[The First Part of this series was <<A: Open Source. The second installment of the Stop Usage Based Billing alphabet series was <<B: Packets and the Internet. The third installment was <a href="<<C: Deep Packet Inspection, and the final installment will be E: Open Source Deep Packet Inspection]

What is BitTorrent Anyway??

“BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large amounts of data. BitTorrent is one of the most common protocols for transferring large files, and it has been estimated that it accounts for approximately 27-55% of all Internet traffic (depending on geographical location) as of February 2009.”

– Wikipedia on BitTorrent

BitTorrent is an extremely fast and efficient means of uploading and downloading. BitTorrent is an excellent way to distribute large materials to many people via the internet.

Radical Ideas

Like so many of the radical new ways to do things that technology and the internet have made possible, BitTorrent can only work through co-operation. BitTorrent requires a network of “peers”, or other people’s computers who are willing to share the file. This is referred to as “peer to peer” or “p2p.

If I have a large file I want to transfer, the first step is to “seed” the file, transferring portions of the file to multiple members of the p2p network.

Diagram 1: Seeding

It only takes a small fraction of the file to be passed along before the process speeds up enormously.

Diagram 2: Seeding and Sharing

Once I have a small portion, i pass it along at the same time as I’m receiving new bits of the same file, either from the original seed source of another peer.

Diagram 3: Upload + Download = Speed

With many participants (peers) uploading and downloading at the same time, large files can be distributed very quickly indeed.

Diagram 4: Finish Fast

Bell Canada “Throttles” BitTorrent

Bell Canada

When Bell Canada was first caught “throttling” internet traffic to the Independent ISP customers, Bell Canada’s justification to the CRTC was that the internet was too crowded, and that it was necessary to “manage” the traffic. Bell claimed that they needed to employ Deep Packet Inspection to identify BitTorrent Traffic so that they can “throttle” it.

Mandate:
“The CRTC’s mandate is to ensure that both the broadcasting and telecommunications systems serve the Canadian public. ”

—CRTC Role, CRTC Website

Amazingly, the CRTC had nothing to say about Bell Canada’s plans to discriminate against particular Canadian internet users.

The CRTC has accepted Bell’s unsubstantiated contention that this discrimination was necessary, and in approving it they have allowed Bell Canada to think that this discrimination is acceptable. In no way does this serve the Canadian public.

You might almost think that the CRTC mandate was to suppress Canadian creativity and the creation of Canadian movies and music. The availability of the technologies that exist to make it easy to create our own movies and music should be welcomed as an opportunity to add to and help grow our Canadian Culture.

Why single out BitTorrent traffic for throttling if it is an efficient use of the available bandwidth?

One of Bell Canada’s arguments for implementation of Usage Based Billing is that Canadian internet bandwidth is in short supply, making it necessary for them to “manage” bandwidth by penalizing heavy users.

So how could anything as efficient as BitTorrent possibly be seen as a bad thing if the Internet is so crowded?

It doesn’t make sense to discriminate against BitTorrent use. There is nothing inherently bad about BitTorrent use or BitTorrent internet traffic. But Bell Canada’s contention is that BitTorrent is bad because people use it to download movies and music.

Which begs the question: how does that make BitTorrent bad?

The Copyright Red Herring

The “Copyright Lobby”, which consists of large media producers and distributors (like Disney), and corporations and organizations (like MPAA), who distribute commercial movies and music, want us to believe that this is a bad thing.

This corporate special interest group has spent a great deal of time, energy and cash trying to promote the “pravda” that any digital copying of copyright works is bad. Making no distinction between commercial bootleggers who distribute illegal copies for profit and legal purchasers who seek to make a back-up copy or digital format shift for personal use, the Copyright Lobby has been pressuring governments the world over to criminalize personal use copying.

The problem for ordinary citizens is that these corporate interests have vast quantities of money to spend and a great deal of media power. This makes it incredibly difficult for governments to stand up to their onslaught. In some parts of the world this persistent advocacy has paid off for the Copyright Lobby, as lawmakers knuckle under and legislate to the detriment of their own citizens by making it illegal even to copy or download movies or music for personal use.

Here in Canada the Copyright Lobby is seeking to influence our lawmakers to criminalize personal use copying. They are trying to make Canadians think that people who make copies for personal use are performing criminal acts, and should be penalized the same as a a bootlegger who films the latest theatrical release off a theatre screen and proceeds to sell hundreds of thousands of bootleg DVDs.

Once again, Channel Four’s hilarious I.T. Crowd puts this question in perspective with this send-up of a video piracy commercial I found on YouTube.

