While major entertainment corporations are working hard at censoring the internet in the United States through the PROTECT IP Act, it corporate sponsored censorship has already become a reality in the UK thanks to what some have referred to as a landmark court case.

“In my judgment it follows that BT has actual knowledge of other persons using its service to infringe copyright: it knows that the users and operators of Newbin2 infringe copyright on a large scale, and in particular infringe the copyrights of the Studios in large numbers of their films and television programmes," said Justice Arnold. In opposing the order, BT had argued that Newzbin2 also links to lawful content, but the court said it was far outweighed by pirated material and that "BT’s best shot was to point to a reference to the 1891 Lancashire census".

Let’s pause for a moment and think about this. If you are a smart entrepreneur looking for some way to bring into existence a strong successful company, what would be one of two things you would try? One might be to think of a business model that doesn’t exist yet that would potentially have a large demand. The other might be to start a company that follows similarly along the lines of an already existing business model, yet somehow provide healthy competition to compete in an expanding market place.

Now, let’s apply this logic to what we have been witnessing for a while in the DRM-based music business model. An entrepreneur, or in this case, an already existing company, looks at the market place. If the research is done properly, one of many things to note is the fact that Wal*Mart initially started with a DRM-based music store business model. After huge demand, among other things, Wal*Mart eventually dropped DRM in favor of selling DRM-free music.

Of course, Wal*Mart wasn’t the first to try to popularize DRM-based music business models. Perhaps one of the biggest names in this kind of market is Napster 2.0. Napster 2.0 pretty much was the flagship of selling music encoded with DRM over the internet. At first, the model did well, defying some observers expectations. Observers watching things would likely note at the time that the model would never last for long – they were right. Napster 2.0, after month after month of losses in revenue eventually managed to sell what was left to Best Buy.

Adding a third major company is the Microsoft backed MSN Music and URGE. Rumour has it that, in an effort to cut costs to the company, the service shut music fans out of their own music because, again, it was encoded with DRM.

Many experts including the Electronic Frontier Foundation predicted that selling music with DRM would never work and would lead to consumer mistrust and eventual collapse of the stores that support such schemes. For the most part, they were quite accurate with iTunes being the only exception. One might suggest that a DRM business model would only work if there is a monopoly – and that monopoly is iTunes.

So exactly how Nokia concluded that it would be a great model to start up this day and age probably goes along some mysterious line of thinking that DRM is the way to sell music in an effort to combat piracy. From the report:

“The research that we did showed people just fundamentally liked the idea of owning something,” he says. “That’s why you haven’t seen all of these streaming models over the last three to five years really take off.”

Nokia agreed to add DRM to the tracks to “make everyone want to play” and convinced the companies that such a service would help stamp out music piracy. Why trawl Limewire for potentially poor copies of your favourite songs, the argument goes, when you can download as many as you want to your phone?

“This is about attracting people who are not necessarily paying for music today,” Connell explains. “In the UK at Christmas we want parents to walk into Carphone Warehouse and buy this for their kids who maybe are upstairs not necessarily legitimately downloading music. At that point these guys (the record companies) start to really win.”

Connell will not reveal the cost of the service added to the new phones, though the Nokia 5310 Xpress Music phone with the Comes With Music service will sell for £129.95 or $A315 in the UK at launch: about £50 or $A122 on top of its lowest available price.

Unsurprisingly, there doesn’t seem to be any evidence to suggest that DRM is helping to “stamp out music piracy” along with this claim. What DRM has been doing successfully is stamping itself out from collapsing DRM music stores to public outcry over the technology.

Perhaps what is more disturbing is the idea of not allowing any backing up in any form. The feature that allowed Wal*Mart users to burn copy protected music may have saved some grief from angry customers as they came to grips with the fact that their music was no longer being supported by the major box retailer. The Nokia proposition doesn’t even have that. If the company’s music store goes under like many have before, so too will the music that was “purchased” by customers.

And so p2p lives on with the unauthorized downloaders being rewarded with unprotected music while honest customers get punished by losing the music they sank large amounts of money in to. The real question might be, where has Nokia been in the last 7 years?

It was only yesterday that the subject of file-hosting came up in a discussion about link sharing. A report from P2P-Blog pointed to a German court ruling (German) that said that not only does the file-hosting service has to comply with copyright complaints, but also check every file for copyright infringement. Rapidshare’s argument that it is already fighting copyright infringement appears to have not worked. From P2P-Blog:

The company also has to “proactively check content before publishing it” if there have been similar infringements in the past. Rapidshare has to log and check IP numbers of potential infringers as well, according to the court decision.

Rapidshare has been using a MD5 Hash filter to prevent the upload of previously removed material, and it told the court that it it has six employees working full time to remove infringing content. The Hamburg court however ruled that this was not sufficient because infringers would only have to change a few bytes of a file in order to circumvent the filter.

Th court also ruled that Rapidshare cannot argue that it is impossible to stay in business if it would have to check every single file. “A business model that doesn’t use common methods of prevention cannot claim the protection of the law”, the decision reads.

The news may come as a major blow for some who use the service to share files since the site has been one of the most popular services of choice for hosting content and posting links in blogs and forums.

Critics say that the ruling makes no sense because password protected archives would be extremely hard to check in the first place.

Still, the market for file-hosting services is a wide open one with many other sites hoping to take over the top spot as the number one file-hosting service. So even if this move well and truly means the end of Rapidshare, it may be a click away from being replaced from other contenders like MegaUpload.

Others might point out that the ruling may have a chilling effect on web-based services hoping to start up in Germany given that if a service has to check everything for unauthorized content, how can there be any hope for privacy with that service? What about, going along the lines of RapidShare’s argument, additional cost overhead with the need to suddenly have a work-force to go through a service with a fine-toothed comb, looking for any possible misuse of its service by its users?

The lawsuit against RapidShare was filed by GEMA, a German copyright collective whose responsibilities include collecting sampling forms for re-use in derivative works.

Then there is the question of how much things will change in the first place. Many users post non-major record label content on the file-hosting websites. Independent content has built a reputation over the years for being less lawsuit-happy over copyrighted works online. Many of the producers behind the content generally have a more open approach mainly because piracy has been known to bring listeners to their content – something that would otherwise be difficult to impossible with the state of traditional radio and MTV these days.

At this point, it’s too early to tell what the fallout will be exactly, but the idea of logging IP addresses might ultimately be a deterrent for users whether or not they intend to use the service for sharing copyrighted works or not.

