DS got there before me! [/edit]

AARRRGH

I'm currently developing EDITED (got the technical bit working, just need to do the design.)

Torrent sharing will never die!!

Malafus

dublindude wrote:

I'm currently developing *snip* (got the technical bit working, just need to do the design.)

Torrent sharing will never die!!

I suggest you remove the URL.... and I suggest you NOT register warez trading sites UNDER YOUR OWN NAME, Stephen. That's what proxy registering services are for.

AARRRGH

It's legal in Ireland (search on Google.)

EDITED is not a tracker. It only hosts torrent information.

It's still very much under construction.

Copyright material will be removed when requested.

...

Stop being paranoid.

Stop thinking telling people my name will scare me.

Giblet

How about stop posting links to porn ?

AARRRGH

Me???

I should clarify: EDITED is a torrents spider. This means it goes looking for torrents. It finds everything, porn included.

This is just like Google.

I doubt linking to Google is considered "linking to porn".

Let's not be overly negative here please!

monkeyfudge

Terror at Orgy Castle?

hmmmm.....

mad m

I smell vendetta dublindude.

DonkeyStyle \o/

monkeyfudge wrote:

Terror at Orgy Castle?

hmmmm.....

LMAO




Is it any good?

AARRRGH

mad m wrote:

I smell vendetta dublindude.

LOL, I know. When I was typing EDITED I was thinking to myself, "What are you doing? Don't you know Boards.ie is full of highly politically correct, let's throw the first stone kind of people?"

EDITED is perfectly legal, so rant all you want.

Giblet

dublindude wrote:

Me???

I should clarify: website is a torrents spider. This means it goes looking for torrents. It finds everything, porn included.

This is just like Google.

I doubt linking to Google is considered "linking to porn".

Let's not be overly negative here please!

You do know it's against boards.ie rules to provide links to trackers yes?

AARRRGH

Giblet wrote:

You do know it's against boards.ie rules to provide links to trackers yes?

I'm not a tracker!!

I'm a torrent spider. Totally different. Legally, totally different.

I will remove the links if requested by an admin. I'm not trying to cause trouble here, was just joining the conversation...

Malafus

dublindude wrote:

It's legal in Ireland (search on Google.)

*snip* is not a tracker. It only hosts torrent information.

It's still very much under construction.

Copyright material will be removed when requested.

...

Stop being paranoid.

Stop thinking telling people my name will scare me.

I highly doubt sharing wares is legal in Ireland, and if you have some piece of information that contradicts this, I would LOVE to see it. It would be very useful....

I'm aware that it's not a tracker, and, to be fair, the worst that's happened to sites linking to torrents is C & D letters, to the best of my knowledge.

As for my "paranoia", it's just wise to be cautious when walking on the line of what's legal and what's not. Using your name was to emphasise the point that anyone can perform a DNS lookup and get your name.



....Was not aware it was a spider.... but what will the Mods say?

Edit: Mods say "Bad dublindude!" Giblet - Perhaps you meant "Links to links to trackers?"

Giblet

dublindude wrote:

I'm not a tracker!!

I'm a torrent spider. Totally different. Legally, totally different.

I will remove the links if requested by an admin. I'm not trying to cause trouble here, was just joining the conversation...

Trust me when I say, you should probably delete the link. Especially considering most of the time it opens up to a random porn surprise! Which wouldn't be so bad if someone was searching and found it, but it just randomly appears there. And when I say "links to trackers" I really mean, links that provide direct access to illegal material.

AARRRGH

“Only P2P sites that explicitly encourage copyright violation are breaking the law, said the court (a popular file sharer called BitTorrent was exempted after coming out against illicit downloading).” – Irish Independent, Tue November 8th 05.

Trust me, I've researched it!

Again, nothing you find on EDITED can't be found on Google.

AARRRGH

Giblet wrote:

Trust me when I say, you should probably delete the link. Especially considering most of the time it opens up to a random porn surprise! Which wouldn't be so bad if someone was searching and found it, but it just randomly appears there. And when I say "links to trackers" I really mean, links that provide direct access to illegal material.

OK, I will remove the link. I would appreciate clarification from an admin though. Please remove the link from a quote of mine in one of your posts.

...

Again, IT'S PERFECTLY LEGAL!!! (but I understand boards.ie is a company, not a free speech website, so there's no problem on my end...)

Malafus

dublindude wrote:

I'm not a tracker!!

I'm a torrent spider. Totally different. Legally, totally different.

Hehehe, he's so invested in this site that he's actually BECOME the site


And I don't know how many courts would agree with your statement about the legality of your site.... I mean you.... whatever. Edit: Just read your other post..... ok, that is an interesting statement from the courts..... hmmmm.....

DemonOfTheFall

I know theres all those loop holes you mentioned and the fact that you're not hosting anything, but the fact is on the front page of your site, absolutely every single thing on that list is warez.

AARRRGH

Well, it's a spider, so it collects all the torrents around the internet. I don't tell it to target warez! And I am more than happy to remove and ban torrents if I get a complaint (from the copyright owners.)

As I said earlier, this is exactly what Google does. Try their "torrent:" function.

