AfterDawn: News

Extinction event for BitTorrent web sites

The raids have definitely had an impact. The authorities have recently had their target on the sites offering BitTorrent links, busting down web sites around the globe. Since the MPAA raids last week, several major BitTorrent sites have been quick to shut down their operations. BitTorrent was the rising star in the P2P scene, but now it seems that in the future it will only be used what it was designed for - efficiently distributing legal content, and saving content provider bandwidth.

Nevertheless, the creator of the technology, Bram Cohen, said he's not surprised at the latest developments. BitTorrent was always designed for efficient distribution of big files, not underground file-swapping that has to keep a step ahead of the law, he said. Some of the same features that made it useful have rendered it deeply susceptible to the overnight crisis in which the file traders have now found themselves.

"It's weird that it hasn't happened sooner," Cohen said. "The main reason warez (a slang term for illegally distributed software) has become so big is that it hasn't been cracked down on. They've been getting away with being pretty flagrant."

Source: CNET.com

Written by: Lasse Penttinen @ 21 Dec 2004 9:50

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• 9 comments

• daemonzx6

  Killing BitTorrent sites isn't a good way to promote legal usage. I have found many legal torrents on sites that also offer illegal ones. I have used BitTorrent for legal purposes and it has been very successful. I actually downloaded a Linux ISO that was about a full 700MB in about 45 minutes at average 300Kb/s. This is through the distribution of torrents. Limiting access to the torrents by killing sites that have a possibility of having illegal torrents is not going to help the community.
  
  PLEASE STOP THIS MADNESS!!!

  21.12.2004 20:08 #1

• JSparrow

  Why should we pay £34.99 for a crap game that has been rushed by the developers. BitTorrent offered a try before you buy, it was only the muppets selling DVDs that brought down the wrath of the MPAA anyhow. Yes, I am a big supporter of BitTorrent and yes I also have bought originals because I like the games I downloaded, including JO: Typhoon Rising, JO: Escalation, Rise of Nations, UT 2004 and Painkiller (didnt even consider this one until I tried it after downloading) I also purchase retail DVDs and music albums. I dont like wasting money on crap that gets released every month because the big names in the business need to increase their profit margins. BitTorrent sites will always survive as people migrate from one site to another. I was back downloading 2 hours after Suprnova shut down. So what have they achieved. Bugger all in my eyes as it has made people more determined to piss of the establishment

  22.12.2004 10:11 #2

• WarForOil

  Yes isnt a shame that they dont use the same tactics nor do they have the same enthusiasm in cracking down on the drug pushers dealers, sad really where the worlds going in a direction where the minority rules over the minority regardless of our needs and expectations.Its sickening how the rich have taking what was a brilliant idea{internet} and turned it around to feed the rich corporates even more money.The internet in there eyes is a tool where they can suck you dry, where will it end, i will tell you where,when we stop working for money and in turn we are paid vouchers to spend where they tell you to spend it, you see the internet is now one big shopping mall and you pay for the privelage of spending your hard earned cash in that mall. What if your local k-mart store asked you to pay 50 dollars or 26 pounds a month for the privelage of using the shop, thats what the internets becoming.No more free lunch music movies etc, i am not saying that its a good thing to download someones movies or music but whether it be kaza, napster, and all the others the corps have pushed to close i used them for legal purposes and did they ever give any consideration to the legal users...no they just closed them down, and yes stole the idea turned it around and made it pay as you go, now they talk about letting us download movies legally providing you pay the same as you would buying it in the shops that is.When they start doing that shops will close till theres no option but to pay online to download songs movies etc, then they will charge you what they like because there wont be any competition.Yes when i first got the internet i thought it was a great idea which would bring the world together, all its become as is ay is a tool where ordinary people are being forced to purchase more goods than we really need.The ordinary person of this world is fast becoming the 21st century slave for the rich and powerfull, lets fight back, refuse to put money in the pockets of those people, watch the companies behing the litigations and boycott there products, there are plenty indie bands etc out there who are far more talented than the puppets whos faces sell records buy there stuff.
  Sorry for going on a bit but it makes me angry that the day has come when we as a community are treated like criminals just because we use sites they say say doesnt conform to there agenda for bleeding us dry.
  I say to them go build ahospital fr sick children, go feed the poor nations of this world, go build homes for the elderly and treat them with respect and dignity because they fought for our freedom....but you wont do that because its that same freedom you are taking away, restricting the choices we can make in order to dominate everything. F..k Globalisation it breeds poverty that causes wars.