Strong and free?

Canadian Law says

RIGHT NOW, in Canada, personal use copying is simply not illegal.

RIGHT NOW, in Canada, use of the BitTorrent file transfer protocol is also perfectly legal.

RIGHT NOW, in Canada, peer to peer (p2p) file sharing is legal; Canadians break no laws simply by joining in a p2p network.

The Copyright Lobby’s smear tactics have gone a long way toward making the world believe that BitTorrent is inherently bad.

Bell Canada has convinced the CRTC that it is acceptable to “throttle” BitTorrent, because of BitTorrent’s reputed connection with possible copyright infringement. So although BitTorrent is perfectly legal, Canadian internet users are paying the price for the success of this Copyright Lobby propaganda.

Myth: All BitTorrent/p2p internet traffic consists of copyright movies and music

The Corporate world doesn’t understand radical ideas like Open Source software and p2p file sharing because these concepts are so different from anything appearing in the old business models. Even more incomprehensible to the outdated business models is the fact that it may or may not generate a direct monetary profit.

The classic example of corporate myopia is:

“I think there is a world market for maybe five computers. ”

—attributed to Thomas J. Watson, president of International Business Machines, circa 1943

For many years IBM has taken the rap for this quote whether or not Mr. Watson really did say it. (Most likely not.) Maybe proving it wrong is part of why IBM is such a going concern in the 21st Century. Having weathered the storms of fortune today’s IBM is a world leader by continuing to innovate and adapt alongside evolving attitudes and technologies. IBM has been steadily increasing their participation and involvement with Open Source software in this new century.

The reality is that IBM not only understands the importance of open source, the corporation has actively supported and promoted adoption of Linux and Open Office in the corporate world. And naturally BitTorrent is a part of the equation because it is such an efficient means to distribute large files (like for instance, Canonical’s Ubuntu.)

“Think.”

—Thomas J. Watson, president of International Business Machines

Seems IBM actually does heed their most enduring slogan (which definitely was coined by Mr. Watson). Sadly, this type of foresight is uncommon. Because BitTorrent is such a radical idea, most entrenched corporations simply aren’t capable of understanding it.

There are other uses for BitTorrent that are not only legal, but even perfectly acceptable in polite society.

Probably my favorite use of BitTorrent is the amazing Project Gutenberg. This organization has been digitizing books in the public domain and distributing them freely… via BitTorrent, since this is such an efficient method of digital distribution. After all, BitTorrent is used for transferring very large files like music and movies because it is very efficient.

BitTorrent file sharing is not all movies and music. Like IBM, many people actually use p2p to help distribute open source software like OpenOffice via p2p. There is a growing body of open source software available, for instance my favorite web browser is Mozilla’s Firefox.

In fact, there the awesome SourceForge website which provides a place to find all manner of open source software, or where you can release your own.

When a new distribution of Ubuntu is released, people around the world gather together and have Ubuntu Release Parties making more good use of BitTorrent

And of course the Pirate Party of Canada has established Captain: the Canadian Pirate Tracker, their own BitTorrent site where Recording Artists and Filmmakers (and I imagine novelists, and software creators as well would be welcome to utilize this) to freely distribute their work.

Every bit of music and every movie transferred is not a copyright infringement. If I get to the point where my home made movies may prove marketable, I would certainly be looking at BitTorrent Distribution. In fact it would probably be easier to distribute home movies to family via BitTorrent than it would be to try to burn DVDs. (DRM makes the two commercial movie making software packages I’ve purchased almost unusable. Of course it doesn’t slow down the bootleggers.) If YouTube is an indicator, I’m not the only person who wants to transfer music and movies freely … not as copyright infringements. I have paid levies to the music industry for home movies I have made and burrned to CD for distribution to friends and family. If I choose to transfer them via BitTorrent now I can avoid the levy but instead suffer the added expense of Bell Canada’s deliberate throttling inflation?

Another really good legal use of BitTorrents are the actual commercial websites where people can go to to purchase downloads of music. So far no one seems to have found anything wrong with this practice.

But that’s not all. Canada’s own CBC Television Network tried their own experiment by releasing an episode of their program Canada’s Next Great Prime Minister via BitTorrent. Unfortunately the BitTorrent didn’t work so well because of Bell Canada’s CRTC approved BitTorrent “throttling”.

Geist tweets about the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation

Which is not to say it wasn’t a good idea. Not too long ago Michael Geist tweeted about the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation’s foray into BitTorrent use. All accounts indicate that their experiment was very successful indeed, which is having a big impact in the way they do business.

