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[The Faceless Master]

LONDON (Reuters) - A file-sharing program called BitTorrent has become a behemoth, devouring more than a third of the Internet's bandwidth, and Hollywood's copyright cops are taking notice.

For those who know where to look, there's a wealth of content, both legal -- such as hip-hop from the Beastie Boys and video game promos -- and illicit, including a wide range of TV shows, computer games and movies.

Average users are taking advantage of the software's ability to cheaply spread files around the Internet. For example, when comedian Jon Stewart made an incendiary appearance on CNN's political talk show "Crossfire," thousands used BitTorrent to share the much-discussed video segment.

Read The Full Article

 

[DarthWoo]

I think my bastard school has finally gotten wise to BT. Around two weeks ago, all of my torrents stopped connecting to any peers or seeds, although the client can see everyone in the swarm. This pisses me off; now I can't get my Gundam Seed Destiny fix.

 

[MrAngryFace]

Make sure you clear your internet temp files once in a while, that was stopping me from connecting.

Im helping with the torrents

 

[Azih]

Bah, big enough to notice.

 

[Deg]

Its obviously hugely exaggerated.

 

[Phoenix]

Exaggerated yes, but it is a large and growing problem (from a legal perspective).

 

[Mashing]

A question: How can you accurately measure the amount of bandwidth on the Internet?

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Router statistics from the backbone. They've done this for ages.

 

[Phoenix]

Its certainly imperfect, but you can estimate it based on the major nodes on the net and how much of their bandwidth is consumed by the torrent protocol.

 

[Mashing]

I figured as much... I still think it's ludicrous to claim that 1/3 of the traffic on the Internet is being used by bittorrent.

 

[DarthWoo]

Make sure you clear your internet temp files once in a while, that was stopping me from connecting.

Im helping with the torrents

I actually had to run disk cleanup on my OS partition several times a day a week ago. Norton AV was generating this massive temporary directory of junk files that added up to 1.8GB before I was sure I could delete it. When my scheduled AV scan ran at night, at least for two nights, I was getting low disk space warnings repeatedly. I'd turn on disk defragmenter, and watch as the free space kept dropping down to about 1%. Anyway, I'm pretty sure it's the damn school.

 

[Scalemail Ted]

how much is being used for porn?

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

I figured as much... I still think it's ludicrous to claim that 1/3 of the traffic on the Internet is being used by bittorrent.

Why not? The bittorrent offerings I have seen are huge, and it's not like there are things regulating how much bandwith goes to what.

Port used to regularly take 90%. If the porn has moved to bittorrent, it makes sense the bandwidth would be up.

 

[MrAngryFace]

I recall there being a memory leak with bt.

 

[levious]

Just imagine what the percentage would be if everyone knew how to forward their ports.

 

[Acrylamid]

Without BitTorrent, there would be no growth[/reggie]

 

[sprsk]

75% of bittorrent traffic is naruto.

 

[Ignatz Mouse]

Just imagine what the percentage would be if everyone knew how to forward their ports.

????

I am new to bittorrent. What does this mean?

(And it's really slow for me-- any tips? No, I'm not grabbing illeagal stuff.)

 

[DarthWoo]

Just imagine what the percentage would be if everyone knew how to forward their ports.

Not entirely possible on a school campus network....except perhaps by asking the network admins to open up some ports for me so I can....um...well....do educational stuff....yep.

 

[DJ Demon J]

One prominent GAFfer was already nailed for sharing copyrighted material through BitTorrent. Who's next? *gets out DMCA-stick*

 

[Diablos]

Meh, nevermind.

Anyway, I find this statistic to be surprising.

 

[border]

I only use BitTorrent for things that don't have nefarious, massive organizations hunting down the users. No movies, no music....

 

[shuri]

One prominent GAFfer was already nailed for sharing copyrighted material through BitTorrent. Who's next? *gets out DMCA-stick*

Really? Who was it?

 

[Willco]

Really? Who was it?

... I'm not supposed to divulge this information, but it was BuddyChrist.

 

[Diablos]

... I'm not supposed to divulge this information, but it was BuddyChrist.

:lol Surrrree!

 

[Willco]

:lol Surrrree!

I dare you to look into the face... THE FACE OF EVIL!