  22.12.2004 14:06 #3

• jsmith420

  F'ing Big Brother... Don't they make enough change with their stupid-ass concerts? I mean you figure $25(extremely conservative price) for a concert ticket.... 5,000 fans....(semi-conservative estimate, depending on the location)... That is 125,000 dollars.. For one night... For one show... For 4 hours(at the max) out of their busy schedule of counting their money... F' the MPAA, and the RIAA. I f'ed all of their mom's with bowling pins on a German Schizer website.... So what I want to DL the CD that I had bought 5 years ago and got stolen from me, yet manages to sell no copies anymore :(.... Boo f'ing Hoo... I don't know if I could survive on hundreds of thousands of dollars as a paycheck... I have major beef with almost everybody in the music industry today... Eminem... Supposedly you know how hard it is "comin' up", spare some change for the "family" you supposedly used to be... Metallica... If there is one thing that I feel should have died in the 80's yet didn't that would be you.... F U James... F U Lars... Do I have to go on??? I though every band that is against p2p/any file sharing supposedly got into the "Industry" for the "love of the music"..... Show us your true colors, Biatches... Be real with us... Tell us that you just want to do what the industry tells you.... Tell us that you would give head to some fat cat for the almighty dollar.... At least we can accept the fact that you are being real with us... Instead, you guys get DP'd by everyone... you are no different than a crackwhore.... All you look for is the quick high(That you are making money), you fail to see who is getting hurt by you sucking some "Big Wig" off by being passive and jumping on the bandwagon.... People with families that would like to support you, yet spent all of their money feeding their families... If anything you should be kissing our asses... with the insignificant amount of money the individual is not spending, but rather paying for 1 more meal on the table, he is saving your overpaid rectums from a significant amount of deduction in your taxes for welfare... Give to the needy... The people downloading your music are your true "fans"... You know the ones that every show in every city is the best one because of???? If they weren't fans, would they waste the time to download your CD at 2kbs??? What happened to the days that your fan base was all that mattered??? Don't preach the "Nonpaying Fans don't put the food on the table B.S. either." I know plenty of people that, although they do not have a lot, they have enough for themselves, yet they find a way to make contributions to people that need a trailer house... Meanwhile you guys are on the other side of town complaining that you aren't getting the exact color interior that you ordered on your new Bugatti... I understand that the artists worked hard for their products, but I fail to accept that a piece of plastic that I can listen to in my car is worth 20 dollars... Especially when it costs 50 cents to manufacture... I don't want to hear anything from RIAA or MPAA about how their industry is suffering from this plague of piracy when they are stil getting paid the same salary (if not more due to "Financial Losses by Theft of Intellectual Property). I guess I'm done... Viva La P2P... Viva La BitTorrent... Keep on Keepin' On....

  22.12.2004 22:12 #4

• mediaguru

  The reason they want to charge $20/CD that costs them .50 to produce is that for every 1 album that sells there are 100's that don't. The record companies put out crap and try to make up for their losses with the few artists they have that sell.
  
  The other reason many people pirate as that they don't want to pay $15-20 for an album with ONE good song on it. This is by design because the record companies only want to pay royalties on the ONE good song on the album. Next "one hit album" you see check out who wrote that one. Chances are that song was written by someone else and the 9 other crap songs were written by the band who put out the CD. Record companies are starting to figure this out and letting people legally download that one good song from itunes or wherever.

  26.12.2004 08:20 #5

• aamberik

  Is it worth the hassle though? Most commercially produced music sucks, most big Hollywood movies suck. We feel entitled to get them for free because the corporations are telling us what they want us to listen to or watch, so to thumb our noses at the man and download a movie or some music? You ever consider by doing so you are still perpetuating that which you claim to hate? It still is their lousy-ass product weather you got it for free or not.
  