Ink Poster

The sad tale of a pirated Independent film can be found in this TorrentFreak article Indie Movie Explodes on BitTorrent, Makers Bless Piracy.

I guess it isn’t such a sad story after all.  

Thanks to piracy this Indie film called INK was has been achieving a distribution level that the filmmakers had never dreamed of.  They are of course extraordinarily pleased.

I think what is being called piracy here is BitTorrent p2p personal use sharing. Friends sharing with friends is one of the most effective ways to achieve recognition. They used to call it a “grass roots” movement. This is one of the major issues for the large movie studios. This is the place where they complain of being ripped off. What they don’t seem to realize is that this is a good thing. Exposure garners fans, makes a “name”. Fans buy stuff.

BitTorrent Traffic is not the only thing Bell Canada is Throttling

Rumour has it that there are people who actually work from home.

Time was the government encouraged the idea of people working from home. There are all sorts of advantages to society, like reduced congestion on actual highways, less wear and tear on our roads, a decrease in commuting based pollutants in our environment, a reduction of human depletion of fossil fuels.

But if you work from home, you are probably going to have to transfer files back and forth between your home and workplace. Chances are good that you are going to encrypt this type of traffic for security reasons. Although Bell Canada says they are only “throttling” BitTorrent traffic, in fact there have been instances of Bell throttling encrypted internet traffic on the assumption that if it’s encrypted, it must be BitTorrent traffic.

Bell places the onus on the customer to prove their “innocence” before they will consider stopping throttling.

Since the CRTC gave Bell Canada permission to use Deep Packet Inspection to inspect our packets, the only way to ensure that our private information remains private is through encryption. And in Canada any encrypted internet traffic will most likely to be throttled.

Canadian Copyright Consultation

The Canadian Government is looking at updating Canadian copyright law. They held a copyright consultation process this year, traveling around Canada soliciting opinions of stakeholders. Even better, they set up a website where they accepted submissions from any Canadian who wished to contribute. This website was flooded with thousands of submissions. Some are simply a few lines, some are extensive essays covering all sorts of topics, but all I’ve read are heartfelt. Because of the overwhelming response it took a long time to get all the submissions posted. (My own submission finally made online.)

This process led a lot of Canadians, including me, to believe that the copycon process might actually mean that our elected representatives were listening to us.

Unfortunately there is currently a lot of pressure on our government to make copying movies, software and music for personal use illegal. The secret ACTA meetings have caused a feeling of dread to settle over most Canadians. There has been deprecating talk about weak Canadian copyright law.

Except it isn’t true.

If anything, Canadian copyright law is probably more robust than is good for us.

The essential problem that the copyright lobby is attempting to overcome the problem of suing their own customers for what they imagine are infringements. They have noticed that fighting personal use copying garners bad publicity. This problem can be neatly solved by passing the responsibility for finding and prosecuting copyright infringement to governments. And of course the only was to get government to take ob the responsibility is to convince them that the copyright infringement is a criminal offense.

Regardless, currently copyright law is imprecise as regards personal use copying. So we’ll just have to wait for an actual law to be passed before it becomes illegal. (This pressure is actually largely from foreign owned interests– like Disney. It will be interesting to see if our government caves to this outside pressure.)

mixed messages

The government mandated levy we pay every time we purchase a blank CD is a tacit governmental admission that it is legal to burn CDs of our own music.

In the pre-Tivo era, Canadian cable networks actively encouraged Canadians to videotape the movies that they showed so we could watch them when it was convenient. They called it “time shifting” in their massive advertising campaigns. But no media giants took our cable companies to court back then. For the same reason artists will lend or give away their work for free when they’re starting out (because they need to build and audience– exactly like the INK producers mentioned above), back then even Disney didn’t have a channel in Canada. So Disney didn’t kick up a fuss even though they had to have known this was happening. They let it go because it was in their best interests to allow time shifting (i.e personal use copying). Disney knew this was in their best interests because it would help the Canadian cable companies build their market.

Of course now Disney doesn’t want us to record their movies for personal use. Disney would be happy if our government decided personal use copying was illegal. They would be happier still if our government spent time and energy searching out and charging people who download Disney movies.

Disney would be happy they no longer had to expend time and energy chasing down copyright infringements. They would be ecstatic if our Mounties were to do it for them. Gratis.

But this precedent indicates copying movies for personal use is also legal in Canada

So even though p2p networks or copying movies and music are not actually illegal in Canada, our friends the CRTC gave Bell Canada permission to “throttle” anyone using BitTorrent transfers. Because the assumption is that even if you’re not technically performing criminal acts, per se, anyone who uses BitTorrent can’t be very nice.

