Torrent Discussion

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Cayle
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by Cayle »

And its also one of the reasons everything is going to the cloud. You can't pirate a cloud service.
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hallsofvallhalla
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by hallsofvallhalla »

Jack Sparrow could....

God I hate Disney
Corinthius
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by Corinthius »

Torrents, like many other methods of file-sharing on the internet are widely seen by many as an illegal aspect to a community. That isn't true. Torrents, are entirely legal, it's the content which is illegal, either for copyright reasons or for privacy reasons.

I myself do use torrent technology - and it's encouraged too; with a legal incentive in mind of course. We use a self-set up torrent system in the university, as a means of collectively analyzing and distributing files and project programs.

The main problem with torrents come from the awareness of the public. Information on the internet is all to easily accessed and videos or images are easily obtained, not many realise that the data is valuable, because it has become so disposable with the use of the internet. Then there comes the confusion stages, one of the most widely downloaded things with torrents is Anime, while some claim that it is illegal to download it, the truth is it isn't. The rights for most anime come from distribution companies as a "middle-man" between japan and it's western audience, and the distribution is free; for example Dattebayo.

On the other hand, those people who do download big commercial programs, for example Photoshop or Dreamweaver often acknowledge their ill intent to commit piracy. But, statistically, the number of bought programs in correlation to downloads has increased since the big P2P boom on the internet. More people have the opportunity to test out programs, gain awareness of them and become associated with them and in turn, purchase the full thing. I know some of you're thinking "I wouldn't do that...not if I had it for free." - Well, some people out there do.
Statistically, through illegal downloading, commercial products do much better in terms of life-span, than they would have done if torrents and other such technology never existed, of course, this is due to many factors.

The reason big corporate companies are complaining, is down to the fact they're not making AS much money as they could if those people who did download it illegally had bought it. This presents a question; would they rather make more money through the gained awareness of illegal downloading and client experience, but less in terms of what they COULD potentially make if they could make all the down-loaders pay, OR - make less money than they are now, but be satisfied that no one has freely gained besides them.

I know I sound biased, but I've done a lot of coursework relating to this subject and in the end, no matter how I look at it, the people at the top are complaining for what seems to be no reason other than having the self-satisfaction of knowing their program client base consists of ONLY paying customers. Mm.

Corinthius.
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Jackolantern
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by Jackolantern »

Corinthius wrote: Then there comes the confusion stages, one of the most widely downloaded things with torrents is Anime, while some claim that it is illegal to download it, the truth is it isn't. The rights for most anime come from distribution companies as a "middle-man" between japan and it's western audience, and the distribution is free; for example Dattebayo.
While this is true, the problem I have seen is that most anime download sites are...a little slow to take down things that have been officially licensed in the US and that are now illegal. Sometimes even 5 to 10 years slow!
Corinthius wrote:On the other hand, those people who do download big commercial programs, for example Photoshop or Dreamweaver often acknowledge their ill intent to commit piracy. But, statistically, the number of bought programs in correlation to downloads has increased since the big P2P boom on the internet. More people have the opportunity to test out programs, gain awareness of them and become associated with them and in turn, purchase the full thing. I know some of you're thinking "I wouldn't do that...not if I had it for free." - Well, some people out there do.
Statistically, through illegal downloading, commercial products do much better in terms of life-span, than they would have done if torrents and other such technology never existed, of course, this is due to many factors.
I am not sure you can chalk that up as the cause and effect. The P2P boom on the internet also occurred at the same time as the explosion in widely-available broadband internet and social networking sites which introduced millions upon millions of people to the computer. Computers went from the realm of hobbyists to being as common as a toaster during this time. So naturally software sales across the board are going to increase, even as piracy increases as well.
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Corinthius
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by Corinthius »

Aye, I see your reasoning!
Social networking was a massive cause indeed!

- Still, I believe there is more fault in the distributor of illegal content than the torrent sites. I agree that while hosting such a community while knowing people are going to abuse it for illegal activity is wrong, they themselves aren't the ones to blame.

While disagreeing with the downloads; I would uphold the statistic based opinion that they generate more sales than they do at deterring potential profit, because the software has become so disposable, most people who wouldn't normally buy that sort of thing have access to it, providing a wider recognition and user-base which in turn creates communities. Most communities do in some way pay respects to the publishers, of course, not all of them.
- For example; nearly everyone in my high-school, back in those days, had an illegal copy of Macromedia flash MX. This produced a great interest in animation and flash as a whole, they began producing things, which generated money - and I can happily say most of them now own legal copies of newer versions. I know however, if there wasn't the availability of that "free" software, most of them wouldn't have ever got into it -

I hope that makes sense :lol: - It's 4AM here, hehe.

In that sense too, with video on demand and things like you-tube, the music industry has gained a very valuable asset. Although a lot of artists complain, that's where their new-found fame comes from. I've had a friend send several links to songs before, which has got me into certain artists; to which I went and bought the CD. - I wouldn't have thought I was the only one either.

