BitTorrent: Good or Evil?

[Goronmon]

Something I've always wanted to have a decent discussion about. What are people's thoughts on BitTorrent? Do you see it as a helpful distribution techonology or is mainly just a way for people to pirate copyrighted works? Do you feel it's right for internet providers, schools and other bodies to take steps to prevent the use of BT?

[quidmonkey]

Good

Public access? Sure. It cuts down on the traffic sucking at the pipe.

[digitalErich]

That's like asking if email, or even the internet are good or evil. All three are neither. They are just tools that can be used in good or bad ways by people.

Now, it can't be argued that BitTorrent is the primary means of pirated media right now (for end users) but before BT it was IRC and FTP servers...the tools will always be in flux. Trying to shut down or regulate the tools won't do anything, it will simply cause an earlier migration to the next tool-set.

[DangerousDaze]

Good, frequently used for evil.

[Young Al Capone]

That's like asking if email, or even the internet are good or evil. All three are neither. They are just tools that can be used in good or bad ways by people.

I agree, there is no good or evil, it is just a useful tool. The user decides whether to use it for good or evil.

[Goronmon]

That's like asking if email, or even the internet are good or evil. All three are neither. They are just tools that can be used in good or bad ways by people.But e-mail isn't blocked by educational institutions or internet providers.

[Ghostbear]

It is true neutral sir.

[Goronmon]

Gah, that headline was a mistake.

[Troggles]

I think BitTorrent needs to officially change it's name to "Piracy Friendly BitTorrent."

[Mastergeo7]

I think it's an excellent tool. The piracy topic is kinda off, see, almost ALL sharing technologies can be used to pirate stuff.
It's also a way so save lots of money in bandwidth, which is pretty cool for small developers, the big guys should invest in dedicated boxes, tough (Blizzard with their updates, something similar happened to WAR, right?).

Luckily here in Colombia we don't get Bit torrent traffic filtered. Which is awesome :)

[digitalErich]

But e-mail isn't blocked by educational institutions or internet providers.
Spam is filtered by my old college mail servers.

Even before BT my college also attempted to block certain ports related to other apps they saw as undesirable.

[Wraith]

Something I've always wanted to have a decent discussion about. What are people's thoughts on BitTorrent? Do you see it as a helpful distribution techonology or is mainly just a way for people to pirate copyrighted works?The technology itself is neither "good" or "evil." It's almost like trying to say "is the internet good or bad?"
Do you feel it's right for internet providers, schools and other bodies to take steps to prevent the use of BT?Y'know, I guess it depends on the situation. Network admins at schools and businesses need to lock down or throttle things to ensure that the network is used as intended, and that everyone has sufficient bandwidth. I don't see any reason not to block bittorrent at K12 schools, libraries, businesses, etc. When it comes to ISPs and college living environments, I'd say that there may be a need to throttle bittorrent, but I don't know that they should disallow it entirely.

[Mastergeo7]

I think BitTorrent needs to officially change it's name to "Piracy Friendly BitTorrent."

Oh, you were there also :P

[DangerousDaze]

It's almost like trying to say "is the internet good or bad?"

It's good. Glad I could help you with that. ;)

[Goronmon]

The technology itself is neither "good" or "evil." It's almost like trying to say "is the internet good or bad?"I didn't intend for people to actually answer to the question about BT being good or evil, I was just wanted a short headline. "Do you think that BitTorrent is a useful technology, or does it do more harm than good and what are your thoughts on the subject?" doesn't exactly fit into the subject bar. :p

[digitalErich]

To get back on track, though you could actually look at BT as quite "good" in some respects.

-It's free.
-It allows dissemination of data without the need for a large IT infrastructure.
-It's indiscriminate with regard to content.

In the general US mindset, free (both in price and usage) and giving power to the little guy are generally looked at as good qualities.

Again, it is the source for end user pirating, but there will always be some form of easy, free sharing people tech can pirate from. As a technology and a phenomenon, BT is awesome.

[DangerousDaze]

Ok, seriously. It's a concept that has mostly had it's day imo. It was started as a way of reducing the cost of distributing mostly large amounts of data to potentially large amounts of people but there are plenty of sites that do that without all the PAIN that comes along with Bittorrent these days. I think it's a solution that has mostly outgrown the problem it was intended to solve.

[Goronmon]

...but there are plenty of sites that do that without all the PAIN that comes along with Bittorrent these days.Which sites are those?

[digitalErich]

You have to be hosted on those sites and there's usually fees involved. Show me a site that will let me upload a 2 gig file, post the link publicly, and let unlimited uconnections download from it, all free of charge.

BT has it's problems, but it's not been made irrelevant quite yet.

[DangerousDaze]

Youtube? How much bandwidth you suppose those guys have and how much do you have to pay to make use of it? How much does it cost to upload a video that can be downloaded thousands of times? Plus the size caps are going up. Then there are tons of drop box sites on the web. Basically, the cost of bandwidth has decreased and will continue to do so.