The CRTC, the government body that is supposed to safeguard Canadian telecommunication consumers, gave Bell Canada legal permission to mess with BitTorrent traffic. Its discriminatory for one thing. If there are copyright infringements happening, there are laws to handle them. It isn’t any of Bell Canada’s business. Or the CRTC’s.

[More on copyright in my other blog-- in the wind: Personal Use Copying vs. Bootlegging]

Dudley Do-Right?

Eirik Solheim's metaphorical image of the internet is the best I've seen: The internet is a series of tubes

Even if it were true that Canadian consumers were downloading music or movies, and even if it had been made illegal under Canadian Law, it should not make a whit of difference.

Because Internet Service Providers or Internet Carriers are NOT branches of Canadian law enforcement. They have not been deputized to enforce the law by the RCMP. If Bell Canada was in fact a Law Enforcement entity they would not be allowed to peek in any citizen’s packets without first acquiring a search warrant. Corporations don’t exist to uphold laws, they exist to make money.

The internet has been called dumb pipes, or a series of tubes, or a highway. It doesn’t really matter what you call it, what is most important is access for all.  
The people who control the pipes should not be allowed to discriminate against particular users for ANY reason. Net Neutrality is so important: the internet should be accessible to all.

revolutionary ideas

In the United Kingdom The Times Online Do music artists fare better in a world with illegal file-sharing? article looked at the benefits of personal use copying applied as peer to peer file sharing with some dramatic results.

Canada’s own ThisMagazine presented this thought provoking article Pay indie artists and break the music monopoly — Legalize Music Piracy which advocates making the law serve the artists and consumers rather than just the corporations.

Further rumblings about changing the way we look at this issue were reported recently by the The Globe and Mail blogs article NDP, Billy Bragg make case for free music

STOP Usage Based Billing

Armed with Microsoft's USB stick and COFEE even these two will be able to collect evidence from a live system....The courts will love that one.

It is being reported that COFEE, Microsoft’s forensic tool used in the fight against crime [1] has been leaked and uploaded to a BT tracker.  The tracker in question (what.cd) has subsequently removed the offending torrent, probably with visions of dawn raids and court cases, however I thought it would be interesting to take a look at the tools PR and what it (allegedly) offers.  Before we go any further though, its worth noting that the actions taken by what.cd have not managed to preserve the “secrecy” of this Microsoft product.  COFEE is available from thousands of sources online already.

Firstly because its Microsoft you can expect the usual blurb.  Microsoft doesn’t disappoint here with:

If it’s vital to government, it’s mission critical to Microsoft.

Which would beg the question; what happened then when various armed forces computer systems allegedly fell victim to a Windows based exploit?  Doesn’t sound very mission critical to me.

Back to COFEE though (Computer Online Forensic Evidence Extractor) is in essence software and USB solution which enable a live system to be “snapshotted” in situ.  Exactly how this code operates is anyones guess since its only provided to law enforcement and not to the general populus.  Would this software/hardware work on a rig with Linux?  I would highly doubt it and I assume it is developed to “handshake” with a Windows based system in some way.

An officer with even minimal computer experience can be tutored—in less than 10 minutes—to use a pre-configured COFEE device.

…And COFEE is being provided—at no charge—to law enforcement around the world.

So Microsoft gives COFEE away free to law enforcement does it?  Lets remind ourselves of what Bill Gates had to say about “free” some time ago:

They’ll get sort of addicted, and then we’ll somehow figure out how to collect sometime in the next decade

Here you go....a USB stick for every copper! Become an IT expert in 10 minutes! Question is, why should law enforcement use what you can already get (legally) for free and why should the "mighty" Microsoft be giving it away to law enforcement?

Maybe a warning there for Law Enforcement?  “Beware of a Redmond employee bearing gifts”

From reports of users that have looked at this Microsoft GUI its allegedly only a set of data collection tools that can be found on the net anyway and there is nothing “secret” or “cutting edge” to be found in Microsoft’s freebie.

There are other issues I have with this Microsoft freebie and its in respect of evidential value.  In my opinion an in situ dump of a live system will only have real evidential worth in a court if its backed up with the original system.  I would doubt very much if a court would accept a “snapshot” on a USB stick on its own without calling into question the integrity of the data collected on it. [2]

Are we really believing some IT inept officer brandishing COFEE should be allowed to tamper with a live system of possible evidential worth even if she/he has had “a 10 minute training course”..?   I would expect any Law Enforcement Agency to call in its own experts if it encountered a situation where a live exam/retrieval was essential.

