We’ve reported before on BitTorrent’s claim that they are “not designed for piracy” despite multiple studies and research finding over 99% infringing content being distributed using it.
The latest comes to us from AdLand.tv who are offering commentary on BitTorrent’s recent move into outdoor advertising that first appeared in Gizmodo.
The opening of Gizmodo’s article reads thusly:
“Torrenting” is kind of a dirty word. It makes you think piracy, doesn’t it? Well it shouldn’t. Torrenting isn’t illegal. It’s not even morally ambiguous. It’s just a way to send data, and it’s awesome.
Yes. That’s right. Keep telling yourself that. Guns don’t kill people. People do. It’s not the syringe, it’s the heroin. It’s not the file sharing platform enabling copyright infringement; its the millions of users using the site to infringe.
Baa, baa, baa, Sheeple.
As usual the folks at AdLand have a wonderful way of exploring the ad campaign by BitTorrent.
“The internet should be regulated people-powered.”
What other industry do you know that has near zero regulation except Big Tech? We have Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) the Environmental Protection Agency, the Food And Drug Administration, and the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to name a few of the regulators. Big Tech doesn’t even police itself because if it did, it would be losing money by the truck load. This isn’t even up for debate.
People-powered, my ass. In the immortal words of our dear president, we didn’t build that. Someone else did. They built the internet, the websites, the software. The search engines. The email programs. Just as someone else created the content you’re helping yourself to for free. Don’t fall for this “people-powered” bullshit at all. The artists and musicians (you know– the people) do not make money off torrent sites from the ‘exposure.’ This has been reported on ad nauseam. The only people who have the power are the Big Tech companies getting rich off of content they don’t own.
READ THE FULL POST AT ADLAND.TV:
http://adland.tv/node/156095#sJh2zH6EcHXqaxFB.99
The Trichordist 
First of all let me say that I am against intellectual property theft, especially of artistic content.
That being said, just like http, ftp, gopher, and many other Internet technologies, BitTorrent is really just a protocol. It is a protocol that is extremely useful for transfering large amounts of identical data to a large number of people.
That unfortunately makes it a very good protocol for piracy, but it is also a very good protocol for many other things.
The problem with bittorrent and piracy isn’t bittorrent, it is the piracy. Many people, such as myself, use bittorrent for distribution and retrieval of content that can be legally distributed, such as open source software distributions or the bitcoin blockchain.
Some commercial software uses it to distribute software updates, particularly some gaming platforms. The updates are large and it would cost a lot of money to set up the infrastructure needed to distribute it from a central location. So they build bittorrent clients into the game and when there is an update, clients download it using bittorrent distributing the network load among users.
It really is a fantastic protocol for what it is intended for, nothing is better at distributing a large file to many users.
I understand the piracy frustration because it is a particularly good tool to use for piracy, but that ship has already sailed and you will not be able to stop bittorrent from being used that way even if the developers vanish. The source is open and users will continue to use it, it has no centralization like original napster did that can shut down its use.
Go after the pirates, not a useful protocol that you can’t stop anyway.
The problem is that BitTorrent the company monetizes this traffic by selling advertising on it’s client. They then pay Zero to the Artist. It’s like the record companies of old except you don’t get the occasional Caddilac. BitTorrent the company is the pirate. They are the ones that profit. That’s why we are going after them.
While I agree with you that bittorrent has other uses. It is not all it’s cracked up to be.
The problem with BitTorrent that I find appalling is that it sells users on privacy. when it’s wide open. For instance unless I’m reading something wrong It appears you are also a bitcoin node. Using BitTorrent for bitcoin transactions gives anyone (including the NSA) a public map of who is involved in the bitcoin world. Just saying. Not very secret.