  I am pissed that the RIAA and Music and Movie industries over inflating their projected losses in regard to piracy and waste even more money and effort into stopping than they claim they lose.
  They throw money at politicians and congress and now they want to police the internet? Please…What a joke, they are a joke, but a serious joke they are becoming at that?
  
  So again I ask, is it really worth all the hassle? It takes a lot of time to download a movie, more time to get it ripped to a CD or DVD if you feel so inclined. If I factor the amount of time invested in making a movie form the web vs. what I earn for a living. I am losing money and can afford to rent it to buy it. Music, well I have my tastes and bands I prefer and good friends in the music scene that turn me on to bands no one has heard of that will always have more talent than anything MTV can dress up and film in slow-mo.
  
  I am not telling anyone to stop what they are doing and I am certainly not promoting the pathetic right stomping tactics of the MPAA, RIAA and whom ever else is pissed because they lost a buck on one movie go-er or rental or whatever...
  
  All I am saying is, if you search deep down we all know it's wrong and it is just going to be too hard to get away with and I for one don't want to be the guy they make an example of.
  
  Just to point out, I am not telling anyone what to do. I just think it’s a waste of time. They will win, they always win. And do say I am being defeatist or whatever, just the way it is.

  28.12.2004 13:17 #6

• daemonzx6

  I'm sorry, but it really is worth the hassle, considering that if you take the time to figure it out, it doesn't take too much time to download a movie and turn it to VCD or whatever. Unless of course you are working on a machine that is thoroughly dated with a dial up modem. Then it might take days. Anyway, I will always download a CD before I go out and buy it. I have to make sure the music doesn't suck. Most of the time I don't get let down by my bands and then I go out and buy the albums. But sometimes it will be bad and I will not buy it because I don't want to pay for crap. Also I will download music and then get tired of it after a little while, and if I haven't bought it yet, I will not, simply because the music tires easily. I am saying that this is a good thing for the people because they know what they are buying when they pay for it. It must be an awful thing for the coporations that produce the crap. You can treat this whole mess like terrorism. You can't stop it, because there isn't one place that it resides and it will always be here because of that.
  
  LONG LIVE BITTORRENT!

  28.12.2004 14:53 #7

• vertigo17

  Is this the New World Order or something? Come on? I'm getting sick and tired of seeing and hearing the word "raid". Cops raid drug deals and what not. Are the MPAA cops? Are they able to do this to our community because of the Patriot Act? This is all getting out of hand. I read the letter that LokiTorrent received Columbia Pictures. Columbia told LokiTorrent that when they get all the "names" of the people operating the website, then they will file a law suit. They also told Loki that they wanted all the information about the downloaders as well. Is that right? Can our information be disclosed because some Neo-Nazi f*** what's to shut someone down? I download free stuff as well as others. Don't like American music and movies because their all garbage and not worth a half cent. But anyways, will this all end one day? Until the rich are happy once again that they control the weak and poor. This isn't just about "how much money" they claim to be losing because of file-sharing. This is about POWER. That's it. That's what these people want. And when somebody wants to have power over someone else - that's enslavement. I thought slavery was gone for good. No, no. It's always been here. Look at commercials and movies and music. And then take a look at the people around you. These guys are turning people into drones. We are all zombies unless we take back that power. Otherwise, say bye-bye to file-"sharing", because the MPAA and RIAA will be telling you what you can share and not share anymore - or else you go straight to jail and don't pass "Go." Just like Monopoly. The name of the game is to buy up everything and bleed everyone dry. After that happens - good luck trying to download a "Get Out of Jail Free" card. Ha ha ha. F*** the MPAA and double-f*** the RIAA. I say it's time for a revolution. Anyone else agree? I'll go to the Supreme Court and tell these people off. If only I had a way to get there.

  29.12.2004 18:58 #8

• daemonzx6

  I've been actively fighting conformity to any sort of society for a long time now. And you're right, this is all about power. I just hope things don't turn out like Karl Marx said they would...

  29.12.2004 22:47 #9