For those who think that copyright holders won a major victory here in the so-called war on piracy, there is the one tiny little note that suggests that knocking out one hosting company isn’t exactly the end of file-hosting altogether (link to Wikipedia’s list of file-hosting companies deemed “notable”)

In any event, it’s extremely easy to conclude that this latest legal blow serves no real purpose in the grand scheme of things.

At times, the file-sharing revolution seems to merely overshadow the open content movement instead of pushing it out to the foreground. Instead of a debate on whether or not artists should either copyright their music and stick to an old business model or adopt a new one by taking a Creative Commons license and promoting music online instead, the debate gravitates towards whether it’s right or wrong to download the latest top 40 songs. For the more paranoid, it’s the only way left the major record labels are winning the copyright debates – by simply keeping music fans tied to what they release instead of exploring what non-major record labels or independent musicians have to offer.

So it may be no surprise that some may view this as a side-issue rather than a major breaking news story even when it first broke. It answers one of the major legal questions surrounding open licenses in the US – are licenses like Creative Commons really legally binding? A lower court may have suggested that it’s merely a contractual violation, but the United States Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit overturned that ruling and said that yes, it is basically legally binding and yes, you can be taken to court for copyright infringement if you run afoul of the open license.

Groklaw originally reported on the case – known as the Jacobsen v. Katzer case. For those that find the language in the posting a little too legalese, Lawrence Lessig also blogged about the ruling and explained:

In non-technical terms, the Court has held that free licenses such as the CC licenses set conditions (rather than covenants) on the use of copyrighted work. When you violate the condition, the license disappears, meaning you’re simply a copyright infringer. This is the theory of the GPL and all CC licenses. Put precisely, whether or not they are also contracts, they are copyright licenses which expire if you fail to abide by the terms of the license.

It’s quite important indeed since the creator actually can exercise legal control if the license is being breached and not be almost legally treated like content in the public domain. So what about the case itself? The BBC also covered the story saying that the issue surrounds model trains.

The developer released some code that has to do with model trains. A company picked up the source code and started using it for commercial purposes. The case, of course, has since went to court.

While some people suggest that this latest development doesn’t really affect the status of how legally binding “artistic licenses” are, it’ll be hard to argue around the fact that an appeal affirmed the fact that the licenses are, indeed, enforceable by copyright laws. It seems that the technicality seems to be that it’s not actually a final ruling yet, but many are calling it as final probably because it’s about as good as it’s going to get from the copyright perspective of the license.

Artistic Licenses in Use

While the courts are using the term ‘Artistic Licenses’, some of the key principles to, say, the GPL/GNU and Creative Commons follows a very similar idea – that being that the artist is actually choosing what rights to reserve on a creation.

Most, if not, all major file-sharing clients that are not closed source use the GPL/GNU. Examples include Azureus and eMule (including all the legal mods)

While open source developers use the GPL/GNU licenses as a license of choice for developing (though some use the BSD Licenses too), creators of music, movies and blogs tend to use the Creative Commons license. Usually, the “artistic license”, as termed by the US courts, is open to sharing like file-sharing – meaning it’s actually legal to file-share the content.

While it’s very easy to list off prominent open source projects (the biggest being Linux distributions), listing prominent Creative Commons content is a little more difficult (though exceptions include Elephants Dream, Star Wreck and 50 Foot Wave’s ‘Free Music’ project. Creative Commons is scattered throughout independent music sources such as ArtistServer, SoundClick, SectionZ, eMule’s Content Database, MiniNova’s Content Distribution and Flickr.

Creative Commons is best known for it’s flexibility. If one wants to allow remixing of their content, simply don’t include a ‘No Derivatives’ clause. If commercial distribution is your thing, add a commercial clause. Copyright specialist Molly Kleinman recently wrote a howto guide on the subject. If one is prepared to license their work, they can easily get a free license here and copy and paste the code onto their website.

While downloading may be here to stay and may be one of the internet’s worst kept secrets, there are times when people open to the concept end up being one of the internet’s best kept secrets.

There’s a very interesting report on NewTeeVee about ISPs in the United States either talking about or already ending their UseNet service. The report hits a lot of key point such as the key one of ISPs simply letting the New York Stat atourney general say that it’s because of child pornography that UseNet should stop being offered as opposed to the reality of ISPs simply not willing to invest money into the infrastructure.

According to the report, Time Warner has already announced that it will stop offering UseNet services altogether. Road Runner, one ISP in the US said that few users use UseNet, so they would discontinue it on the 23rd of this month. The article concluded with the following:

Phrases like this usually mean that the service became too expensive to maintain. It’s likely that a few users were generating a lot of bandwidth, causing problems similar to the ones ISPs are facing with BitTorrent, the obvious difference being that Time Warner had to pay additional money to Newshosting for each downloader. Of course, cutting access to Internet services doesn’t really make for good headlines these days, which is why Time Warner must have been relieved when it got some help from the NY State Attorney General. Time Warner Cable’s chief ethics officer, Jeff Zimmerman, told the press yesterday:

“Online child pornography represents one of the worst abuses of the Internet. We stand with Attorney General Cuomo and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in our commitment to helping curb the spread of this abusive content. Among the steps Time Warner Cable is taking (is) removing Newsgroups from our Internet service.”

That sounds a lot better than “Our customer’s TV show downloading habits just got a tad too expensive,” doesn’t it?

UseNet has had an interesting relationship with the average downloader. Premium services offer vast amounts of server space and long data retention times as well. The problem for many is that it costs money – an issue some would rather skip maxed out download speeds and no share ratio’s and go straight to BitTorrent, ED2K or Gnutella to satisfy their download needs. The aspect of paying has caused some debate amongst the file-sharing community such as the idea of paying for a service to get downloads. This generally gets too close to the idea of paying for P2P which is generally associated with scam sites. The general rule is, if you pay for P2P, you’re getting scammed. This is why some opted to use their ISPs free UseNet access for whatever is possible to get out of it. Even if the retention times are, say, less than a week, it’s better than no UseNet at all.