Inspector Gadget

...but I can't help but wonder why you're drawing large amounts of potential interest on yourself from certain organisations when you really don't have to? I mean, even the contents of this thread suggest that there are alternatives (some of whom having legal teams

(*cough* Google *cough*)

that would scare moderate to large countries, which I'm assuming you don't). You're also basing your intent to do this sort of thing on some legal loopholes that may or may not be closed, particularly if your site is, erm, "noticed" by said aforementioned organisations and words are dropped in the right ears? (What happens, for example, if these loopholes get closed before you realise it?)

All I'm saying is, you seem to be drawing attention to yourself when there's absolutely no driving need to?

Just my 2c...
Gadget

AARRRGH

Thanks for the comments Gadget.

My intention is not to create a warez site and what I'm doing is legal, so I'm not quite taking advantage of loopholes!

Really, this is not some kind of trick I'm pulling to help break copyright information. Lots of the torrents on my site are shareware/etc. I don't control what the site collects (I cannot write code which detects if something is shareware or not) so I deal with copyright violations by removing and banning the relevant torrent when requested to do so.

I'm well aware there are certain organisations in Ireland who might try to sue me. I remember one of their spokespeople comparing downloading MP3's with drug dealing, so I know they'll eventually come knocking on my door. I'm not too worried though - I have no bad intentions with my site.

Inspector Gadget

Fair enough, as long as you seem to know what you're (possibly) letting yourself in for... all I can say is "good luck"?

Gadget

AARRRGH

Inspector Gadget wrote:

Fair enough, as long as you seem to know what you're (possibly) letting yourself in for... all I can say is "good luck"?

Gadget

Thanks!

Khannie

Sleepy wrote:

Mods: forgive me if this is in the wrong section but I didn't see anything forbidding the discussion of file-sharing protocols in the charter, only linking to resources to aid in piracy and this would seem to be the best forum for discussion of the technology and the events surrounding it.

A fine thread. No problems with discussing protocols and the like.

Sleepy

Khannie wrote:

A fine thread. No problems with discussing protocols and the like.

Thank you

What interests me about this is the involvement of "Mr BitTorrent", Bram Cohen himself. Given his knowledge of the protocol (since he's the main man behind it's development) I'd worry about him becoming involved with the likes of Media Sentry and similar organisations that effectively use the torrents to intrude on the privacy of the downloading community. If you google it, you'll find they've been involved in a number of high profile court cases involving regular individuals and have received rebukes from judges in these cases for their intrusive practices.

I may be entirely naieve about the coding practices and the technical aspects of the protocol but I can't help but think that having the likes of Bram Cohen on board could be an incredible boon to these people.

BigEejit

er ... its open software and people can make versions that dont have spyware etc in it .... he only started it, he isnt writing every version out there

smeggle

Theres actually still a grey area surrounding the sharing of films/movies. This is due to the 'VHS' argument of the late 70's/early 80's. There argument of 'Illegal Copying of Films/Movies' was rejected because the onus fell with the equipment manufacturer for making the equipment with the ability to record in the first place.

Technically the same could be argued in the case of P2P sharing of films/movies. The manufacturers have again given the ability via the equipment to be able to do this.

Personally, I don't think the 'VHS' argument will survive in this case and eventually P2P film/movie file sharing will become the same as mp3 sharing - totally illegal.

The 'VHS' argument will fail because that argument was based on 'Family/Close Friends' sharing and not the 'Mass' sharing community as it exists now. Thats where software, such as the vpn file sharing system in my sig will come into there own. Or similar software that has an 'Administrative Restrictive User Base'. The one I use, allthough allowing multiple groups to be formed allows only 30users per group. This would easily encompass a 'Family/Close Friends' style of enviroment and here the 'VHS' argument will hold true.

For music i.e. mp3's and the like, streaming the data between the pc's via an 256 bit encrypted vpn tunnel maintains the softwares 'Legallity'.

Yes there is ways to cheat - it has it's own built in I.M. - .zip anyone? but the point is that unless you actually invited in a 'Snoop' and requested a .zip from them theres little chance of it being proven. It's also highly unlikely that this could take place as you do all the invites. You can also say recieve requests from someone to join. In that case it's upto the Admin of the group wether they can join.

For p2p to continue long term I see it as the only real way forward. Eventually the laws will be patched up and will cover all media forms. There will be the die hard fanatics but with the advent of DRM and the likes of internet2 these will albeit, slowly over time, die out. The penalties will far out weigh the rewards, so secure encrypted vpn p2p of small restricted group sizes will become the norm imo.

Still - till then - theres allways the juicy taste of 'Lime' and 'Torrents' (heh sounds like a name for a cocktail lol)...........

DemonOfTheFall

There is no difference between bootlegging mp3s and bootlegging movies mate. It's all copyright infringement.

It's just that most lawsuits to date have been over music rather than movies.

AARRRGH

Hmmm.

Downloading MP3s/etc is legal. It's only when you share them that things get messy.

BopNiblets

End of BT? Haha, nevah!
Give something to the internet, never get it back!

The beating heart of the internet is a beating heart of a pirate, it's freedom of everything, why in a few years time, I could download YOU off the internet!
That's right, I'm talking about YOU!! *points*

FOR FREE! Yarrr haarrr!