Ive often said I have great reservations when the private/public sector mix (in respect of law enforcement) You have to look no further than FACT, where I believe its funded by the very companies it seeks to protect.  No problem in itself, but when (IMO) FACT has the ear of law enforcement, you could be forgiven if you were a little dubious as to the motives of the “advice” they give to the aforementioned agency.

Although it’s a little extreme, when law enforcement and corporate mix, people will always wonder “what goes on behind the scenes” and theories of calls such as “Hi, is that the LAPD?  Its Ballmer here, we have a little trouble at Redmond, can you help us out? Remember we did give you that USB stick all those years ago…..” will always crop up.  It seems strange to me that Microsoft is so keen to help fight crime when in Bill Gates own words (as partly quoted earlier on):

As long as they are going to steal it, we want them to steal ours.

You can read that full article here: http://www.cybersource.com.au/press/gates_set_to_addict_next_billion.html

There is a viewpoint from Torrentfreak.com which can be read here.

Notes

[1] Allegedly since Ive never seen Microsoft credited for any successes and its not clear which or if any Law enforcement actually use it

[2] and its all accademic really since someone booting a LiveCD and USB stick combo would be immune to COFEE (IMO)

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

Nέα έκδοση του uTorrent περιορίζει από μόνη της την ταχύτητα ανταλλαγής αρχείων – ADSLgr.com

H BitTorrent Inc. είναι έτοιμη να παρουσιάσει μία πλήρως βελτιωμένη έκδοση του πρωτοκόλλου BitTorrent η οποία θα έχει οφέλη και για τους χρήστες αλλά και για τους παρόχους και η οποία θα μειώνει την ταχύτητα ανταλλαγής αρχείων όταν τα δίκτυα παρουσιάζουν μεγάλη κίνηση. Το uTorrent 2.0 αυτήν την στιγμή χρησιμοποιείται δοκιμαστικά από εκατοντάδες χρήστες και υπόσχεται να ελαχιστοποιήσει την ανάγκη, από την πλευρά των παρόχων, για traffic shaping και επιβολή περιορισμών (ή και μπλοκαρίσματος) στην κίνηση των προγραμμάτων ανταλλαγής αρχείων (p2p).

Aρκετοί πάροχοι ανά τον κόσμο εφαρμόζουν πολιτικές περιορισμού ή και παρεμπόδισης της κίνησης προγραμμάτων διαμοιρασμού αρχείων με την δικαιολογία πως η υψηλή κίνηση από αυτές τις εφαρμογές προκαλεί καθυστερήσεις σε άλλες. Κάπως έτσι και ανάμεσα σε αρκετά ακόμα θέματα αναδείχθηκε το θέμα της δικτυακής ουδετερότητας σε αρκετές χώρες προκειμένου να διασφαλιστεί θεσμικά η ισότιμη μεταχείριση της κίνησης όλων των πρωτοκόλλων και των εφαρμογών.

Η νέα λειτουργία του BitTorrent με την ονομασία uTP είναι σχεδιασμένη ώστε να είναι φιλική με τα δίκτυα των παρόχων. Το uTP εντοπίζει πιθανές καθυστερήσεις (μπουκώματα) στο δίκτυο του παρόχου και με δική του πρωτοβουλία περιορίζει αυτόματα την κίνηση του. Ένας οικειοθελής περιορισμός της κίνησης από την ίδια την p2p εφαρμογή! Κάτι τέτοιο, αν βρει ανταπόκριση από τους χρήστες, θα αποφέρει κέρδη πολλών εκατομμυρίων δολαρίων στους παρόχους, σύμφωνα με τον Simon Morris υψηλόβαθμο στέλεχος της BitTorrent.

“To uTP μετράει τον χρόνο που χρειάζεται ένα πακέτο να σταλεί από τον ένα χρήση στον άλλο οπότε εντοπίζει πιθανά σημεία καθυστερήσεων”, εξηγεί ο Simon Morris.

Συγκεκριμένα το uTP επηρεάζει κυρίως την ταχύτητα ανεβάσματος (upload), μετριάζοντας την όταν υπάρχει αρκετή κίνηση στο δίκτυο.

Στο ερώτημα αν κάτι τέτοιο σημαίνει πως το νέο uTorrent θα αποδίδει σε μικρότερες ταχύτητες και άρα περισσότερο χρόνο στο κατέβασμα, η απάντηση είναι “όχι απαραίτητα”. Από την στιγμή που υπάρχει λιγότερη συμφόρηση στα δίκτυα και καλύτερη διαχείριση τότε ίσως δούμε και υψηλότερες ταχύτητες κατεβάσματος. Σίγουρα όμως με την διάδοση του uTP θα βελτιωθεί η πλοήγηση στο διαδίκτυο. Τo uTP αυτήν στιγμή εμπεριέχεται στην beta έκδοση του uTorrent 2.0 και προς το παρόν οι εντυπώσεις είναι αρκετά καλές.