This leads to another related part of the idea of UseNet which generally is associated with the propaganda going against private BitTorrent sites (and also generally false claims perpetuated by the major copyright industry) – private BitTorrent site operators profit off of copyrighted content. This has been a line of attack by the copyright industry for some time against The Pirate Bay and, more recently respectively, against the former OiNK website. What does this have to do with UseNet? Simply put, unlike your average private BitTorrent sites, UseNet users getting premium services actually do have to pay to get in on such a deal. Realistically speaking, the money really goes towards maintaining the servers and handling the bandwidth.

The problem, politically speaking, is that ISPs generally offer free UseNet access because UseNet also provides one of the oldest forms of sending messages. If the copyright industry were to attack UseNet, saying that it’s sole purpose is to pirate content (which is also untrue), it would be extremely easy for ISPs to simply play the safe harbor card because they merely provide access – not control it. Debate would then close and it would be the end of story.

Two questions may arise from this: 1. What if ISPs all simply stopped providing free UseNet? 2. If they all stopped providing UseNet, what if the child exploitation excuse was used against premium UseNet providers? There’s a chance that this particular card could trump the safe harbor provisions for OSPs (Online service Providers) It would be a lot easier to target an obscure company (obscure to the masses that is) than it is to target one of the major ISPs in the country if one were to set aside money issues.

Given that there are a number of users using UseNet to download media through the Alt hierarchy, there would no doubt be industry backing to try and ban the Alt. hierarchy which is where most of the “interesting” posts happen. If at least a good chunk of this theory were to ever come to pass, these events could very well set the wheels in motion for some interesting legal battles related to UseNet in the future – a lot of which centering around the question of ‘what can trump safe harbor?’. Again, we should stress that this is merely worst case scenario theory we’re talking about.

A few additional things to consider:

• The MPAA has gone after NZB indexing sites in the past
• Comcast and other ISPs have engaged in throttling practices with BitTorrent among other protocols
• In spite of safe harbor in the DMCA, ISPs in the US have started warming up to the idea of policing their networks regardless
• In spite of the FCC ruling, the Broadcast Flag has recently made a return in a way that seems to circumvent the ruling anyway (whether it was legal or not is in dispute)

Naturally, there are users who consider UseNet to be one of the (if not, the) safest ways to get content in the first place and any passing threat would be regarded as little more than theory – then again, many thought OiNK would never get shut down either. The difference is that UseNet has been around a number of e-lifetimes longer than OiNK.

Many of you out there are still fans of eMule and the ED2K network. So it’s with you in mind that I created the guide below to help you set up the program and even about where to find content to download.

Table Of Contents

• 1. Download1ing and Installing eMule
• 2. Introduction to eMule, eD2K and Kademlia Networks
• 2.1. The eD2K Network
• 2.2. The Kademlia Network
• 2.3. eD2K Vs. Kademlia
• 3. Customizing eMule
• 3.1. Connection Wizard
• 3.2. The Main eMule Screen And Getting ServerList
• 3.3. Your Preferences
• 3.3.1. General Preferences
• 3.3.2. Display Preferences
• 3.3.3. Connection Preferences
• 3.3.4. Proxy Preferences
• 3.3.5. Server Preferences
• 3.3.6. Directories Preferences
• 3.3.7. Files Preferences
• 3.3.8. Notifications Preferences
• 3.3.9. Statistics Preferences
• 3.3.10. IRC Preferences
• 3.3.11. Security Preferences
• 4. Important things to know
• 4.1. Client ID
• 4.2. eD2K Links
• 4.3. Queue Ranking
• 4.4. Progress Bars
• 4.5. Things to check out
• 5. eD2K Link Sites

1. Downloading And Installing eMule

You can download eMule by Clicking here. The Installation of eMule is actually pretty straight forward. The first thing you will be asked for is your installation language, most of you I would imagine will be selecting English. After you have done this click OK and you will see the Pic to the right of this text. Quickly read it and click OK. Now you will be shown the eMule License Agreement, I recommend you read through it and accept it. Next will have to choose which components you have to install, by default, they are all selected and you shouldn’t change this. Click Next and you will be asked to specify a destination folder, the default folder is fine but if you want to change it to anything else it won’t affect eMule’s performance at all. Now click Install and it should very quickly copy files to the destination directory. You can now click Close. eMule should now appear in your Programs list on the Start Menu. Before we actually get into running and customizing eMule, It is very important that you get an idea of how the Networks function and some background information on eMule. It won’t take long to read over the next section so I advise you don’t skip it. Knowledge of how a network works, can help later on when you are trying to achieve higher download speeds or releasing files on the Network.

2. Introduction to eMule, eD2K and Kademlia Networks

The Original Client that used the Donkey (or eD2K) Network was eDonkey2000. However, many found that eDonkey2000 was generally buggy and that the interface could be improved upon. So the eMule Project came to be, led by a developer called Merkur. Right now, eMule is probably the fastest growing P2P client there is and it owe’s this to it’s open source policy and the many developers that have contributed to it. eMule is developed without any adware or spyware and is completely free. It is developed as a hobby and aims to make no profit. However, donations to its cause are welcome. For more information on eMule and its team of developers visit http://emule-project.net.

2.1. The eD2K Network

As I stated earlier, the eD2K Network began with eDonkey2000. Now there are many clients that use this Network. The Network is run by many different servers, not just one like a lot of other P2P networks. To connect to a server you must first get a server list for your client, we will see this later. When you connect to a server, the server tests to see if other clients can connect to you. If they can connect to you, you will receive a High ID, if they cannot, you will receive a LowID. We will read more about ID later. Once you have connected, your list of shared files will be sent to the server, the server will then add this list of files to the database. The servers do a lot of work including performing searches and gathering sources. Without these servers the Network would be useless and even one of these big servers falling could be fatal to the Network. Files are transferred in chunks, or Parts. Anybody who has downloaded a full part of a file is known as a source. A part of a file is 9.28MB. This Part system means that big files can be spread easily around the Network. We will read later how you can use this to your advantage to achieve higher download speeds.

2.2. The Kademlia Network

Whereas the eD2K Network requires you to connect to servers, Kademlia is a serverless network. Well, it’s serverless to the degree that you wont have to download a massive server list and keep it up to date to use it. Kademlia, sort of, makes a server out of every user. When you connect to the Kademlia Network, you are given an ID if you have a HighID. To connect to the network you require the IP of an eMule client already connected to it. A test like the HighID test in the eD2K Network is then performed, if other clients can connect to you, you will be given an Open status. If they cannot connect to you, you will be given a Firewalled status. If you have a Firewalled status, you will be required to connect to a server because Kademlia doesn’t support Firewalled clients yet, as it is still in it’s testing phase. As a client on the Kademlia Network, you are assigned a responsibility. Each client has a unique Hash ID and your responsibility might be to handle searches for a specific keyword. Then when another client searches the Network, the clients responsible for the keywords are found and the search results can be brought back. This is a pretty clever idea and it makes use of every client connected to the network.