 

[Ryu]

The article mentions TV shows as illegal -- are they if you get the cable channel and just don't have the time to watch them? What would be the difference of me just recording it on tape and watching it later? I prefer to watch movies in theatres and I buy my music through iTunes unless it's some game sountrack that's rare. I just find it odd that the article mentioned TV shows were illegal...

 

[Mashing]

yeah, it's still illegal even if you get that channel. The advertisers get ripped off if people don't watch their ads so they make a big stink about it. And it affects their ratings which in turn affects advertising revenue.

 

[Ryu]

Then what about ad deleting tivo?

 

[aoi tsuki]

Then what about ad deleting tivo?

Or VCRs that fast forward through commercials? Granted, you're still seeing bits of the commercial, so there's a chance you'll see something in one that'll make you watch it, but it's not that great a chance.

And you buy music via iTunes instead of CDs? At risk of derailing the thread... why?

 

[Marty Chinn]

Tivo doesn't delete ads. It records them like a VCR.

 

[Chittagong]

One prominent GAFfer was already nailed for sharing copyrighted material through BitTorrent. Who's next? *gets out DMCA-stick*

I'm pretty sure that a certain obese brazilian and his friends over in *another* forum would be better targets

 

[Jim Bowie]

75% of bittorrent traffic is naruto.

Ergo, 20% is porn, 5% everything else?

 

[segasonic]

how much is being used for porn?

64.9%

 

[Kiriku]

75% of bittorrent traffic is naruto.

And leaked games!

 

[SaitoH]

Bit Torrent is my VCR. It's how I watch most of my TV shows.

 

[Culex]

I think the fact that Valve used Bittorrent tech for Steam speaks volumes about the significance of it.

 

[Iceman]

Bittorrent is my tv... but man, I'm using my schools superfast connection to help me out. I must have 6 tv shows downloading right now.. I'm probably going to get busted soon.

 

[Phoenix]

Bittorrent is my tv... but man, I'm using my schools superfast connection to help me out. I must have 6 tv shows downloading right now.. I'm probably going to get busted soon.

While TV shows are by definition illegal (even moreso because people strip the commercials out), they are more in a gray area because of the various rulings regarding copying TV shows on other media in the past. It is possible that the courts within some constraints might rule that UNALTERED TV shows transmitted over the Internet are fair game for torrent networks.

It would behoove the TV networks to embrace the format rather than fight it and sell ad space on an Internet broadcast variant and deliver it to users in a guaranteed legal manner rather than face a legal challenge on the topic. By providing a compromise format themselves, the courts would be more inclined to quickly strike down the legality of bootleg variants travelling over torrent networks.

 

[levious]

I think the article is taking quite a leap in labeling tv shows as illegal material. There was that old case against betamax that more or less said that "sharers" of videotaped tv had to infringe on some significant right of the copyright holder in order for there to be any grounds for civil or criminal penalties. Like using the taped material for profit of some sort either through sale or exhibition/rebroadcast. I really don't think it's been addressed since in a court case, but I'm not sure.

 

[onion_pixy]

One prominent GAFfer was already nailed for sharing copyrighted material through BitTorrent. Who's next? *gets out DMCA-stick*

such a fearmongering ass you are. You seem to have a great need for power trips. Small penis?

 

[SFA_AOK]

Didn't BC get busted for hosting the entire file? I don't think he BT'd it unless there was another file that you're talking about...

 

[DJ Demon J]

such a fearmongering ass you are. You seem to have a great need for power trips. Small penis?

Sorry, maybe next time I should put [sarcasm] around my post. Power trips aren't my domain, I'm not a mod here. Seems I struck a nerve with you though. Cheers!

 

[onion_pixy]

um ok. sure cheers!

 

[Smiles and Cries]

I have yet to see one ep of Naturo

 

[Iceman]

While TV shows are by definition illegal (even moreso because people strip the commercials out), they are more in a gray area because of the various rulings regarding copying TV shows on other media in the past. It is possible that the courts within some constraints might rule that UNALTERED TV shows transmitted over the Internet are fair game for torrent networks.

It would behoove the TV networks to embrace the format rather than fight it and sell ad space on an Internet broadcast variant and deliver it to users in a guaranteed legal manner rather than face a legal challenge on the topic. By providing a compromise format themselves, the courts would be more inclined to quickly strike down the legality of bootleg variants travelling over torrent networks.

IAWTP.

In fact, I posted something similar a while ago (and people just told me to get TiVO.)

 

[SSGMUN10000]

And I have seen all 107 of them.