Hollywood could not kill bittorrent

[cuplatnum]

January 7, 2005: 6:35 PM EST
By Krysten Crawford, CNN/Money staff writer
NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - Shortly after Hollywood launched a major offensive against Internet pirates last month, two popular Web sites for stealing movies shut down.

But no sooner had Suprnova.org and Bittorrent.org pulled the plug then copycat sites appeared in their place. What's more, BitTorrent, the technology targeted in the movie industry crackdown, appears to be as popular as ever.

BitTorrent remains the most common "peer-to-peer" technology used by Internet users looking to swap files, both legal and illegal, according to CacheLogic, a British company that monitors peer-to-peer traffic. CacheLogic estimates that just over half of all Internet file-sharing uses BitTorrent software.

In general there has been very little reduction in the levels of BitTorrent traffic across the globe," said Andrew Parker, the company's founder and chief technology officer. "As many of the (BitTorrent) sites...were being shut down, new ones sprung up."

Parker said he was surprised that BitTorrent usage has not noticeably declined. He noted that when the music industry launched its counteroffensive against Internet pirates by suing users of Kazaa, then the No. 1 peer-to-peer service, file-swappers quickly shifted to newer technologies, including BitTorrent and another one called eDonkey.

The massive shift away from Kazaa took about two months, said Parker.

But with BitTorrent, a similar exodus isn't happening -- at least not yet. And that speaks both to the wiliness of the BitTorrent technology and the big obstacles that Hollywood faces as it tries to avoid a crisis similar to the one that struck the music industry when Napster set off what amounted to a massive online looting of songs.

BitTorrent, a different kind of threat
"I'm not in any way surprised" that BitTorrent continues to thrive, said Eric Garland, the CEO of BigChampagne, a peer-to-peer research firm. He notes that BitTorrent is a different technology than traditional peer-to-peer software like Kazaa and Morpheus.

Instead of acting as a central repository that connects users who want to share music or other files, BitTorrent is essentially homeless.

It's simply a technology that makes downloading easier and faster. While BitTorrent is good at swapping data between computers, explains Parker, users have to find the files they want themselves. That's what led to Suprnova.org and other sites set up specifically to tell users what BitTorrent files are available and where to find them.

The sites, which essentially act as conduits between downloaders and BitTorrent files, were the primary target of last month's campaign, in which the Motion Picture Association of America filed 100 lawsuits against BitTorrent and other index sites around the world.

"The reason BitTorrent will be persistent and will continue to be disruptive or troubling is that the MPAA went after some of the most-trafficked Web sites that essentially point users to these files, but that doesn't impact the technology at all," said Garland. "What happen is mirror sites pop up, in some cases within minutes."

[Betamax]

Neverheard of bittorrent.org, maybe they meant to say torrentbits?

[tackdaddy]

i hate to sat it but sometime in the near future the goverment will outlaw p2p and make it a crime.

[MrCoggy]

i hate to sat it but sometime in the near future the goverment will outlaw p2p and make it a crime.

No..they won't.

No more than they have banned video recorders, CD recorders, DVD recorders. P2P has a fair use and to try and impose a worldwide ban on it would be impossible and illegal.

[RACKnRAIL]

No..they won't.

No more than they have banned video recorders, CD recorders, DVD recorders. P2P has a fair use and to try and impose a worldwide ban on it would be impossible and illegal.

I tend to agree. The authorities cannot outlaw something that isn't breaking any laws. Like p2p file sharing. It is the sharing of copyrighted material that they would like to put an end to and forever, but we'll see.

[Mels_Smileys45]

I wonder how popular it is today? I would like to see what CacheLogic has to say. I bet the internet just got a whole lot faster in some areas

[notbob]

I wonder how popular it is today? I would like to see what CacheLogic has to say. I bet the internet just got a whole lot faster in some areas

nope

we're talking about mostly teens and 20s here, and everyone knows bad stuff happens to someone else

the bandwidh users of bt aren't going to give up, a few noobs might be scared off

kazaa lost a lot of users when all the 30+ year old lamers got scared and took off, but people who know what they are doing (or think they do) won't be scared away so easily

[c411Z]

mr. coggy heard of patriot act II ? well we dont have those freedoms protections or any constitutional rights any longer and our way of life has been hijacked by lifelessness

and we are life. communicate empathize my statagies and sugest voluntary deprivlaging or mass lemming style euthenasia death.

[notbob]

mr. coggy heard of patriot act II ? well we dont have those freedoms protections or any constitutional rights any longer and our way of life has been hijacked by lifelessness

and how do you propose to fix it? sentence fragments and flowery words?

you've got no ammo if you are trying to use your mind as a weapon

[mfgbypooter]

mr. coggy heard of patriot act II ? well we dont have those freedoms protections or any constitutional rights any longer and our way of life has been hijacked by lifelessness

Forget the patriot acts, that's all just a smoke screen. You've never had any "constitutional rights" to begin with.
Believing you've ever had "constitutional rights" is all just a wet dream in which when you finally wake up you'll find yourself dry.

LMAO@notbob "you've got no ammo if you are trying to use your mind as a weapon"

.

[msalvarez]

They will never outlaw P2P. So many companies and legal entities use it to transfer information that it would be impossible for them to do so. The most the can do is to tax the use of the net. In fact, RIAA and MPAA can lobby for a tax so they can recover losses from piracy. Kinda like the tax canada has on CDR's

[the great one]

and how do you propose to fix it? sentence fragments and flowery words?

you've got no ammo if you are trying to use your mind as a weapon

Darn,you took my line Notbob!LOL!

[shawners]

We rob the people who robbed us after all these years.. Its justice. How many times we pay money out for something and not being able to get a refund if its crappy product.

[infringer]

No..they won't.

No more than they have banned video recorders, CD recorders, DVD recorders. P2P has a fair use and to try and impose a worldwide ban on it would be impossible and illegal.

They are trying to do this in the background but they will fail miserably and even if they did make it work someone would simply sell hard drive based players... And then there back at square 1 really because to outlaw hard drives would simply make computers unusuable.

I dont forsee them passing any laws because of the vast usage of media to store and record legit content and back it up using these things. They will fail and fail miserably.

-infringer-

[infringer]

and how do you propose to fix it? sentence fragments and flowery words?

you've got no ammo if you are trying to use your mind as a weapon

Hrmmm you would be up a creek without a paddle as well...

-infringer-