Wait, there are people that don't use torrents? Were they still using Kazaa or something?

/wail 'til they hear about usenet

Too bad for the RIAA/MPAA that torrents are a great way to move data of any kind, not just their property. Blizzard uses it to distribute their games [although I wish they'd just use a regular .torrent file, their proprietary client sucks]. I use it to get various Linux distros, etc etc etc.

It's just a much simpler and cheaper way to distribute large amounts of data. Suck it, RIAA/MPAA.

Not really, Subs. It's more that people who knew about Pirate Bay also know about Isohunt, Torrentz, Mininova, TorrentReactor, and how to use Google to search for torrents.
This is their suggested explanation B from the article:
There are three likely explanations: a) The UK and Dutch blockades created a lot of publicity (and no publicity is bad publicity); b) The Pirate Bay isn't the only torrent site, and most torrents are available from multiple sites; and c) Veteran internet users are a lot more savvy than the RIAA, MPAA, and BREIN give them credit for - it's awfully easy to circumvent the blockade with a proxy or VPN.

Incidentally, explanation C is unlikely to be right. If people were using VPNs, then the university wouldn't have been able to sniff the encapsulated traffic to compile their data.

UNC_Samurai: /wail 'til they hear about usenet

the downside of usenet is the cost and to some extent that stuff isn't always available. The upside is that if you get a good provider, the speed is really good. I used to get whole pr0n movies in less than 10 minutes.

when they do finally succeed (or at least feel they've pissed away enough money on an exercise in futility) their next target will be the manufacturers of flash drives. The Sneakernet will never die!

farkeruk: UNC_Samurai: /wail 'til they hear about usenet

the downside of usenet is the cost and to some extent that stuff isn't always available. The upside is that if you get a good provider, the speed is really good. I used to get whole pr0n movies in less than 10 minutes.

Even though the lost is relatively low, it's surprising how many people it's still a bar to.

I switched to using a proxy for my bittorrent traffic a few weeks ago. The peace of mind is nice.

mongbiohazard: I switched to using a proxy for my bittorrent traffic a few weeks ago. The peace of mind is nice.

If you trust the proxy.

spleef420: when they do finally succeed (or at least feel they've pissed away enough money on an exercise in futility) their next target will be the manufacturers of flash drives. The Sneakernet will never die!

Sure, it's high latency, but the bandwidth is amazing!

NateAsbestos: Too bad for the RIAA/MPAA that torrents are a great way to move data of any kind, not just their property. Blizzard uses it to distribute their games [although I wish they'd just use a regular .torrent file, their proprietary client sucks]. I use it to get various Linux distros, etc etc etc.

You're welcome.

lordargent: You're welcome.

Ratios for the distros all above 10, overall ratio of 1.73... Heh. Clean your list frequently, eh?

Fark the RIAA and MPAA and every congressperson who does their bidding

"The more you tighten your grip, MPAA/RIAA, the more customers will slip through your fingers."

mongbiohazard: I switched to using a proxy for my bittorrent traffic a few weeks ago. The peace of mind is nice.

I'm on the verge of doing that - mind if I ask which one, and why you chose it?

So i wanted to watch the Newsroom, but I don't have cable or HBO.

Head over to my local torrent site and see that it's available, but ALSO see a blurb on the page about how episode 1 is available for free, streaming, at HBO! What do you know, I headed right over to HBO.com, even signed up with them, just so I could watch. They could have shown me ads and I wouldn't have minded, bottom line is they made the system easy to access and more convenient than a torrent, so I used their service.

Fast foward to episode 2. Head over to HBO's website and see it's only available for HBO GO members. Well I look into how I can sign up, but see that I need an existing cable subscription. I'd be more than happy to pay $5 or $10 a month for Go, or pay a dollar or two just to get access to the individual episodes I want, but those aren't options.

Back to torrents.

Whatever happened with the big, ON JULY 12th(ish), MAJOR ISP PROVIDERS WILL BE SPYING ON YOU thing that was floating around this Spring?

The article(s) basically said that Comcast, ATT, TWC and others would be voluntarily turning over your download info to RIAA/MPAA starting in July.

The story hung around for a couple days on FARK and a bunch of other sites, but I've not heard anything more of it since.

I got one very conservative buddy here in town and believe it or no, he HATES the RIAA/MPAA with the anger of a thousand exploding suns.

LarryDan43: mongbiohazard: I switched to using a proxy for my bittorrent traffic a few weeks ago. The peace of mind is nice.

If you trust the proxy.

iVPN

Anonymous, no logs, multiple countries (single and multihop), unlimited bandwidth and connection, never had a single problem.

It's a pay service but well worth the price.

machoprogrammer: Fark the RIAA and MPAA and every congressperson who does their bidding

This.

and the increase in the popularity in bit torrents with TPB being blocked in many nations in Europe is no different that what happened when they got Napster shut down. the peer to peer sharing networks exploded and instead of one big one and a few smaller ones, they had dozens on their hands of course most did not last long as people migrated to the best ones and the rest died off . Bit torrent has replaced peer to peer sharing programs now so they have gone away.

