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The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

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Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#101

Post by scientician »

Robotbeat wrote: post #26

What's more interesting to me is using BitTorrent not for pirated movies but as a content distribution system enabling more free services like Wikipedia. Wikipedia is a super heavily visited website, so must pay a lot for hosting. They manage to pay for it all with donations, but other sites can't. For example: What if Open Access journals used peer to peer for nearly-free content distribution? That'd allow the open…

I volunteer myself and some of my servers to run software to support Wikipedia, Sci-Hub, The Pirate Bay etc if I can do it and have some safeties in place: - Everything encrypted all the time, I have none of the keys - ... I guess I'd just want to be reassured I'm legally and practically safe.

Are there any projects like this already?

In another thread someone mentioned PopcorntimeXSci-hub which sounds about right with maybe some Tor sprinkled in, and I have seen http://sciencefair-app.com/ (Encouraging but very early).

Would you run encrypted hosting for Wikipedia|Sci-Hub|PirateBay?

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#102

Post by jimminy »

Semaphor wrote: post #99
k__ wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I mostly use streaming sites instead of BT these days. Got burned once when my flatmate downloaded family guy and we got "mail" by an attorney of 20th century fox... But yes, I got Netflix and Amazon Prime too. They simply don't have everything in every language.

> I mostly use streaming sites instead of BT these days. Why? You have to get through tons of ads, have to hope they are of decent quality, etc. With BT I download, and in about 5 minutes I have the whole thing in HD.

Netflix and Amazon rarely show ads, normally just a short 30 second recommendation at that.

All streaming in HD in about 5 seconds.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#103

Post by rando444 »

mattmanser wrote: post #28
bdz wrote: post #16

At least where I live, Hungary, torrenting was decriminalized some years ago as long as someone isn't doing it for profit. It's still illegal but they stopped going after end users. The biggest private tracker has 770k users atm with an exceptional 1452% seed to leech ratio. Basically almost everyone (ie daily internet users) is using it in the country. Also they introduced a "blank media" tax on everything (CD, DVD,…

Until the EU want to do a new trade deal with the US, and the US decides it wants to co-opt your legal framework to enforce its commercial appropriation of European culture, history and stories through Disney and Hollywood. And then you'll be getting lots of enforcement. The whole copyright thing is just a US export thing, as soon as it becomes a problem for them, they'll force the EU to make it a problem for you too…

Since the EU has stated they won't be doing any trade deals with anyone not in the Paris climate agreement, it looks that this won't be a problem with the current US administration.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/eu-trade-deal...

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#104

Post by lostcolony »

make3 wrote: post #74
mattmanser wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Until the EU want to do a new trade deal with the US, and the US decides it wants to co-opt your legal framework to enforce its commercial appropriation of European culture, history and stories through Disney and Hollywood. And then you'll be getting lots of enforcement. The whole copyright thing is just a US export thing, as soon as it becomes a problem for them, they'll force the EU to make it a problem for you too…

this might be an unpopular opinion, but I think copyright is a good thing, as it allows for artists to actually get paid for their work

Totally. Which is why it ends with the author's death. OH WAIT.

But it's totally necessary; back before it existed no one ever made any money for their creative works, so with no incentive no one ever made anything creative before copyright law. OH WAIT.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#106

Post by Semaphor »

jimminy wrote: post #102
Semaphor wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I mostly use streaming sites instead of BT these days. Why? You have to get through tons of ads, have to hope they are of decent quality, etc. With BT I download, and in about 5 minutes I have the whole thing in HD.

Netflix and Amazon rarely show ads, normally just a short 30 second recommendation at that. All streaming in HD in about 5 seconds.

I think he wasn't talking about legal streaming sites as that was kinda the point of my original post.

> All streaming in HD in about 5 seconds.

Yeah, until it's not. I mean sure, 20 seconds of low quality is not the end of the world. But there is no reason it should be that crappy. And they are competing against easy and free, having only "moral high ground" as the competitive advantage. So at the very least, they shouldn't be worse.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#107

Post by pbhjpbhj »

justrobert wrote: post #63
Spivak wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Which does fall under the umbrella of piracy.

If that is illegal, then I am breaking the law when I modify a computer program for personal use. As far as I am aware, if they are not distributing their changes, there is no copyright violation. I'd be interested to see what laws they are violating.

You're mistaken. The clue is in the name, you commit tortuous infringement when you copy without permission.

It is the copying that is the tort. Distribution is a separate tort/crime.

You don't mention your jurisdiction but this is common to international law and applies in almost all countries.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#108

Post by distances »

jimmies wrote: post #62

I can't read the article because the website is down. But I have something to say about torrenting movies. Late last year, my old parents who don't speak English came to visit me for a couple of months in the US. I'm just a graduate student with a limited budget, and my mom is car sick so we couldn't go out every night. I didn't want them to waste time on Facebook after dinner until we went to bed, so I had to think…

This is a major issue with streaming services. Netflix usually doesn't offer even English subtitles to an English-speaking movie if you're in a non-English speaking country! At least with DVDs you could rip it and add subtitles yourself if needed.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#109

Post by Obi_Juan_Kenobi »

Semaphor wrote: post #78

The reason why for me, someone with a netflix and amazon prime account in Germany, bittorrent is neither dead nor declining (for movies and TV shows): a) Being on time. If you want to take part in the online discussion about tv shows, you have to watch them on time. For a ton of shows I can't even buy episodes on the day they come out. Torrenting is still the far superior choice. b) Languages. Yes netflix, I know tha…

Is German Netflix that bad? In the USA, I can choose the audio and subtitle language pretty easily; it's even supported on their Plex app and so forth.

Example: I just watched "Dark" and it defaulted to English dub, but it just took a second to switch it to German with English subtitles.

Re: The Long, Slow Decline of BitTorrent (2017)

#110

Post by remir »

P2P forced the industry to adapt and now we have good streaming services, but the content selection is nowhere as good as what you can find on torrent sites.

What the Popcorn Time devs did was simply amazing. It had a Netflix-like interface plus a huge selection of content that you could watch right away. The industry should learn from these guys.

Just make your content available, easy to obtain and people will pay for it. It's that simple. There's no reason, in 2018, that I cannot go online and legally stream/download any movie/TV show I want. Classics, old movies, 90s movies, whatever. Just make it available at a reasonable price, in a easy to use UI and people will pay. How is that hard to understand?

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