[digitalErich]

Youtube is limited in both file size and content type. It's a good, niche alternative, but you can't hold up Youtube, or a collection of sites like it that might cover all possible file types and sizes, as an alternative for one very thin application. It's just not a good argument.

[digitalErich]

Basically, the cost of bandwidth has decreased and will continue to do so.
I agree, but we are not there yet, so BT is still relevant. We were there at one point in the past, actually but that was pre-first bubble.

[Troggles]

If bandwidth becomes so cheap that everyone has a great bandwidth, wouldn't bittorrent still benefit greatly from that?

[DangerousDaze]

There are lots of free services out there with limit caps of around half a gig, plus there are some like MediaFire that will give you unlimited bandwidth and limit caps of 10GB per file for less than 7 bucks a month. If I wanted to distribute massive files (that I owned) I'd probably go with an easy option rather than force my clients to install a BT client.

[Shadowstorm]

There are lots of free services out there with limit caps of around half a gig, plus there are some like MediaFire that will give you unlimited bandwidth and limit caps of 10GB per file for less than 7 bucks a month. If I wanted to distribute massive files (that I owned) I'd probably go with an easy option rather than force my clients to install a BT client.

Or ... you can simply skip paying a company to host your uploaded files with a cap and use ... Bit Torrent!

Bit Torrent was designed specifically to distribute large files. The more people who have downloaded the files (and seeding), the faster the download speed to the leechers. That's the point. If more corporations used this method of transferring files to their users, then hell, that's good for everyone, correct? It's certainly a hell of a lot cheaper, no? A win-win for companies and users.

uTorrent doesn't require an installation, by the way, DD.

I'm amazed that there are so many misconceptions about this technology in this thread. Calling a protocol evil is ridiculous - that's the exact same mistake Mr. Evil Avatar made. It is what the protocol is used for. Technology is not evil.

[Lithium Flower]

If the cost of bandwidth is falling, don't forget that bandwidth consumption is growing much faster. More and more people are getting connected and downloading more and more stuff. Legitimate developers, start-ups, open-source distributors can really benefit from torrent technology, it's sad only the pirates have been quick to adopt it with any efficiency so far.

[Sandman]

There are lots of free services out there with limit caps of around half a gig, plus there are some like MediaFire that will give you unlimited bandwidth and limit caps of 10GB per file for less than 7 bucks a month. If I wanted to distribute massive files (that I owned) I'd probably go with an easy option rather than force my clients to install a BT client.

I'd rather go with the torrent than one of those file sharing services you mentioned. Installing a torrent client isn't difficult and the standard client is real simple. I'm never sure whether I can trust a third party file sharing site to give me spyware or something like that. With a torrent I know I'm downloading it from your site and I shouldn't have to worry about getting anything bad on my system.

[Shadowstorm]

By the way, claiming that Bit Torrent is irrelevant (or will be in the near future) is ridiculous.

[DangerousDaze]

One of the main reasons why I hate BT technology is that here in the UK we have a number of TV companies that offer media streaming (Sky, BBC etc.) and they use BT under the covers. The problem I've found is that if you uninstall their stuff they LEAVE THE GODDAM BT SOFTWARE STILL INSTALLED, completely hidden, and still serving out all the TV you'd previously downloaded. Bastards.

[DangerousDaze]

With a torrent I know I'm downloading it from your site and I shouldn't have to worry about getting anything bad on my system.

With Torrents you're getting it from EVERYWHERE, and the thing you're downloading could be ANYTHING. The former is actually the whole point, while the latter is just something unfortunate with many Torrents.

/edit - Also, I should refer you to my original post which said I thought BT technology was Good, frequently used for evil. I'm not against the protocol, I'm just against the way it's panned out.

[Shadowstorm]

One of the main reasons why I hate BT technology is that here in the UK we have a number of TV companies that offer media streaming (Sky, BBC etc.) and they use BT under the covers. The problem I've found is that if you uninstall their stuff they LEAVE THE GODDAM BT SOFTWARE STILL INSTALLED, completely hidden, and still serving out all the TV you'd previously downloaded. Bastards.

Wait, so your reasoning for claiming that Bit Torrent is evil is because a corporation is doing this to you? Hate on the corporation, not this technology!

Bit Torrent is an amazing tool. You should not discount it just because one company is abusing it.

I'm not quite sure I get your situation as well. What client are they asking you to install?

[Jackel]

Claiming that Bittorrent is evil simply because piracy exists on it is just plain ignorant.

Other technologies that pirates use regularly:
- Message Boards
- IRC
- Usenet (While Usenet has become mainly a source of pirated goods, it does still have a few groups who use it for what it was designed for ....discussions)

[DangerousDaze]

I'm not quite sure I get your situation as well. What client are they asking you to install?