“Υπάρχουν περίπου 200.000 χρήστες που δοκιμάζουν την έκδοση 2.0 beta και τα πράγματα φαίνεται να βαίνουν ομαλώς. Το uTP λειτουργεί όποτε είναι αναγκαίο. Είναι συμβατό με προηγούμενες εκδόσεις uTorrent-απλώς δεν λειτουργεί σε αυτές.”

“Είμαστε ενθουσιασμένοι που δημιουργούμε καλύτερες υπηρεσίες για τους χρήστες και που σε ορισμένες περιπτώσεις αυτές έχουν θετικές επιπτώσεις στους παρόχους, ελαχιστοποιώντας ή και εκμηδενίζοντας την ανάγκη για περιορισμό της κίνησης. Έτσι τα δίκτυα των παρόχων θα μπορούν να σηκώσουν περισσότερη κίνηση p2p.”

Δεν είναι εύκολο να αποφανθεί κανείς για το κατά πόσον το uTP θα αποδειχθεί ως ο σωτήρας του BitTorrente (κάποιοι αμφιβάλλουν) αλλά δημιουργεί προσδοκίες για οφέλη τόσο για τους χρήστες όσο και τις εταιρείες παροχής ευρυζωνικών υπηρεσίων. Μένει να αποδειχθεί στην πράξη και μάλιστα σύντομα.[next]

The BBC is reporting that the results of a survey show that file sharers on average spend £77 compared to those who don’t whose spending comes in at £44.

People who download music illegally also spend an average of £77 a year buying it legitimately, a survey has found……Those who claimed not to use peer-to-peer filesharing sites such as The Pirate Bay spent a yearly average of just £44.

Source: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/technology/8337887.stm

Ive been critical of the BBC and its tech reporting before, but this article in my opinion does not consider the implications of that survey.  Lets first of all look at the survey itself. To me this BBC article tries to present a £77 average as a justification for a file sharer.

This, in my opinion is typical BBC.  Im not sure if the aim is to jump on the bandwagon of the file sharing debate and thinks it can be “cool with the kids” or its simply a badly considered piece of journalism.

Lets look at the survey results and pretend that they are accurate.  What the BBC article fails to consider is that everyone of those £77 file sharers are helping to spread copyrighted material (the hints in the name BBC, file sharer) so any “benefit” of allegedly extra money being spent by them is offset by the fact that they are sharing material with others who as a result of receiving something for free WILL NOT go on to spend anything at all.

I am sure the message the BBC wants to put out is anti-piracy however are they really going to simply reprint surveys without any consideration of the results?    Who knows? and lets see if the BBC celebrates the £77 average when its Xmas shows are distributed through a BT tracker and hamper DVD sales in the new year.

Of course the BBC see it another way:

It also raises questions about the draft Digital Economy bill, which is due to be submitted to parliament later this month and proposes disconnecting file-sharers who repeatedly break the law.

Don’t be silly, the questions raised about the DEB come more from a policing and law/human rights point of view than they do any claimed £77 average .  Even if we believe these file sharers spend on average £77 (and keep in mind that they are committing IMO a dishonest act in the first place, so who’s to say they are being honest for the survey?) the act of downloading and sharing material which you do not have permission from the IP owner is surely wrong on a moral level at the very least.  If a friend asked you not to share their essay with others and you did, would that not be wrong? food for thought there.

I agree that prices are high, especially for new DVDs, thats why if there is a film that I really want to see but its too pricey, I wait until Blockbuster sells it ex-rental, I dont consider BT/NG/IRC/FTP or anything else because I can wait and I don’t believe in the “do as you please” view which seems all too common these days.

Goblin – bytes4free@googlemail.com

TPB

Stakkars film- og platebransjen. De lider ifølge VG. Stakkars. Tidligere var det opptakskassettene som tok livet av platebransjen, nå er det fildeling. I riktig gamle dager var det grammofonen som ville ødelegge for musikken. Også var det VHS-kassettene da… En regelrett drapsmaskin ovenfor filmbransjen. Stakkars film- og platebransjen. Det var så vidt de klarte å overleve 1980-tallet!
Som det så treffende står på t-skjorta ved et bilde her: Hjemmeknulling ødelegger for prostitusjonen!

