Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell • Hacker News Board

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#201

Post by pbhjpbhj » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:36 PM UTC

jokoon wrote: post #128

Svenskunganka wrote: post #65

Torrents 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…

Also the netflix catalog is not as big as people claims it is (I live in france). There are many movies missing from the 2000-2010 period (and more when you go beyond). There also are many smaller details that makes torrent more attractive, like being able to watch the movie offline, HD with low bandwidth, subtitle choice, etc. Netflix is a good step, and of course the movie industry will use it as "no excuse" argume…

Haven't the media conglomerates made it clear you pay to access the content rather than purchasing it. So pay the lowest rate you find fit the content and acquire it as you please, eg torrent + subtitles + dub that you want. Surely that's entirely consistent with their position morally?

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#202

Post by JanneVee » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:38 PM UTC

hueving wrote: post #38

JanneVee wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Much like gun manufacturers and bullet makers should be charged with facilitating murder.

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.

I just believe that there is a bigger discussion to be had with we mean with facilitating. There is an attempt by the copyright industry to expand and stretch the definition of "facilitation" to those who don't have the intent. Much like the whole gun discussion...

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#203

Post by rakoo » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

sktrdie wrote: post #94

Please have a look at this pull request I submitted some time ago to Bittorrent.org: https://github.com/bittorrent/bittorrent.org/pull/35 It's about updating torrents via DHT mutable items. Meaning that torrent sites could share their public key and simply seed an .rss file containing their indexed torrents (a mapping of infohash -> descriptions). When they want to share new torrents, they simply update their torrent…

The real value of sites like TPB and KAT is the community upvoting/downvoting torrents to only keep the correct torrents, and people commenting about actual quality, pointing the problems of encoding or language... This can't be provided by your proposals or anything that relies around an RSS feed, unfortunately

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#204

Post by teslaberry » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:43 PM UTC

frankly i wish there were a piratebay only for instructional and educational materials.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#205

Post by adrusi » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:44 PM UTC

josho wrote: post #184

mikegerwitz wrote: post #163

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping. https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t... . I prefer the term "sharing". As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying. Some people may want backups, may have lost their copy after paying for it, may be frustrated by DRM-laced copies tha…

Sharing is just as bad as pirating. Let's call it what it is. Copyright infringement.

It is copyright infringement, but calling it that carries moral stigma, even though "copyright infringement" has no actual ethical meaning, only a legal one.

What you're saying is akin to entering a conversation about the value of cannabis and saying "Let's just call it what it is. Criminal production, distribution and possession of a controlled substance".

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#206

Post by rasz_pl » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:46 PM UTC

Svenskunganka wrote: post #65

Torrents 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…

Pirating is absolutely LEGAL in my country, and covered under fair use. I can make a copy of any audio/visual copyrighted material and give it out to my friends and family, I am also free to download whatever I want (audio/visual, no software) from the internet. Uploading/sharing outside of my close circle of family&friends is illegal tho (no torrents).

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#207

Post by click170 » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:49 PM UTC

moretrees wrote: post #57

kinleyd wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

http://www.idope.se/ looks pretty decent.

I haven't found anything on the internet regarding idope.se but it seems to be pretty nice. I suppose you're the admin? How sure are you that "servers never go down"?

It does appear to require Javascript for something as simple as search, that's disappointing. Allowing Javascript can be iffy on most sites these days, but torrent sites are one category I refuse to whitelist, so that's a deal breaker for me.

KAT and torrentz were both usable without Javascript, let's not take a step backwards in usability.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#208

Post by lettergram » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:54 PM UTC

mikegerwitz wrote: post #163

Svenskunganka wrote: post #65

Torrents 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…

The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping. https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t... . I prefer the term "sharing". As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying. Some people may want backups, may have lost their copy after paying for it, may be frustrated by DRM-laced copies tha…

> As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying.

Oh man, I used to have to reformat my computer regularly (like 3 times a year). There were several hardware issues, my house was struck by lightning, etc.

I swear every time I'd have to call windows, and be like "hey my key is not working" (I know it's because it was activated previously, but still). They would usually make me call and reset it or what have you.

Eventually, I just got sick of it. I torrented a cracked version and it worked like a charm.

I know people who do the same with video games. They'll get a "shared" copy first, then buy it if they like it.

Honesty, I'd argue most people would pay if they could (at a reasonable price), torrenting just makes all the barriers go away.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#209

Post by dhimes » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 2:58 PM UTC

wangchow wrote: post #200

josho wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sharing is just as bad as pirating. Let's call it what it is. Copyright infringement.

I'd argue that copyright infringement is: making a derivative work of something and selling it for a profit; or stealing an idea outright and profiting from it.

But you also have to allow for the idea that you are doing harm to the creator if you are making it available for free even if you don't profit from it.

Re: Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell

#210

Post by kinleyd » Fri, Aug 05, 2016, 3:08 PM UTC

moretrees wrote: post #137

kinleyd wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, not the admin. Just been searching around since kat's been gone.

It's not really an alternative to torrentz though, is it? As far I can see, it only has kat torrents. It does not list other public trackers..

Yes, that's right. It's worked for me as a reasonable replacement for kat for now. Also, the site isn't anywhere near as good as kat but I'm sure given a little more time they'll improve. Or someone else will come up with something even better - I'm sure these folks will have learned alot about what to do or not do when running such sites.