OT: An Interesting Read About Bit-Torrents

Atrocities · #1 December 16th, 2004, 10:47 PM

There Under Fire

And the Tracker Sites

For those of you who may use Bit-Torrents for lagit purposes, the linked to sites might be of interest. I don't think they are going after lagit uses, but are going after pirate crap. Just interesting news that I thought I would post.

Aiken · #2 December 16th, 2004, 11:07 PM

Jailers against pirates. It's amuzing, that both are natural attributes of the world of proprietary content. Endless story.

Atrocities · #3 December 17th, 2004, 01:09 AM

It is always better to own the DVD than to say just have a boot leg copy of it on your PC. Duhhhhhhhhhh. What are they so damn afraid of? Next thing you know, they will be going after the hard drive industry for making HD's that can hold large numbers of ripped DVD movies. LOL this will never end.

OBTW, do you ever wonder if the play writes and composers of the 19th century were alive today what they might say about copywrite and intellectual properties pirating? (Since their works have been pirated so heavily by the same corporations that are now crying foul.)

Aiken · #4 December 17th, 2004, 02:27 AM

RIAA can certainly jail or fine kazaa, emule, BT creators and server owners. But they will never be able to disallow programmers all over the world to write something like this.

Jack Simth · #5 December 17th, 2004, 04:03 AM

Attempting to sue the makers of a product that has both Leagal and illeagal uses when somebody uses the product for an illeagal end is a VERY VERY BAD IDEA.

Consider a kitchen knife. It can be leagally used to cut animal flesh (steak), vegetables, or tough pLastic packaging. It can also be illeagally used to mug people. Should a mugging victim (or the family of a dead mugging victim) be able to sue the knife manufacturer for the illeagal use of a knife by a mugger?

Consider a rope. It can be leagally used to secure loads, restrain animals, or play with. It can also be illeagally used to restrain people. Should a kidnapping victim (or the family of a dead kidnapping victim) be able to sue the rope manufacturer for the illeagal use of a rope by a kidnapper?

Consider Bittorrent (and similar stuff). It can be used leagally to distribute large demos, home movies, or even put on a fee-based system for distributing large, fully-functional software programs. It can also be used to illeagally distribute ripped DVD or CD images. Should a copyright infringement victim (or their representitives) be able to sue the Bittorrent programmers for the illeagal use of Bittorrent by copyright violators?

Consider a handgun. It can be leagally used to stop a rapist, stop a murderer, or hunt food. It can also be illeagally used to shoot (relative) innocents. Should a shooting victim (or the family of a dead shooting victim) be able to sue the gun manufacturer for the illeagal use of a gun by a(n attempted) murderer?

Is there really a way to say "yes" to one or two of the above, without giving lawyers room enough to make the other two or three stick? What do you think would happen to ANY economy if suddenly everyone that made anything that was could be used for an illeagal purpose suddenly got sued for the illeagal actions of THIRD PARTIES? I can understand making stuff that doesn't have any significant leagal use illeagal. But you know, it's reasonably simple to turn a microwave into a maser for arson where you don't need to be within 100 feet of the target to set it on fire (Added features! Invisible beam! Accelerant free - no traces at the arson site! Easy to make it look like an electrical fire!). It's trivial to bypass the safties on a pneumatic nail gun so that it fires nails through the air at people rather than through wood. A college textbook makes a dandy club. There is very little that can't be turned to illeagal use. I don't like the precident RIAA's trying to re-set.

Suicide Junkie · #6 December 17th, 2004, 04:21 AM

Don't forget to sue the makers of that ever-popular shoe-grade cement.

Combat Wombat · #7 December 19th, 2004, 09:26 PM

Quote:

Atrocities said:
There Under Fire

And the Tracker Sites

For those of you who may use Bit-Torrents for lagit purposes, the linked to sites might be of interest. I don't think they are going after lagit uses, but are going after pirate crap. Just interesting news that I thought I would post.

The major bittorrent site mentioned in the first article has been basiclly shut down and according to the small news post left there it will not be coming back.

Makinus · #8 December 20th, 2004, 10:06 AM

Thank god i live in Brazil, where even the government offices use pirated software!!!

BTW: i don�t like piracy in any form, ��m even arranging a way to buy an original copy of SEV from the US instead of pirating it when it is launched.... even if it will, in the end, cost me the triple of the original price...

BTW2: I think piracy, at least of the people that have how to buy games, is a way of promoting your product, i myself discovered SEIV when a friend showed to me a pirated copy of SEIII and i loved the game enough to ask a friend of mine from Miami to buy and send by mail an original SEIV disk... I found the SEIII game so good that i could not, in my good conscience, to pirate SEIV and not reward the programmer that created it by buying the game...