2.3. eD2K Vs. Kademlia

So which network is better than the other?? That is the question you probably would ask first. The answer is.. neither is better. In fact, the only difference between the Networks is how you connect and how source finding and searches are performed. The files on each network are not completely different at all. One however might have more users than the other making the amount of files higher. However, there are some differences between them that have to be noted. Firstly, eD2K depends on Servers to work. If the biggest server collapses the Network potentially could be crippled until more servers come to facilitate. Kademlia however, doesn’t depend on major servers but to work properly would depend on a high client count. eMule now is the only client that supports Kademlia also, whereas many many clients support eD2K which means eD2K will probably for a very long time have far more users than Kademlia. Basically, each has it’s good and bad points, neither Network is perfect and lets not forget, Kademlia is still just in it’s early stages. I, for one, am looking forward to it’s future.

3. Customizing eMule

On your first run of eMule, you will get a Welcome to eMule Window. Here you will have to make some choices and fill in some details. Click Next and you will be asked to specify a nickname, [ link ] will be the default nick. It doesn’t matter if you don’t choose a nick, you can leave it at it’s default or use your own, it’s entirely up to you. Click next and you will be asked if you want to enable the automatic handling of Download Priorities. I personally think you should leave it switched on. Basically it will manage the priority of your downloads so that a download with 2000 sources wont affect one with 100 sources. The download with 2000 would be given normal priority and that with 100 could be given high priority. This will make sure that you get your files as fast as you can. Click Next and you will be asked about Upload Priorities. Basically this means if you are sharing a 2000 source file and a 100 source file, the 100 source file will get more upload priority because it’s a rare file. In my opinion, this option keeps the Network alive and I strongly recommend that you leave it switched on. Click Next, Now you will be asked about Full chunk transfer. If this is switched off, then your upload queue will empty quicker but it means you might not upload full chunks of files to a client. If you are a releaser of files you will definitely want this option switched on. I personally leave it on because spreading full chunks of files helps the Network to function better. Click Next again, now you will be asked a few different questions. First of all, this guide is for the eD2K Network, so select that as your Network. You can also select Kad if you wish to test it out. Safe Connect is next, basically if you tick this option beneath it, then connecting to servers might be a lot quicker but the chance of a LowID is higher. A LowID is not a good thing as you will read later so I recommend you leave this option off. You can also choose whether or not you want eMule to auto connect at startup, this is completely up to you aswell, if it matters, I don’t have this option selected because I like to choose different servers. Click Next now and click Finish.

3.1. Connection Wizard

After you have completed the “Welcome To eMule” wizard you will see the Connection Wizard pop up.It will look exactly like the pic to the right of this text. Later on we will be looking more into the Connection Settings but it’s best to sue the wizard to determine many of the settings. First of All, You have to select the Operating System you are using. Win XP and Win2K are known to handle multiple connections better than 98 or ME. For this reason, they are Higher recommended when running eMule. Selecting the wrong Operating System will cause eMule to run sluggish so make sure you have the right option selected. Concurrent Downloads DOES NOT mean maximum downloads. Remember that when selecting this. This option is there to determine the maximum amount of Sources you can have for a file. If you plan on only downloading 1-5 downloads at once then the maximum number of sources will be much higher than 6-15. Depending on your connection this source limit will be determined by eMule. As you can see I have selected 6-15 because I believe that eMule works its best when you have more than a few downloads. A single download might be slow but if you have others going at the same time too it doesn’t really matter to you because another might download faster. However, if you have a pretty slow connection I wouldn’t recommend that you download a lot at once, as the constant source asking and connecting might just kill your connection altogether. Now Last but definitely not least, you have to select your Connection Type. Please remember this is VERY important as it helps to determine your maximum download and upload speed as well as also being a factor in the max sources per file. Scroll through the list and if you see your connection in the list (as I have found mine, 1024/256) then select it and click Apply. If its not in the list, select Custom and put in the value’s yourself. If you do not know what to put in here, you should know. But it is easy to find out, just refer to any documentation you got with your connection or any advertisements for it,. You might see it say something like “Download Speeds Up to 512kb/s and Upload speeds of up to 128kb/s”. If this is the case it’s in the list, if the value’s you find are not in the list, then use the Custom Option. Finding out your Connection values is a vital factor and will determine how eMule performs for both uploading and downloading.

3.2. The Main eMule Screen And Getting ServerList

My Apologies for the horrible quality of the picture that accompanies this text, I had to resize it to fit the layout, I may add a full size screenshot to the forum but I’m sure you’ll understand what I’m saying anyway. So looking at the main eMule screen now, let me explain to you what you are looking at. There are 6 parts to it, The button bar at the top, the server list in the middle, Serverinfo and Logs tabs under the serverlist, server handling on the left and My Info. eMule has expanded since it first was released and now there is much more to cover in this tutorial than there was before. The very first thing we are going to do with eMule is get it a serverlist. If you look at the program to the left you will see a box that says Update Server.met From URL. This is what we are going to do here. Paste [ link ] into the box and click Update. There should now be many more Servers listed. To find the servers with the most users, look at the server list then look at the tiny buttons over it that say things like Server Name, IP, Description etc. Scroll across to where it says users and click it, It should now organize them by their user count. On my Pic, razorback2 is 565K users, that’s a lot of users for just one server. When you connect to a server you also may receive new servers to your list. This is very handy because if you connect to a lot of servers it sort of eliminates the need to keep updating serverlists, but I would still recommend you keep it a common practice. Now before you connect to a server, we have a long road of preferences to go through so let’s begin, click Preferences.

3.3. Your Preferences

This section will help you to customize your eMule client by changing certain preferences to suit you.