(Her følger innlegget originalt postet 05.10.2009) Forrige fredag ble The Pirate Bay flyttet til Ukraina etter at den svenske leverandøren av båndbredde ble tvunget til å stanse servicen til trackeren. I det nye oppsettet blir trafikken rutet gjennom Nederland, men anti-pirat selskapet BREIN has nå bedt ISP NForce om å stanse trafikken til TPB. Som et resultet er nå siden nede for de fleste brukerne. Etter salget av TPB er det også snakk om at nettsiden er en synkende skute…

Om du ikke får åpnet nettsiden, så kan den nåes gjennom en proxy-server:
(You can reach TPB through a proxy-server):
http://www.proxbox.info/index.php

Oppdatering: Om Telenor blir nødt til å stenge ute trafikken til The Pirate Bay, så kan du bruke en proxy-server.
http://www.vg.no/teknologi/artikkel.php?artid=573527

Les mer om TPB hos TorrentFreak:
(Read more about TPB at TorrentFreak):
Brein disconnects The Pirate Bay for now – 091005

Hos The Jesper Bay finner du også gode tips om hvordan du kan unngå sperringer.

Ellers finnes det jo også flere alternative torrentsider ute på nettet.

Tidligere var det opptak på kassetter som drepte plateindustrien...

Vor einer weile hat TorrentFreak massenhaft invites für hexagon.cc, einer neuartigen Filesharingseite mit social-networking features (von den Machern von isohunt) rausgehauen. Auf hexagon sind Torrents nicht wie sonst nur in Listen und per Suche gelistet, sondern in Gruppen und Netzwerken organisiert. Das ganze klingt gut und ist auf jeden Fall einen Blick wert, vorallem, weil es bei TorrentFreak noch ungenutze invites gibt. Falls die aufgebraucht sind habe ich auch noch 10 übrig.

İnternetten birşeyler indirmek için kullanılan (özellikle yurtdışında kullanımı çok yaygın olan) torrent ve onunla alakalı 45 araç listelenmiş. birkaçına göz atmakta fayda var.

Yeni ve deneyimli kullanıcılar için haber siteleri

1. bittorrent hakkında nedir ne değildir?
2. Brian’s BitTorrent FAQ (torrent konusunda yeniyseniz bu site siz yol gösterici olacaktır.)
3. Magoo’s Guide To BitTorrent (yeni ve ileri düzey kullanıcılar için bilgiler barıdıran site)
4. Sclipo Video Tutorial (torrent konusunda kaynak olabilecek ders videosu)
5. Slyck.com (haber grupları, torrent ve daha birçok konu hakkında güncel haberler bulunuyor)
6. TorrentFreak.com (son dakika haberlerin kaynağı ve en popüleri, ara sıra göz atmakta fayda var.)
   //

Legal Torrent Kaynakları

1. Bt.Etree (Canlı konser kayıtları bulunuyor)
2. BTSharp
3. Jamendo
4. Legaltorrents (online digital medya topluluğu, muazzam içerik bulunuyor)
5. LegitTorrents (Linux, oyunlar ve ücretsiz videolar)
6. Vuze (dünyanın en popüler gösteri platformu, yüksek kaliteli videolar bulunuyor)
7. Star Trek – New Voyages (Star Trek bölümleri var.)
8. PublicDomainTorrents (Klasikleşmiş filmleri indirmek ücretsiz)
9. Mininova (istediğiniz çoğu program, film, albüme ulaşabilirsiniz. tek kelimeyle mükemmel)
10. geri kalan torrent siteleri

Torrent İstemcileri

Burada çeşitli platformlarda olmak üzere (Windows, Mac, Linux) çok fazla alternatif var ama en popüler olanları listelemekte fayda görüyorum.

1. µTorrent (Windows ve Mac.)
2. Azureus (Windows, Mac, Linux.)
3. BitComet (Windows 98/ME/2000/XP/2003/Vista.)
4. Deluge (windows’ta utorrent ve bittorrent’in tam karşılığı olan linux torrent istemcisi.)
5. BitTorrent (Windows, Mac, Linux.)

kaynak

Tüm bunlara ek olarak look torrent, speckly, isohunt, btjunkie, youtorrent, torrentz gibi torrent arama motorları da mevcut. Torrent istemcilerinin kıyaslaması da burada.

ALİNTI

Όλο το Pirate Bay σε ένα torrent | DigitalNews

Αν είστε ένας από τους χρήστες που φοβάστε ότι η εξαγορά του Pirate Bay πριν μερικές εβδομάδες, θα κλείσει το site, τότε ίσως εκτιμήσετε την προσπάθεια ενός χρήστη να συλλέξει όλα τα torrents.

