Just few years back torrentz was still serving magnet links (just the hash, without trackers embedded), so you didn't even have to visit the torrent sites.
Is even that illegal? Publishing hashes of copyrighted material?
Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
141–150 of 336 posts
Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#142Earlier quoted context omitted.
I agree, but the case with torrents and trackers is such a gray area. Shouldn't routers be illegal since they help facilitate crime? If not, why should trackers? I'm just playing with thoughts, interested in seeing what people think.
This question was actually addressed in the EU copyright directive: Article 5 Exceptions and limitations 1. Temporary acts of reproduction referred to in Article 2, which are transient or incidental [and] an integral and essential part of a technological process and whose sole purpose is to enable: (a) a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary, or (b) a lawful use of a work or other subject…
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Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
> I don't understand why the EU isn't doing anything about it The problem is that right now the EU isn't one copyright market - each EU country is a separate market, with a tonne of legacy exclusive distribution deals in place. If the EU was a single market, it would be the same size or bigger than the US market and would probably get better attention. The EU is working on it, it just moves at the speed of bureaucrac…
Wouldn't making EU single market and getting rid of geoblocking pretty much remove regional pricing? The piracy then would surge even more, because in Eastern Europe you can't expect people to spent 10% of their salary on a new videogame.
Well then they should just give everyone the cheap price. I don't see why Hollywood is entitled to x% of my salary. If it means they have to spend a few mllion dollars less on advertising Captain America 4 or Star Wars 8 or Fast and Furious 8 then so be it.
Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#144What would it take to build a secure & resilient torrent site? I'm guessing fully decentralised and I've seen mentions of * ipfs ( https://ipfs.io/ ) * zeronet ( https://zeronet.io/ * Riffle (anonymous communication) Couldn't we leverage bits of the blockchain technology? Since it's a fully distributed shared database where writers don't trust each other and no middleman is trusted either? (edit:formatting)
Torrents are ephemeral. The persistence provided by a blockchain is totally overkill and comes at a very high cost in resources. Blockchains also don't inherently provide strong sender anonymity. That would have to be built on top.
I think Riffle may be the most sensible option I've seen for sharing magnet links or torrent files. In theory, Riffle doesn't require a large number of servers and doesn't demand unreasonable client bandwidth to deliver protection against a very powerful adversary.
It's just an academic system with a basic proof of concept implementation. Quite a bit of work needs to happen to turn it into a usable system.
For the data itself Riffle is too expensive. Something with a weaker threat model that costs less resources is needed, such as Aqua or Herd. Those systems are also academic at this point.
Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#145Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The EU is working on it, it just moves at the speed of bureaucracy I would guess the speed is more limited by 27 governments having to agree on everything.
Getting 27 countries to agree on something sounds like bureaucracy nightmare to me :) So, I just looked up the word "bureaucracy" in a dictionary and it says "a system of government in which most of the important decisions are made by state officials rather than by elected representatives.". I always thought that was what a technocracy was. The secondary definition is "excessively complicated administrative procedure…
You seem to have a very bad dictionary.
Bureaucracy comes from the French word "bureau", that means office. It names the way things are organized in an office, and was created for private offices, only adopted for governments later.
Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#146Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that. But I believe that pirating is related to a very fuzzy legal system regarding this topic and unfair treatment by the major movie studios & music labels. I'll try to explain as good as I can. Being a european citizen, it is very frustrating knowing that pirating is illegal even though being a Netflix, HBO & Spotify customer. Pirating is a much b…
I'd happily bet big money that orders of magnitude more people are pirating because it's free than because they'd invested in 7.1 surround system and a 4K 3D TVs. Everyone I know who pirates is doing it because it's free. Although almost all of them pay for something (Netflix, Amazon Prime or Nowtv), they just don't pay for all of them. And these are all grown adults in their 30s. Say you pay for Netflix and Amazon,…
Cost is an issue, although I wonder how many people pirate movies ans shows because it's "really" too expensive for them. If you want to watch the movies you want, and you're not so rich, it certainly is going to cost you more than a netflix account, but I don't think everyone is doing it because of the cost, they also do it because it's easier. It's hard to beat the torrent catalog.
Also if you enter the argument of entertainment being a luxury, and that a DVD should cost around $15, you will have people pirating because they certainly don't want to spend so much for watching a movie at home. There will be people arguing over the holywood money machine and how much a movie really is worth.
Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#147Earlier quoted context omitted.
I used to have a Spotify subscription. Then I moved out of Sweden and lost half my playlists. Never subscribed again. I never had a Netflix subscription because I don't have a good enough connection to stream high quality videos - Additionally, I rewatch some series a lot. It's simply more convenient to have them on my hard drive. The US gov is running around the internet policing copyright for very specific companie…
Do you have a source for that bootstrapping comment? I'd love to hear more if it's documented anywhere.
I am not aware of any write-up, but I was an early beta user and can confirm that you could enter names of release groups into the search field and get hits back then.
Initially I believed in streaming my music, but when they went public I lost half my playlists and has gone back to "files on disk" ever since. It is remarkable how difficult it is to pay for music, I wish we would see more sites like Bandcamp.
Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#148The reason piracy is so popular is because it is free and because it's incredibly convenient, in that order. The convenience factor is basically, if you want some content (movie, game) it's a simple search and download away (streaming torrents seem to be gaining traction). No legal alternative offers this level of convenience. I suspect piracy will become harder for the average user due to three letter agencies makin…
It can be free but not that convenient. Pirated content needs to be checked to make sure it's not fake nor malicious, not to mention the technical downsides of the torrent protocol (large bandwidth consumption, insecure, easy to block, slow speed on non port-forwarding routers etc) It's much easier to buy and download games on Steam or watch movies on Netflix nowadays.
I assume you live in the states where this stuff is on tap? Most of the rest of the world is waiting months for DVD releases.
Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#149Earlier quoted context omitted.
Intent matters. The vast majority of people that buy a gun do not murder people. The vast majority of people that download iron_man.torrent only intend to do one thing with it.
If intent matters, then guns are doubly problematic. They are specifically designed to kill people. They have no other use or purpose.
That's completely false. I own multiple guns for target shooting and hunting and have no intent on ever using them to shoot at people. I don't even keep them in a convenient location to use for self defense.
Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell
#150Earlier quoted context omitted.
If intent matters, then guns are doubly problematic. They are specifically designed to kill people. They have no other use or purpose.
What about defending yourself against a bear while camping? Is that not okay?
I suspect the poster's only experience with guns is their portrayal in the media. Spending more than 10 minutes in a mountain town in the US would make you quickly realize how many people have guns with no intent to use them on people.