3.3.1. General Preferences

The first thing you will see is your General Preferences. Here you can change your Nick or Language from what you set in the Welcome Wizard. Under Miscellaneous you have a few more options. Beep On Errors will do exactly as it says, Bring To Front On Link Click means that if you click an eD2K link from a website, eMule will add it to the Download List and eMule will display itself in front of any other programs you have running. If you are not familiar with eD2K links, don’t worry about it, I’ll be going over them later in the guide. Enable Online Signature is another option that comes with eMule, there are programs out to edit and create online sig’s but I won’t be going over them in this guide. Prompt On Exit can be useful, basically it means that if you go to close eMule it will ask you if you are sure. For those of us who keep a lot of programs open and swap between the, all the time, this is useful because if we accidentally hit Close instead of Minimize we will not lose our sources or current download speed. If eMule closes, your Queue’s are gone and you will have to gather the sources all over again when you re-run it. Now under Startup are more options that you can configure. First of all Check for new version should always be checked, but the amount of days between checks is up to you, I like the Splashscreen but maybe for people with slower PC’s you might want to disable this. Start Minimized would be useful maybe if you were remotely starting eMule (i believe some irc programs like klipper can remotely start emule if you send an email to it). Now we’ll skip over Edit Webservices but we cannot ignore the eD2K Links button. If you have another client installed that uses the eD2K network, it may have set itself up to accept eD2K Links, which means, if you click a link to a file on the donkey network, that client will open and add it to its download list, not eMule. If the button is grayed out then it’s ok, eMule will accept eD2K links for you, but if it’s not, click it and set it to accept eD2K Links. Now click the Display button on the left.

3.3.2. Display Preferences

This is not vitally important but cool if you like to change the way eMule looks. Progressbar Style in my opinion is fine the way it is. The Progress Bars, are the bars in the transfers window for Downloads and Uploads. You will learn later about what the different colour’s mean on these bars. Leave Tooltip delay time the way it already is. Download list doubleclick to expand should be left the way it is. Basically when you are downloading something, if you doubleclicki it, you will see a list of sources you are downloading from. Indicate downloads with comments/ratings by icon also should be left on. When you are downloading something, if someone has made a comment, a little icon will appear beside the download, you can right click and choose to view comments. You will also notice the icon’s change for good and bad comments. Show percentage of download completion in progressbar is another option many people might go for because its like a standard on other P2P networks. I however couldn’t be bothered with it. Show transfer rates on title will just put the upload and download speed on the title bar of eMule, its up to you if you want that option. Show download info on category tabs is again up to you. Category tabs can be useful if you download a lot. If you go to the transfers window and look at the download, you will see a little tab that says All. If you right click this you can add in your own categories likes Video, Archives etc. Minimize To System Tray is again useful for those of us who run a lot of programs at once. it will put eMule into the system tray when minimized as a tiny icon that you can double click to maximize.Auto clear complete downloads might be handy for someone who downloads a lot but as many have said before there is something nice about seeing a download complete because the progress bar goes completely green, you can then right click and run the file. Now there is a little box that is below, I will let you decide if you want to disable known clients list (known clients are basically people you have uploaded to or downloaded from, this wont stop you or them from getting credit, it will just remove the list from eMule to save RAM), Disable Queue List (This wont stop upload queue’s it will just disable the list to save resources), Don’t update Queue list in real time (this one should be ticked because if you are sharing a lot of files the queue will get big, if it updates in real time it will take more resources constantly to keep updating like that) and Don’t recreate statistic graphs on resize (you can see the graphs under statistics window, just look and you will understand them). You can also now edit the font display for servers, messages and irc windows. Auto completion (history function) should remain enabled. You also have a handy reset button there if you make a mistake and something looks wrong. Now please click Connection.

3.3.3. Connection Preferences

The wizard you filled in earlier will already have determined a lot of the settings here but still we can mess with a few. If you can remember, I set my connection to 1024/256. Therefore, downloading would be possible at about 128kb/s down and 32kb/s up. Now you can change your Download Capacities anytime you want but if the wizard set it based on your entries, you should leave it. As for Download Limits you can just untick the little checkbox to make it unlimited. However, with Upload Limits you should never go higher than about 75% of your upload capacity. If you do and you try to use the internet you will notice a change. However, if you get cheeky and try to set your Upload Limit low, eMule will punish you. Now it wont exactly do anything bad but you will get very low credit and hence you will get very low download speeds. So remember, sharing helps you download faster so you should share as much as you possibly can. Your Clientport is the port used by eMule. Some ISP’s have become aware of port 4662 and blocked it. You will know this if you keep getting LowID’s or if a server warns you that it has been blocked. You can change your Clientport to any port that you like though. Next you see your Hard Limit and this is the maximum sources per file. This figure has been gotten from the wizard earlier if you can remember. Now you can change your Hard limit to anything higher if you think your connection can handle it. I think mine is really set at about 1500 because a lot of the files I download might not have more than 500 sources anyway. Connection Limit is important. You cant set it too low because if you do, eMule might struggle, if you set it too high, eMule might cause your internet connection to become fully used up. So leave it at the value that the wizard set it to. Some more options here include Autoconnect on startup (basically it will connect to a server as soon as eMule starts), Reconnect on Loss (this will find an alternative server if you lose connection to one you are currently on) and Show overhead bandwidth (this is not really important, overhead is kind of like the bandwidth you use requesting files from sources and getting search results). You can also select what Network you are using or both. If you want to run the wizard again, as you will see there is another link there for it. Please click the Proxy button.

3.3.4. Proxy Preferences

eMule supports the use of many different types of Proxy Servers on the eD2K Network. It supports Socks 4, Socks 4a, Socks 5 and HTTP 1.1. For any reader who doesn’t know much about proxy server’s I’ll explain. A proxy server kind of acts like a middle man between your computer and another. For example, if you were uploading to a user and you were using a Socks 5 proxy, the data would go from you, to the proxy and then to the remote user. So why would you want this? Basically many people would like to have themselves anonymous on P2P networks. Proxy servers can provide anonymity because the IP Address the remote user will be receiving a file from wont be yours, it will be the proxy’s IP. So it would probably limit bandwidth a bit but it can provide excellent security on the Network. While eMule supports proxy’s, with a HTTP 1.1 proxy there is no way that you can receive a High ID. HTTP 1.1 proxy’s are there so you can surf websites anonymously, not share files. Therefore, it would only work through specific ports and bandwidth would probably be very very limited. Still, if you want to try a http 1.1 proxy, go ahead, you can find many anonymous proxies at http://www.proxy4free.com. I don’t use Proxy server’s on eMule however so I cant provide any test results or anything since I haven’t ran any. I would like to hear on the forums from users who try it with a Socks5 or Socks4 proxy is that is possible. Now we will move onto Server, so click Server.

