BitTorrent

[forumdude123]

What is bittorrent and do you have to pay for it?

[GrimJack]

Bittorrent is a free P2P file-sharing protocol (BitTorrent) - it is thought that it is responsible for a significant amount of traffic on the web. You need a client to use the protocol - I use Azureus. Here is a Wikipedia link. It is an incredible tool for passing around large data files and/or large amounts of data. You are not anonymous when you use a client unless you go through an anonymizer - the 2nd video is the one I am pointing you to - tracking.

[tiger86]

BIT torrent is illegal in the united states of america if you use it you are breaking the law.

[GrimJack]

BIT torrent is illegal in the united states of america if you use it you are breaking the law.

I don't think we live in the same United States of America:

Adoption

A growing number of individuals and organizations are using BitTorrent to distribute their own or licensed material. Independent adopters report[5] that without using BitTorrent technology, and its dramatically reduced demands on networking hardware and bandwidth, they could not afford to distribute their files.

Film, video and music

* BitTorrent Inc. has amassed a number of licenses from Hollywood studios for distributing popular content at the company's website.
* Sub Pop Records releases tracks and videos via BitTorrent Inc.[6] to distribute its 1000+ albums. The band Ween uses the website Browntracker.net[7] to distribute free audio and video recordings of live shows. Furthermore, Babyshambles and The Libertines (both bands associated with Pete Doherty) have extensively used torrents to distribute hundreds of demos and live videos.
* Podcasting software is starting to integrate BitTorrent to help podcasters deal with the download demands of their MP3 "radio" programs. Specifically, Juice and Miro (formerly known as Democracy Player) support automatic processing of .torrent files from RSS feeds. Similarly, some BitTorrent clients, such as µTorrent, are able to process web feeds and automatically download content found within them.

Personal material

* The Amazon S3 "Simple Storage Service" is a scalable Internet-based storage service with a simple web service interface, equipped with built-in BitTorrent support.
* Blog Torrent offers a simplified BitTorrent tracker to enable bloggers and non-technical users to host a tracker on their site. Blog Torrent also allows visitors to download a "stub" loader, which acts as a BitTorrent client to download the desired file, allowing users without BitTorrent software to use the protocol.[8] This is similar to the concept of a self-extracting archive.

[jbennet]

Bittorrent is NOT ilegal in america. it has many legal uses like downloading large files which would otherwise cost the hoster loads in bandwidth e.g disk images of linux (which its legal to copy and share)

[tiger86]

Bittorrent is NOT ilegal in america. it has many legal uses like downloading large files which would otherwise cost the hoster loads in bandwidth e.g disk images of linux (which its legal to copy and share)

If I have to find a quote from the government I will but I know for a fact they made it illegal!

[jbennet]

no its just illegal if you use it for downloading music

[tiger86]

Oh, Okay sorry I did not know that I thought the whole site had been made illegal. Thank you for clearing up that confusion.

[jbennet]

no its not illegal unless you do illegal things with it, like i said, it has many legal uses. just dont go downloading music, films, windows etc....

[John A]

BitTorrent is a network protocol that can be used and abused, just like most other protocols such as HTTP, FTP, Gnutella. Whether it's abused more or less than other protocols doesn't affect the legality of the actual protocol.

[jbennet]

exactly

[tiger86]

Okay here is a quote I got from a Website "On May 25, 2005, the popular BitTorrent website EliteTorrents.org was shut down by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and Immigration and Customs Enforcement. At first it was thought that a malicious hacker had gained control of the website, but it was soon discovered that the website had been taken over by the US government. Ten search warrants relating to members of the website were executed.[8] Up until today six admins of the EliteTorrents.org website pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit criminal copyright infringement and criminal copyright infringement of a pre-commercial release work"

It would be appreciated if you gave some of my reputation back since I was partially correct. that is not the only bit torrents to be shutdown by the way.

[jbennet]

because it was seeding illegal torrents for pirated movies and music

[Tach]

BIT torrent is illegal in the united states of america if you use it you are breaking the law.

Actually you are wrong. BitTorrent is NOT illegal in the US. You can use BitTorrent to download/upload data as long as it is NOT copyrighted material. The game World of Warcraft uses the BitTorrent protocol to receive update patches, if it were illegal in the US everyone who plays WoW would be breaking the law.

Bottom line is it is LEGAL to use as long as you are not sharing copyrighted material.

To take it a step further the actual .torrent file (which is usually downloaded from a web site via your browser) is very small and contains NO copyrighted material, it simply points your BT client to other people sharing the same data.

So you can download the .torrent file even if it points to copyrighted material. BUT if you open that .torrent file (and it points to copyrighted material) within a bittorrent client that is when it becomes ILLEGAL.

Simply downloading a .torrent file is not illegal in and of itself. It only becomes ILLEGAL when you open the .torrent file in a BitTorrent client and you start downloading copyrighted content.

This is a misconception that many people have about bittorrent clients. It is a direct result of the MPAA and the RIAA's scare tactics.

Bottom line is it is LEGAL to use a bit torrent client as long as you are not sharing copyrighted material.