Yuri Futanari: So i wanted to watch the Newsroom, but I don't have cable or HBO.

Head over to my local torrent site and see that it's available, but ALSO see a blurb on the page about how episode 1 is available for free, streaming, at HBO! What do you know, I headed right over to HBO.com, even signed up with them, just so I could watch. They could have shown me ads and I wouldn't have minded, bottom line is they made the system easy to access and more convenient than a torrent, so I used their service.

Fast foward to episode 2. Head over to HBO's website and see it's only available for HBO GO members. Well I look into how I can sign up, but see that I need an existing cable subscription. I'd be more than happy to pay $5 or $10 a month for Go, or pay a dollar or two just to get access to the individual episodes I want, but those aren't options.

IMO cable is a scam. It's like someone photographing an all-you-can-eat buffet from an angle, showing steak and ribs and the rest out of focus, and when you get there, the rest of it is lettuce and rice, and desert is some fresh fruit.

We had it for a while and then realised that we were basically getting the same shows repeated and that the amount of original content just didn't add up. For £25/month, I could get a lot more movies for the price.

idesofmarch: mongbiohazard: I switched to using a proxy for my bittorrent traffic a few weeks ago. The peace of mind is nice.

I'm on the verge of doing that - mind if I ask which one, and why you chose it?

I ended up going with BTGuard, though I may try a few others here and there. I found an article with a bunch of them listed, and their privacy policies, and tried one. I'll probably try another one soon. I'm at work and filesharing sites are blocked, but I'm pretty sure it was this article.

Ed Finnerty: LarryDan43: mongbiohazard: I switched to using a proxy for my bittorrent traffic a few weeks ago. The peace of mind is nice.

If you trust the proxy.

iVPN

Anonymous, no logs, multiple countries (single and multihop), unlimited bandwidth and connection, never had a single problem.

It's a pay service but well worth the price.

I may have to check this out. I don't torrent much, but there are items I would like ot get my hands on

Theaetetus: spleef420: when they do finally succeed (or at least feel they've pissed away enough money on an exercise in futility) their next target will be the manufacturers of flash drives. The Sneakernet will never die!

Sure, it's high latency, but the bandwidth is amazing!

Usually amazing. I swear I can redownload stuff from Comcast in about the same time it takes to transfer it from PC to PC via the slow memory stick I've got. It bugs me enough to post about it, but not enough to go over to CompUSA or Newegg.com and get a better one.

UNC_Samurai: Wait, there are people that don't use torrents? Were they still using Kazaa or something?

/wail 'til they hear about usenet

SHUSH, YOU!

Theaetetus: Ratios for the distros all above 10, overall ratio of 1.73... Heh. Clean your list frequently, eh?

yep

My ratio was even higher when I had 10.04 on there (vs 10.04.02).

I didn't keep it because I basically seed the versions of ubuntu that I need for all of my own gear. And since I grabbed it from the torrent, I might as well leave it in that folder and seed it.

// everything else gets cleared out fairly quickly

// I only seed 10.04.xx now - unity sucks

If piracy is the problem it's the *AA own fault for basing their business model on a goverment granted monopoly on insanely easy to produce goods.

Then they biatch that the goverment can't enforce it and they claim to somehow have a moral right to something that can't be done

Lanadapter: If piracy is the problem it's the *AA own fault for basing their business model on a goverment granted monopoly on insanely easy to produce goods.

Then they biatch that the goverment can't enforce it and they claim to somehow have a moral right to something that can't be done

Now while i think the RIAA and MPAA are sluggardly, foolish, badly positioned for the real world, and a bunch of weenies, this is possibly the stupidest thing i have read in a while - and i read the politics tab. Normally i would try to engage and educate, but . . . i mean my god!

The creation of government monopolies so as to be able to internalize the positive externalities engendered by the creation of a public good is the whole point. I mean seriously, your statement is so symbolic of the profound ignorance regarding the purposes and point of intellectual property law that it might be a bizarrely pure crystallization of dumb, a kind of ur-stupid that i would expect to come from the mouth of a Serpentor-like genetically engineered uber-moron vat-grown from cheek swabs of the likes of Sarah Palin. This is tantamount to saying that it is the government's fault for tax dodgers as they should have known that it is difficult to prevent scofflaws from using public roads.

/Or, in other words: "Get outta here with that watch! Lay off the poor beavers! Sheeeeeesh! You're a creep! Go away! We were having a good time until you showed up, jeepers! Uugh! Go have some coffee, with cream or something! Because i'll tell you something! This is a happy place!"

I understand the purpose, a temporary monopoly on works in order to promote science(copyright) and technology(patents, called useful arts in the copyright clause)

Then they expire to mitigate the "evil of the monopoly" as Madison put it.

Bah, I'm so used to people referring to it as the "copyright clause" that I'm doing it.

/get it right people

Lanadapter: I understand the purpose, a temporary monopoly on works in order to promote science(copyright) and technology(patents, called useful arts in the copyright clause)

Then they expire to mitigate the "evil of the monopoly" as Madison put it.