3.3.5. Server Preferences

Here are a nice list of things you can change related to servers. First of all Remove Dead Servers is a good option because it will keep your serverlist clean. Auto-update serverlist at startup is also pretty handy, you can click list and add in where to retrieve a serverlist from. Update serverlist when connecting to a server is a must have, when you connect to a server it sends a list, then the list is checked against yours and any you don’t have it adds to it. Update serverlist when a client connects is pretty much the same thing, just with other clients. Use priority system is good too, because you can change the priority of servers and if you are auto connecting at startup, or if you lose connection to a server, servers with high priorities will be selected first. You can change the priority of a server by right clicking it in the server list. Use smart LowID check on connect should be left checked, when you get a LowID its nice to know you need to do something about it at least. Many users probably don’t ever realize. We’ve already seen Safe Connect in the wizard earlier. Autoconnect to servers in static list only is basically there because some people prefer to connect to a static server. Static server is like a static IP it never changes. Set manually added servers to high priority will set servers you completely add yourself (that includes the IP address and port number, not when you add a serverlist) to higher priority that the rest of the list. So basically you see that you have a few options there related to servers. Once again its entirely up to you if you want to change any of these options, none of them will really destroy the performance of eMule so don’t worry. Now lets move on to Directories, click Directories.

3.3.6. Directories Preferences

Ok the life of eMule is the sharers and EVERYBODY who uses eMule should share. There is no excuse. Some people try to use the excuse that they are afraid to share on P2P networks because of organizations or corporations that might be monitoring them. Unfortunately, if you feel this way, you shouldn’t be using P2P at all. It’s not fair to attempt to eat off others and give nothing back. Now that I have that said, let’s look at the preferences. First of all, the default Incoming Files and Temporary Files folders will be listed. These folders are perfectly fine but if you wish to change them to any other folders there is no problem with that. Now to select shared directories, click the little + sign beside the drive and then beside the folders etc. Now if you select a folder, it will share all the files in that folder but if there are any folders inside it (or its subdirectories as they are known) they will NOT be selected. If you want those folders selected too, then when you are clicking the folder, hold down CTRL and it will select all the subdirectories inside it, and of course all the folders in those folders for however long the trail goes on. Now the last part is UNC paths. This is for remote paths for drives that are no on your machine but might be across a network. Just remember to add in the computer name, for example computer02cdownloads. So that’s how easy it is to setup a shared directory in eMule, let’s move on to Files now.

3.3.7. Files Preferences

Here are some options for file handling you might want to change. First of all, See my shared files/directories will allow anybody (or just those on your friends list) see your shared directories. They would do this by right clicking on you when you ar eon their friends list, or in their download queue as a source, then clicking view files. Most people prefer to keep this set to Nobody, but it’s up to you. Intelligent Corruption Handling should be left selected because file transfers have many different ways of becoming corrupt. If a part is corrupt, eMule would either re-download the part or recover the corruption. Now look at the Initializations box. Add files to download in paused mode might be handy for someone who plans on downloading a lot of files. You might have to pause some instead of choking your connection. Add new shared files with auto priority will be selected depending on what you put in the wizard earlier. It basically means that when new shared files come along, it will give them priority based on their popularity on the network. Add new downloads with auto priority is pretty much the same as what happens with shared files only it’ll be with files added to your download list. To make sure you get rare files and popular files properly you should leave this ticked. Cleanup Filenames is a nice little option. Basically some sites that offer links of files on the network will use the eD2K link to add the name of the site onto the filename. Here you can add words separated by quotes, then if they appear on filenames they will be filtered off. Now back to the other options, Try to transfer full chunks to all uploads will again be selected depending on what you set in the wizard earlier. I recommend it because uploading full chunks will make the networks users downloading files that pause for a long time with just a little bit to go more rare. Try to download first and last chunks first has some good things about it, like to preview a video file, you would need the first chunk. Whether you select it or not is up to you. Watch clipboard for eD2K links is an option that does exactly what it says, but I never really bothered with it, but of course, you can try it out if you want. Start next paused file if a file completes is probably needed by those people who download a lot of files and often have a few paused. When a file completes it will resume the next in line. Now look at the Video Player box. There have been external programs written that help to preview video files but I wont be covering those programs in this guide. You can add a video player in if you want however. Also Create backup to previewshould be selected. When you go to preview it will take a while to open the file but its the best way to do it. Anyway, now we are on to Notifications.

3.3.8. Notifications Preferences

Notifications in eMule were added kind of just to make some users happy I would think. All they essentially do is alert you on an event really. Pop up messages can come up in eMule and you might have no idea, so maybe making a sound play when it does is a good option, its up to you. The Pop out when box has a few extra features some users might find handy. Basically I’m not even going to go through them because if you look at them and read them, it really could not be more straight forward than it already is. Click Statistics now please.

3.3.9. Statistics Preferences

eMule has a statistics windows that some people might like to look at to see how much they have downloaded or uploaded altogether, these are some preferences for its display. Take a look at the statistics windows before you look at the preferences. This is also pretty straight forward. You can adjust the time delays for graphs to update, select background colour’s etc but I’m not going to explain this either because it’s far too straight forward. Move on to IRC.

3.3.10. IRC Preferences

eMule has a built in IRC client. Here you can select a nickname, it can be anything, it doesn’t have to be what you picked to be your eMule Nickname. The Channel List filter will only display channels with a name that you choose or a certain amount of users. If you entered 100 as the value, only channels with 100+ users would be displayed when you connect to IRC. The Perform string is basically a line of text you can pout in that will be sent to the server on connection, it could be /join #emule to make sure you join the eMule support channel when you connect. Now there are a lot of options in Miscellaneous box so I’ll run quickly through them. Play sound events is not really needed, i have never had it selected when I used to use eMule IRC. Connect to help channel will automatically connect you to #emule when you connect. This is a nice little trick by the eMule team which has made them usually with 1000+ users on the channel. Load server channel list on connect will display all the channels on the server when you get connected, if you have decided to filter anything you probably wont get the full list. Add timestamp to messages is something that should always be selected in my opinion. It will simply add the time the message was said in front of the message. You have the option to Ignore Info Messages too. Ignore Misc info messages should be left alone as it really isn’t annoying or does any harm, Ignore Join info messages will make sure that when someone joins a channel that it wont announce it on your screen, this can be annoying on a channel with a lot of users. Ignore Part info messages will make sure that when a user parts from a channel it wont be announced and Ignore Quit info messages will stop the announcement of a user quitting the network. You can also Ignore eMule Protocol Messages. This is basically the same as Ignoring Info messages above it so I’ll let you decide between the two options. Accept eD2K links in IRC means that you will be able to click eD2K links in IRC so that the file it references will begin downloading in eMule and From Friends Only will only accept eD2K links from users who are in your friends list. Now on to Security settings.