Ο ανώνυμος χρήστης κατέβασε όλα τα torrents από το PirateBay και δημιούργησε ένα μεγάλο αρχείο torrent μεγέθους 21.3 GB που περιέχει όλα τα torrents που περιέχει το Pirate Bay.[next]

According to their blog and a recent BusinessWire release, controversial Swedish bit torrent tracker the Pirate Bay, is being acquired by Global Gaming Factory X AB for roughly $7.8 million in cash and shares (or $60 million SEK).

On the blog, the group hopes to alleviate concerns by saying:
“If the new owners screw around with the site, nobody will keep using it. That’s the biggest insurance one can have that the site will be run in the way that we all want it to. And – you can now not only share files, but shares, with people. Everybody can indeed be the owner of The Pirate Bay now. That’s awesome and will take the heat off us.”

Abhijeet Ahluwalia

As I write these words, Nine Inch Nails’ album The Slip is blaring through my speakers. I couldn’t think of a more appropriate soundtrack for an indictment of the record labels . Released in early 2008, the album was given away as a free download by the band on their website.

That’s quite a contrast to the The Piratebay trial.

To me, the entire episode is an exercise in futility. First of all, attempts to shut down online piracy with lawsuits have met with hardly any success. Napster was shut down, and was quickly followed by Kazaa. In each case, not only did lawsuits fail to deter the law-breakers, it actually saw an increase in file-sharing, according to the industry’s own figures. The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which had spearheaded the suing spree, has itself given up and announced at the turn of the year that they will not be actively suing file-sharers any more.

And let’s not forget, this is the same industry that had said recordable tapes would kill the music business – a laughable assertion, albeit with the benefit of hindsight.

What really galls me is the fact that everything is done in the name of the artists. We should stop downloading because we are killing the livelihood of musicians we’re told. The fact that the suits earn a substantial profit in playing middle-man is merely co-incidental. Yet, in 2006 the RIAA petitioned the panel of federal government Copyright Royalty Judges to reduce the royalties paid to artists for using their songs in “ring tones and other digital recordings”

Fighting for the artist? I don’t think so.

Even the figures thrown at us don’t add up. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), the same body suing Piratebay, publishes a digital music report each year. The latest one asserts that 95% of all downloads are illegal, but doesn’t bother to provide any research to back up that claim. Ironically, the same report praises the IFPI’s anti-piracy team for having “helped contain the level of Internet piracy.” Of course, a closer look at the report gives a clearer picture of what’s happening. Only 10% of said illegal downloads are considered a loss in sales. To quote Matt Phillips, the British Phonographic Industry’s Director of Communication, in an email he sent to Torrentfreak “We don’t think every illegal download is a lost sale.” Incidentally, the IFPI report says there has been a 25 percent worldwide gain in legal digital downloads, and $3.7 billion earned in revenue for 2008, compared to $0.4 billion just 4 years ago.

The artists are much smarter. Just like Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead put up their album for download on their website, and fans could pay any amount they wanted for it – or nothing at all. Touring is where they earn their money. Earlier this month, Madonna topped Billboard’s 2008 Money Makers list, earning about £169m. £160m of that sum came from concerts.

But Madonna is a hugely popular and successful musician, what about smaller bands? Having spoken to a number myself, I know they are quite happy  to earn from tours. Unlike record labels, which take away a big chunk of profits, touring lets artists earn a bigger share of gate receipts. Sales of merchandise are also significant at live shows, they said, and because they’re selling it themselves there’s no middle-men to eat away a share of the pie. Sure, this isn’t scientific research by any means, but at least it shows some willingness to try and embrace a new way of working, something the industry heads are much more reluctant to do.

So don’t allow yourself to be led on by what the industry tells you.  Artists will thrive as long as the live concert exists, it’s only the record labels that will suffer. The music industry was built around the artist, not vice-versa.

Follow me on Twitter and last.fm

Written by Ben Jones @torrentfreak.com

July 17, 2009

Written by Ernesto @torrentfreak.com

July 16, 2009

After Global Gaming Factory (GGF) announced its intention to buy The Pirate Bay, the public was left wondering what the site’s future would look like. Today it was confirmed that sharing on the new site will come with a cost, as the new owners plan to charge the users of the site a monthly fee.

More: http://torrentfreak.com/new-pirate-bay-will-become-a-pay-site-090716/

Written by enigmax @torrentfreak.com

July 16, 2009