That was Jefferson. Madison was the one who said that the utility of the patent and copyright clause "will scarcely be questioned."

spleef420: when they do finally succeed (or at least feel they've pissed away enough money on an exercise in futility) their next target will be the manufacturers of flash drives. The Sneakernet will never die!

HEY!

Madison also spoke of the evil effects of monopoly as well as the scarcely be questioned bit.

But I'm not talking about whether copyright was enforcable beck in the day of the founders, I'm referring to the here and now where we have both the internet and the expanded scope of copyright.

Nor am I talking about the usefulness of it in any case.

No surprises here.

I'm not a music pirate. What I want, I download off Rhapsody and strip off the DRM with a converter. That's still just for my own use.

Textbooks, though, that's where the insanity is. In med school, our clinical years are broken into five and ten week clerkship sections. Who the hell is going to pay $40 for a review book (Case Files Pediatrics, for example) that they'll use for a month and never touch again?

Lanadapter: I understand the purpose, a temporary monopoly on works in order to promote science(copyright) and technology(patents, called useful arts in the copyright clause)

Then they expire to mitigate the "evil of the monopoly" as Madison put it.

The problem is, they don't expire anymore.

Patents still expire, it's copyright that has retroactive extensions to get around that pesky constitution.

HeartBurnKid: Lanadapter: I understand the purpose, a temporary monopoly on works in order to promote science(copyright) and technology(patents, called useful arts in the copyright clause)

Then they expire to mitigate the "evil of the monopoly" as Madison put it.

The problem is, they don't expire anymore.

And this, this is a solid point of debate. Frankly I seriously wish more of us younger/tech savy people would actually start putting real pressure on congress on this issue. The problem of course is that the vast majority doesn't care (well doesnt care enough anyway), ceding the matter to those who do - i.e. rights holders. This is why patent terms don't ratchet up the same way, as there are large counterbalancing interests who represent the interests of the public domain.

/Would love to have some real oomph behind the PD in copyright.

Teiritzamna: This is why patent terms don't ratchet up the same way, as there are large counterbalancing interests who represent the interests of the public domain.

Yes, and no... They're not representing the interests of the public domain so much as they're representing their own interests: specifically, it's all of the competitors of the patent owner who want access to it for free. They'd be just as happy (if not more so) if they could get an exclusive royalty-free license.

Theaetetus: Teiritzamna: This is why patent terms don't ratchet up the same way, as there are large counterbalancing interests who represent the interests of the public domain.

Yes, and no... They're not representing the interests of the public domain so much as they're representing their own interests: specifically, it's all of the competitors of the patent owner who want access to it for free. They'd be just as happy (if not more so) if they could get an exclusive royalty-free license.

100% true - but i was using a shorthand. Also, since my firm spends a lot of its time cracking patents i like to cast us as the Robin Hood of pharma patents because it makes me feel shiny and gets chicks.

/that last bit may possibly be a lie
//I got swamped and we did not get beers - i suggest we attempt again this Sunday?

KaiserRoll: People still torrent things? Steam sells things for prices that make it silly to torrent.

I love steam and I check there first. However they have a tiny fraction of the titles available though torrents and if cost is an issue to people they don't always have stuff discounted.

/Gog is good for classic games and everything there is cheap, but once again they have a fraction of what is available through torrents.

Gee. Until recently your average person on the street wouldn't of heard of The Pirate Bay, they'd of thought you were talking about something to do with the PoTC movies, Jack Sparrow or possibly, if a little aware of its existence assumed it was a nefarious place to visit and not worth the effort.

Then in a fit of brilliance the RIAA/MPAA and international cronies get... the site blocked by most major UK ISP's. This is carried by the media... both as a censorship issue and if you listened to the broadcast news told you exactly what TPB was doing: providing free movies and PORN!

That's right folks, it was announced to a country of 60 million people that this website will supply you with free porn in vast quantities; they even mentioned it was a Dutch website so you know it's going to be the 'good stuff'.

UK ISP's and this is confirmed by TPB are now seeing a massive and sustained surge in torrent traffic.

Well that worked as planned didn't it? Good job.

Vaneshi: Gee. Until recently your average person on the street wouldn't of heard of The Pirate Bay, they'd of thought you were talking about something to do with the PoTC movies, Jack Sparrow or possibly, if a little aware of its existence assumed it was a nefarious place to visit and not worth the effort.

Then in a fit of brilliance the RIAA/MPAA and international cronies get... the site blocked by most major UK ISP's. This is carried by the media... both as a censorship issue and if you listened to the broadcast news told you exactly what TPB was doing: providing free movies and PORN!

That's right folks, it was announced to a country of 60 million people that this website will supply you with free porn in vast quantities; they even mentioned it was a Dutch website so you know it's going to be the 'good stuff'.

UK ISP's and this is confirmed by TPB are now seeing a massive and sustained surge in torrent traffic.

Well that worked as planned didn't it? Good job.

Yup. Classic Streisand Effect.

If the RIAA keep up the media exposure, that will frighten enough musicians to feel a need to be protected by the RIAA.