3.3.11. Security Preferences

These are your security preferences. First of all your IP Filter can be very useful. While i wont be covering most of it I’ll give you some information on it in case you would like to use this option. Basically if you build an ip filter list with a lot of IP ranges in it, if those ranges show up in either your upload or download queue, they will be blocked out. These can include anything from law enforcement to hackers. If you wish to get an ip filter list, go to google and search IPFilter.dat im sure you’ll find a result. In the Messages box you can choose to Filter messages containing certain words or phrases. You can also Accept from friends only which will mean if any msg’s you and they are not on your friends list, you wont even receive it. Accept from valid clients only will make sure you don’t get messages from fake clients that might be trying to spam you or something and the Advanced Spamfilter should always be switched on. In the Comments box you can choose to filter any comments that contain words of your choice. In the Miscellaneous box you should leave Leave Secure Identification ticked and leave Run eMule as unprivileged User unticked. This is the last preferences we will go over since the scheduler is straight forward, web interface will not be covered in this guide and extended settings are also straight forward enough for you to work it out. Now I will cover some things you should know.

4. Important things to know

I can understand this guide can be boring but it’s nearly finished and some of the things coming are a lot more interesting so no worries. Here are some things that are nice to know of in eMule.

4.1. Client ID

Remember I told you that you get an ID everytime you connect to a server? Well it can be low unfortunately and that is bad for you. So what is a LOWID? Its when your client port is unreachable basically. Its usually a firewall or a router that is causing the trouble and often even your isp. A LowID is an ID lower than 16777216. So how can you try to defeat it? First try changing client port to 80 instead of 4662 (make sure to restart emule afterwards). To give full access to port 4662 and eMule on your firewall. Or to configure your router for port forwarding for your client port. Unfortunately sometimes a Client ID is very hard to fix.

4.2. eD2K Links

eD2K Links are links that can be added to webpages that when clicked will start a file downloading in eMule. The page that has the eD2K link does not offer the file at all just references to a file already on the eD2K Network so it’s legal and should stay that way. At the end of the tutorial are some links to Websites that post eD2K links. To get an eD2K link of a file that you are sharing, go to shared files in eMule and right click on one, you can then click, Copy link to Clipboard. This helps if you are trying to release a file on the Network.

4.3. Queue Ranking

What you see to the right is queue ranking.You can see this if you go to a download in your list and double click it. Basically when you queue on a source you need a position in their queue. As you can see, I am pretty close to the first few before they transfer to me and the one on top is currently transferring data to me. You can improve your QR by uploading (remember the credit system?). It’s also the same for other people too, they get a position open your queue. If you look under transfers and click the Uploads button, it changes to On Queue and then Known Clients.

4.4. Progress Bars

Please excuse the measurements of the pic appearing on top of the progress bars, nothing I could do about it. Anyway, the colour’s are, Red – A part you don’t have + is not found on any source, Blue – Available part, the darker the blue, the more available it is, Black – A part you have downloaded and Yellow – A part you are currently downloading. A bar gone fully Green means complete. The numbers can be explained easy. The first number is the amount of sources you are queued on, the second is the total number found and the number in brackets, the number of sources transferring to you right now. So as you can see its not complicated or anything.

4.5. Things to check out

There is more to eMule than I have added to this guide and over time you will notice the little extra things about it. What you should do is right click on downloads and uploads and see the options you have with them, also with shared files. There are also new things under the Tools button. There is a lot for you to check out yourself, this guide has just shown you how to use it. I didn’t ass in searching for files because honestly, it couldn’t be any easier, If you choose to search local, then you will search just one server or you can select global server which will bring back results from all servers. You have to be connected to search. There are also other programs that work for eMule like Donkey Doctor that you might like to check out, they can help sort out a lot of problems you can encounter with downloads.

5. eD2K Link Sites

This is a list of sites that post eD2K links. They do not offer any pirated downloads, they only offer links to files on the eD2K network and therefore are not really doing anything wrong.

• http://tvunderground.org.ru/
• http://peerates.net/peerates/index.html

It may seem like a bit of nostalgia for some. In 2006 in the US, there was a bill that could have changed the internet to have so-called ‘fast-lanes’ and ‘slow-lanes’. The questions lawmakers were tackling was whether telecommunication companies had the right to prioritize traffic. Google, at the time, was called a “freeloader” and some Internet Service Provider companies wanted to charge websites a fee to have their traffic prioritized. The claim was that as traffic on the internet increased, so would the stress on the general network.

File-sharing wasn’t spared from the debate either. Networks, namely BitTorrent, were blamed for a large amount of stress on ISP networks. BitTorrent tried to implement the Cache Discovery Protocol which would allow popular kinds of traffic to be cached, thus reducing network stress.

More predominantly, many ISPs chose to simply block or shape the traffic instead. This sparked outrage by content creators, among many others and intensified the network neutrality debate.

Apparently, the BBC liked the idea of caching traffic and proposed a caching system to reduce the network load for ISPs for their iPlayer. Some have suggested that the BBC pay for the additional traffic load.

There was a further suggestion that fiber optics be laid in through existing infrastructure like sewers. Some say it’s an interesting possible solution.

Via NewTeeVee.

Promising to help students learn how to protect their computer, data, and identity, it’s ‘Security Awareness Week’ at Arizona State University, and today’s schedule includes a talk by the RIAA’s VP of technology, David Hughes.

The RIAA is apparently taking its recent crackdown on college campus file-sharing from the mailbox to the streets, embarking on what is presumably the first in a series of face to face meetings with students across the country so as to have a chance to look them in the eye and scare them straight in person.

There’s no word on whether Mr. Hughes will have them practice writing $3,000 USD settlement checks but, I’m sure he’ll be mentioning it over, and over, and over, and over again.

