Text 4, 159 rader
Skriven 2004-12-26 00:02:21 av Steven Horn (1:17/67.0)
      Kommentar till text 3 av AUGUST ABOLINS (1:123/140)
Ärende: BitTorrent Gives Hollywood a Headache
=============================================
AUGUST ABOLINS (1:123/140) wrote to ALL at 10:43 on 22 Dec 2004:

August,

An interesting story.  Are you aware of any BBS lkoading this software yet?

 AA> http://abcnews.go.com/

 AA> 'BitTorrent' Gives Hollywood a Headache

 AA> Movies Swapped Online Using 'BitTorrent' Give Hollywood a
 AA> Blockbuster Headache

 AA> LOS ANGELES Dec 10, 2004 - Bram Cohen didn't set out to upset
 AA> Hollywood movie studios. But his innovative online file-sharing
 AA> software, BitTorrent, has grown into a piracy problem the film
 AA> industry is struggling to handle. 

 AA> As its name suggests, the software lets computer users share large
 AA> chunks of
 AA> data. But unlike other popular file-sharing programs, the more
 AA> people swap data on BitTorrent, the quicker it flows and that
 AA> includes such large files as feature films and computer games.

 AA> Because of its speed and effectiveness, BitTorrent steadily gained
 AA> in popularity after the recording industry began cracking down last
 AA> year on users of Kazaa, Morpheus, Grokster and other established
 AA> file-sharing software.

 AA> The program now accounts for as much as half of all online
 AA> file-sharing activity, says Andrew Parker, chief technology officer
 AA> of Britain-based CacheLogic, which monitors such traffic.

 AA> "BitTorrent is more of a threat because it is probably the latest
 AA> and best technological tool for transferring large files like
 AA> movies," said John Malcolm, senior vice president of anti-piracy
 AA> operations for the Motion Picture Association of America. "It is
 AA> unusual, perhaps unique, in that the moment you start downloading
 AA> you are also uploading," he added. "It's what makes it so
 AA> efficient."

 AA> Cohen created BitTorrent in 2001 as a hobby after the dot-com crash
 AA> left him
 AA> unemployed. He says the aim was to enable computer users to easily
 AA> distribute content online not specifically copyrighted content. 

 AA> "It seems pretty clear that a lot of people are actively interested
 AA> in engaging in wanton piracy," said Cohen, 29, of Bellevue, Wash.
 AA> "As far as I'm concerned, they're just pushing around bits, and
 AA> what bits it is they're
 AA> pushing around is not really a concern of mine. There's not much I
 AA> can do about it."

 AA> BitTorrent has proven to be resistant to some of the
 AA> countermeasures the entertainment industry has taken to sabotage
 AA> file-sharing, including a process known as file-spoofing in which
 AA> incomplete or decoy versions of songs or other material are
 AA> uploaded to discourage piracy.

 AA> "Spoofing is very difficult on BitTorrent, if at all possible,"
 AA> said Mark Ishikawa, chief executive of online tracking firm BayTSP
 AA> Inc. "There's no defense for this one."

 AA> Programs such as Kazaa and Morpheus allow users to link their PCs
 AA> to computer networks and then query a search engine for the file or
 AA> title they're seeking. The software then churns out a list of other
 AA> computers sharing the file.

 AA> The process is simple and straightforward, which makes it
 AA> relatively easy to
 AA> corrupt with spoofed files.

 AA> With BitTorrent, however, users don't find whole files. The program
 AA> seeks out torrent files, also known as seed files, that are hosted
 AA> by a number of Web sites.

 AA> The files on the Web sites are not songs or movies but serve as
 AA> markers that
 AA> point the way to other users sharing a given file. BitTorrent then
 AA> assembles
 AA> complete files from multiple chunks of data obtained from everyone
 AA> who is sharing the file.

 AA> Attempts to upload bogus files to corrupt the process fail because
 AA> the BitTorrent program follows a blueprint of the original file
 AA> when piecing it together.

 AA> "It's very difficult for an interdiction company to get in the
 AA> middle of that system," said Ishikawa, whose company combs
 AA> file-sharing networks on behalf of Hollywood studios and alerts
 AA> clients when their movies turn up on the Internet.

 AA> Some of the BitTorrent host sites, like SuprNova.org, generate a
 AA> daily list of new seed files added by users. The site recently had
 AA> listings for movies such as "Van Helsing" and "Wimbledon," which is
 AA> not scheduled for release on
 AA> DVD for another three weeks.

 AA> Some sites offer digitized broadcasts of "The Daily Show With Jon
 AA> Stewart," computer games like "Star Trek: Klingon Academy" and
 AA> "Half Life 2," e-books on the physics behind an atomic bomb, even
 AA> footage of kidnap victims in the Middle East.

 AA> "A bunch of the different beheadings are online," Ishikawa said. 

 AA> Downhill Battle, a Worcester, Mass.-based independent music group
 AA> that has developed its own BitTorrent-based software called Blog
 AA> Torrent, says the technology is much more than a tool for swapping
 AA> copyright movies and software (a blog is a Web journal).

 AA> "What we're excited about as far as BitTorrent goes is the
 AA> possibility for people to blog video and blog their own home movies
 AA> (and) independent films and have a way to distribute them online
 AA> without having to have a big budget
 AA> for Web-hosting," said Nicholas Reville, one of the group's
 AA> directors. 

 AA> "Bandwidth has been a big barrier," he said. "BitTorrent solved
 AA> that." 

 AA> While some of the BitTorrent sites that host seed files have been
 AA> forced to shut down, many others escape scrutiny because they're
 AA> only hosting marker files, not copyrighted material.

 AA> Malcolm of the MPAA says his organization is not focusing any more
 AA> or less on BitTorrent than other file-sharing system. He declined
 AA> to say whether the
 AA> trade group intends to sue Cohen and wouldn't name any BitTorrent
 AA> users who may have been included in the entertainment industry's
 AA> latest wave of lawsuits.

 AA> "Anyone who uses BitTorrent and is under the illusion that they are
 AA> anonymous are sorely mistaken," Malcolm said. "There is no reason
 AA> why those lawsuits wouldn't include BitTorrent" users.

 AA> So far, Cohen said, he has not become a target of the entertainment
 AA> industry, which has aggressively pursued litigation against other
 AA> file-sharing software distributors, with mixed success. On Friday,
 AA> the U.S. Supreme Court agreed to hear an appeal by movie studios
 AA> and music labels of a ruling that found Grokster Ltd. and
 AA> StreamCast Networks Inc., the firm behind the Morpheus software, to
 AA> not be responsible for their customers' online swapping of
 AA> copyright songs and movies.

 AA> For his part, Cohen said he has received just one legal warning,
 AA> over a computer game that was being distributed using BitTorrent.

 AA> "Someone else was doing something with BitTorrent that I had no
 AA> knowledge of," Cohen said. "It's not being done on any machines I
 AA> have any control over . what do you want me to do?"

 AA> -------------------------------

Take care,

Steven Horn (steven.horn@gmail.com)
Moderator, ALASKA_CHAT 
--- timEd/386 1.10.y2k+
 * Origin: North of 60 in Whitehorse, Yukon, Canada (1:17/67)