On the other hand, I do acknowledge the other side to it; for example- someone once said to me "You wouldn't walk into HMV and steal a CD, so why would you download music illegally?" - of course, everyone tries to take the moral high-ground on the subject, but I bet most of us have done it at one point or the other, for what ever reason - but it is interesting, it's almost like someone saying "I would steal, if I wasn't going to get caught so easily"
y'know? - Kind of wrong. :roll:
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Jackolantern
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by Jackolantern »

I won't deny your argument holds up with Flash, since Flash is more of a technology platform than Dreamweaver, Word, Photoshop or other highly pirated programs. A lot of Flash hobbyists have learned the platform with pirated copies, and eventually turned professional and bought legal copies. They probably would not have paid all that money just to learn Flash in the first place. However, that is starting to get into a whole different discussion concerning the fact that Flash is the only proprietary, commercial basically-standard technology of the web today. So there is a lot to that one example.

But for most other programs, I believe that most people downloading the application are doing so simply to subvert the need to purchase it. If a someone downloads a new computer game, they are overwhelmingly more likely to play their fill of the game for free and then delete it. Not to try it out to see if they want to buy it considering that there are legal demos for that purpose.
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Cayle
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by Cayle »

One legitimate and excellent use of torrenting is externalizing “hosting costs by crowdsourcing”. This mealy mouth statement basically means to offload your upload costs onto willing suckers... errr... community members; or to offload the cost onto others who in turn offload their costs (i.e. most residential flat-rate; though heavy uploading will likely get you throttled). Planeshift distributes their client via torrent for example and since Planeshift is a zero cost, community run world and it is paid for out of pocket by the team that builds it, this is not just fine, but smart.

Let’s be honest. This “there are lots of legitimate reasons to torrent” talk that you hear within the file sharing community is not much different than a pothead banging on about how awesome industrial hemp is; as if his fascination with the properties of a particular plant fiber had absolutely nothing to do with his love of the leaf. Nor is it much different than a card carrying NRA member banging on about how concealed carry laws help small framed women fend off criminals; when we all know that his real motive has more to do with his shiny, new desert eagle. Nobody outside the faithful takes the argument seriously.

When most people ‘torrent’ something, they mean that other meaning for verb "torrent"; one with a very specific meaning. When I ‘torrented’ PBS’ National Parks series, it was because they saw fit to block me from watching it from Europe, while 16 hours and an airliner ride before, they were perfectly willing to let me watch it from their website. And they would not let me order it from Amazon.com either. They were telling me that they did not want my money. So in that case, ‘torrenting’ was an act of spite. There, I’ve done it. We all have. It’s easy and appears victimless. Any anyway, there is nobody in our monkeysphere involved. So we rationalize it.

Corinthius, whether you realize it or not, your argument about product awareness is centered around Adam Smith’s economic man. Economic man might make the rational decision that the number of lost sales due to piracy was outweighed by the number of bootlegs that went legit and that a moderate amount of piracy was an acceptable price to pay. (assuming that this is in fact the case, which is not an undisputable fact) Economic man lives with Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster. He is a myth. We know from the oft repeated Ultimatum game experiments that many people - most men and a minority of women, when given what they perceive as an unfair offer prefers to take nothing in order to punish the other. There is a whole subset of game theory that seems to confirm a tendency to accept a less desirable outcome, as long as the other guy does not gain by defecting.

The example of Flash is a very specific one. Microsoft wants to dethrone flash and gives Silverlight away. Adobe does not want Silverlight to dethrone flash. Whether someone pirates the tools to make flash content, or uses Silverlight makes no short term difference to Adobe’s bottom line. However when someone pirates Flash, then they are not using Silverlight. I do not work for Adobe and have not been privy to their strategy meetings, but I’d reckon that they would rather have users pirating Flash than migrating to Silverlight... ...at least in the short term. :twisted:
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hallsofvallhalla
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by hallsofvallhalla »

good posts. can't add anything to them.
Corinthius
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by Corinthius »

Very interesting Cayle, I think that cover the subject nicely with the input from us all, our different view points and experiences clearly show, hehe.
I hope someone else enjoys reading this over as much as I did! :)

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Sebastian
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Re: Torrent Discussion

Post by Sebastian »

Hmmm..i dont have one opinion on the subject. I dont use torrents, few time i downloaded stuff by services like rapideshare ect. i think they are much better but anyway...
For me piracy is not just black and white. In general im against it, because in theory it is stealing and i hate it. On other hand im thinking about all poor countries and people in the world. Most of software is so rediciously expensive that a LOT of people couldnt even dream about buying them. Im not talking about games, music ect but software for education or work. For example last time i saw windows 7, it costed 700 polish zloty`s, averge person is earning about 1200 per mont (and poland is not seen as a poor country) and its not enough to save anything, how could they afford something like this? and microsoft is filthy rich anyway.
When i was in my teens i was downloading everything because there was no way i could afford the cheapest games or what ever. When i went to ireland i had money i was buying only original stuff because i could.
So i think that if someone if just cheap and download everything its bad, if someone is poor what a hell, all companies are rich as hell and making millions anyway let them feel like they are not "outsiders".
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