Now we all know how misguided the RIAA’s litigation strategy has been from practically the very start but, is it just me or does this new “In Your Face Tour” seem like it’s taking things to the next level? I mean what’s next, teams of RIAA tech guys going to elementary, middle, and high schools telling kids to “Dare not to use P2P?” or “Just Say No to P2P?”

What will be funny to see is how many students in the audience get a chance to stand up and ask Mr. Hughes why it is suing it’s supposedly “best customers,” and the customers who can least afford the $3000 USD bucks that it is demanding in each case?

Considering that the cost of in-state tuition at ASU is $4,688 a year, the prospect of some students having to tack on almost an extra year’s worth of tuition is bound to anger more than a few people, especially if it’s over a handful of songs by mediocre artists. The fact that it’s part of an event called “Carnival of Jeopardy” only worsens the matter I’m sure.

The RIAA blames file-sharing for the precipitous decline in CD sales music revenue but, isn’t it the fact that people can now now buy digital singles off of the likes of iTunes instead of being saddled with the $20 dollar cost of a physical CD filled with tracks they don’t want or won’t listen to? Hmm, the RIAA never talks about that one.

In any event, for those of you who attend ASU, “RIAA & Copyright Issues” will be held early this afternoon from 10 – 11:15 a.m. in Computing Commons Auditorium 120.

digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/Carnival_of_Jeopardy_RIAA_to_lecture_students_at_ASU_today’;

RELATED NEWS AND “HOW TO” GUIDES:
RIAA “explains” its crackdown on student file-sharing
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3 Quick Ways to Watch Movies for FREE!
3 quick ways to watch TV shows for FREE
BitTorrent tracker sites & search engines
Azureus – A Beginner’s Guide to BitTorrent Downloading
Watch The Simpsons, The Office, Jackass, South Park, Lost, X-Men, and More On-Demand For Free

SOULXTC: “walkin’ the streets of P2P”

PUBLIC SITES

PRIVATE SITES

PUBLIC SITES

Public sites consist mainly of search engines that provide you with links to BitTorrent trackers from sites catalogued in their database. There is also the type of public site that has an open-ended membership or registration requirement, meaning that you must register, but they never limit the sum total of members.

I’ll first go over a few of the public site search engines and then follow up with a few of the open-ended membership sites afterwards.

The most popular public site search engine is probably Pirate Bay , but it is also, in my opinion, one of the worst. The trackers usually suffer from poor seeder to leecher download ratios, meaning long and drawn out download times for a given file you are seeking. But, to be fair, I have also found some cool stuff on Pirate Bay so it can be worth your time if you find yourself looking for rare or odd stuff.

For instance, as shown in the picture below, found this random movie “Baraka.” It’s labeled as a “good pot movie.” My friend who actually downloaded it said it was definitely a good pot movie. I don’t know about the last entry, “Guitars on Mushroom,” but it does sound kinda cool. To note though, notice the number of seeders and leechers. With “Baraka,” you have 3 seeders and 3 leechers. Now for a 700MB movie be prepared for it to take a while. In this case my buddy says it’s worth it, but for say a Britney Spears video? Fugetaboutit!

TorrentSpy is also another popular public site search engine. My buddy has found it useful from time to time for things like TV shows, or just random things that pop into his head. It usually has pretty decent download speeds, thanks to the way it’s database is connected externally to a number of private defined-membership sites like Demonoid .

To prove that it has better download speeds I punched in the same “Baraka” flic. If you notice in the image below it has a much much better download ratio, with 32 seeders and 36 leechers. Now that’s a ratio that will add years to your life.

My friend has also found it to be useful for finding everything from flics and TV shows to XBOX and PS2 games. It really runs the gamut of desired media.

The last public site search engine I’ll cover is Mininova . To quickly compare and contrast it to the other two, TorrentSpy and PirateBay I’ll use the same search query “Baraka.”

As shown below it has 29 seeders and 19 leechers. That’s not as good as TorrentSpy but still a heckuva lot better than PirateBay . My buddy has noticed too that it can be useful for finding random things as well, like new flics or even all things Howard Stern (Hey now). So you’ll want to bookmark this site as well.

As far as public sites with open-ended registration, there really isn’t too many out there. They are typically narrow in scope, offering a single category of media for downloaded. XBOX-Sky is a perfect example, solely offering XBOX backup games for download. Another is Red Skunk Tracker which is a Howard Stern exclusive site. It offers audio and video of any imaginable thing related to his show and nothing more. These particular sites, as I said, are few in number and narrow in scope, but you will find them on occasion in the vast sea that is BitTorrent.

PRIVATE SITES

These are sites that have a strictly controlled or defined membership base, limiting it’s numbers to invite or infrequent registration only. The reasoning behind this is to both prevent intrusion by the powers that be, i.e. RIAA, MPAA, FBI, OPP, THC, etc., etc.. Now in covering these sites I will not include screenshots per my buddy’s pleading. He cherishes his memberships and also their very existence, and by showing what they have for download could prove detrimental to either.

For music, my buddy claims OINK as his favorite. He cites it’s breathtaking trove of rare and popular music alike as well as it’s vast assortment of PC and MAC programs in making this assessment. I have seen some of the stuff he has downloaded and it does indeed run the gamut of the musical spectrum. He has obtained rare concert bootlegs seen nowhere else but in the Pink Palace that is OINK . It’s beauty is truly breathtaking when it comes to music.

Demonoid is a good place to find TV shows and random PBS and BBC documentaries. It has a number of things available as well, but again, my buddy claims it’s true greatness lies in these fore mentioned items.

Torrentit, TorrentLeech, and FileList are the mainstays when it comes to getting flics. My buddy won’t say or show exactly what he’s gotten from these sites, but he claims they have the “bestest of the best.” What makes these private sites so powerful is in the way their membership is strictly controlled. Ones download ratio is thereby the mark by which he is judged by the all powerful ADMINS that run them. Let your ratio get too low and you get the boot. Thus, members are very mindful about leaving items open and available for download, making for tremendous download speeds that oftentimes max out ones connection speed. For entrance to these sites, one usually must be invited by someone else. They sometimes have open registration, but it is rare and infrequent, so don’t get your hopes up.

In short, there are a wide variety of BitTorrent sites out there, both public and private. It takes some time and a little legwork to find those that, like I said, best suit your needs and oftentimes patience, but it can be done.

Note: If you are new to the BitTorrent “download scene,” a guide on getting started can be found HERE at ZEROPAID.

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