These services inevitably have their own installs. E.g:

http://anytime.sky.com/whatisskyanytimeonpc/

[Mastergeo7]

One of the main reasons why I hate BT technology is that here in the UK we have a number of TV companies that offer media streaming (Sky, BBC etc.) and they use BT under the covers. The problem I've found is that if you uninstall their stuff they LEAVE THE GODDAM BT SOFTWARE STILL INSTALLED, completely hidden, and still serving out all the TV you'd previously downloaded. Bastards.

That's really evil, have you read the EULA?, No way that's legal.

[Shadowstorm]

These services inevitably have their own installs. E.g:

http://anytime.sky.com/whatisskyanytimeonpc/

Wouldn't you just be better off bypassing all that corporation bullshit and just download the shows you wanted to watch? Serious question. Or use something like Hulu or TiVo.

[DangerousDaze]

Wouldn't you just be better off bypassing all that corporation bullshit and just download the shows you wanted to watch?

Way to go to promote the legal and legitimate use of BitTorrent there. ;)

[KingGorilla]

A good, nay great thing that some people abuse. Bit torrent tech has made open source easier. It makes distributio of anything free as in beer. Whether you are releasing a game patch(Blizzard uses a bittorrent client) or a small guy with a widget or a huge open source community(open office), hi bandwidth costs go away.

[Shadowstorm]

Way to go to promote the legal and legitimate use of BitTorrent there. ;)

You didn't answer my question. You'd rather put up with the completely needless bullshit? Why? There are better services on the web that do exactly what you want and more. You want to watch TV shows on your computer. Simple, right? Why should it be so hard?

[Banacek]

I guess guns are inherently evil because they kill people. Someone should ask Evil why he supports a ban on guns :)

[DangerousDaze]

You didn't answer my question. You'd rather put up with the completely needless bullshit? Why? There are better services on the web that do exactly what you want and more. You want to watch TV shows on your computer. Simple, right? Why should it be so hard?

Because a lot of the compelling content on, say, Sky's offering are recent movie releases. Since I'm already a Sky subscriber I can legally download those movies onto my PC and watch them at my leisure, so long as I can put up with the download mechanism. I couldn't do that legally elsewhere without paying for someone else's service.

To be completely fair to BitTorrent, the technology employed by all these guys isn't strictly BT, but a variant thereof. Though looking around there are ways of using BT clients to pick up their traffic for free so the protocols must be compatible at some level.

I know I've come across as really harsh on BT but there's just something about it that winds me up the wrong way. At it's core I know it's just a P2P file transfer mechanism that can be very useful.

[Wilkz07]

100% Good.

How else would I watch tv shows that are on at times opposite a show I'm already watching, or miss because i'm out somewhere, or is on a network not available - like Burn Notice on USAnetwork.

[Disgustipated]

Bittorrent is neither good nor evil, its completely based on how a person chooses to use it.

[iHap]

Is Blizzard bad?, is Microsoft's P2P Multiplayer architect bad?(P2P is essentially the same as BT).

BitTorrent is actually a client, but it was the first.

"torrent" is the correct term really. It's a matter of how you use this tech.

[Goronmon]

BitTorrent is actually a client, but it was the first.

"torrent" is the correct term really. It's a matter of how you use this tech."torrent" is just a file-type. The name of the protocol is actually BitTorrent. There also just happens to be a client of the same name.

[Vandabo]

I like torrents for lots of reasons, but as far as security goes, downloading a heavily seeded torrent is like reading a peer reviewed journal. People aren't going to keep seeding if the thing is either not what it's supposed to be or malicious in some way.

[TheKeck]

Neutral. Good/evil only comes by individual use.

[IIntrude]

A program like that cannot be inherently good or evil, it is what the users decide to do with it that can be thought of as good or bad.

[Bone]

BT is good. Piracy BAD. FIRE BAD.

[DangerousDaze]

It's a bit like Magick, or the Force. ;)

[Variable Gear]

It's neither good nor bad, and it can be used by anyone for any purpose.

There are uses of BitTorrent that range from morally good to morally bad, but the technology itself cannot be good or evil.

[Disgustipated]

It's a bit like Magick, or the Force. ;)

http://www.webdesign.org/img_articles/9216/11.jpg <--- Bittorrent

[VerseD]

With BitTorrent, the uses far outweigh the potential misuses. Allowing small enterprise to cheaply distribute their creative material is what the Internet is all about.

[TheEpicOfTyler]

I don't typically use BitTorrent, and when I do, I have never used it for anything legal. I have downloaded insanely priced software mostly. I do download music a lot before the albums are released, but I usually use site's like Rapidshare and Mediafire because they're easier to find, and less hassle overall in my experience. (I am also a person who buys the music when it comes out, or I delete it when I've decided that I do not enjoy it)

[DangerousDaze]

Just for all the FBI pukes who are now reading. I don't know this guy, k? :p