http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ How-To Geek Forums Topic: torrents advice en Fri, 09 Jan 2009 09:05:41 +0000 http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23478 Fri, 09 May 2008 03:12:21 +0000 jack7h3r1pp3r 23478@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>short and simple torrents are both good and bad at the same time. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23443 Thu, 08 May 2008 22:13:55 +0000 elpaelpa 23443@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>THANKS TO ALL! SCOTT W--THAT GUIDE HELPED ALOT! </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23422 Thu, 08 May 2008 20:24:04 +0000 Lighthouse 23422@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>yep. that too </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23420 Thu, 08 May 2008 20:20:14 +0000 Budohorseman 23420@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Also illegal for anyone but the original purchaser to view</p> <p>@ScottW, technically, they were found guilty for destroying the records of ip addresses. I'm sure they will appeal because they did not host any infringing content on their site.</p> <p>EDIT: <a href='http://techdirt.com/articles/20080508/1046351063.shtml'>http://techdirt.com/articles/20080508/1046351063.shtml</a> </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23410 Thu, 08 May 2008 19:49:14 +0000 Lighthouse 23410@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>It's all a bit of a problem<br /> Illegal to borrow a CD/DVD (and listen to or view) from a friend<br /> illegal to buy a 2nd hand one<br /> illegal to borrow one from the library<br /> illegal to hire one from a video store </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23404 Thu, 08 May 2008 19:33:51 +0000 ScottW 23404@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>I take back what I said about a decisive legal victory -- I think this qualifies:<br /> <a href='http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9938469-7.html'>http://www.news.com/8301-10784_3-9938469-7.html</a></p> <p>xenomex, nice edit above. It is truly nice and simple now! </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23396 Thu, 08 May 2008 18:55:33 +0000 xenomex 23396@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>@Scott,<br /> How obvious are you going to make it lol? </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23377 Thu, 08 May 2008 15:42:40 +0000 Lighthouse 23377@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>yeah, yeah </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23376 Thu, 08 May 2008 15:38:35 +0000 ScottW 23376@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Xenomex, you have that exactly backwards. Seeds are people who have the whole torrent and are continuing to make it available for others to download. Peers are those who have part of a file and are downloading the rest from seeds and other peers. Leechers is common slang for peers, especially those who quit the torrent when they have the whole file instead of continuing to seed.</p> <p>For anyone who wants to understand the bittorrent protocol, you can read the very dry article at Wikipedia or this widely used guide:<br /> <a href='http://dessent.net/btfaq/'>http://dessent.net/btfaq/</a></p> <p>I won't say which client I prefer, but it begins with the letter "μ". </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23354 Thu, 08 May 2008 11:34:28 +0000 xenomex 23354@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>I' going to make this nice and simple :)</p> <p>Read the article under this one ! </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23155 Wed, 07 May 2008 12:47:35 +0000 jack7h3r1pp3r 23155@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>you guys make my explaination look bad ;) jk </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23131 Wed, 07 May 2008 09:34:37 +0000 The Geek 23131@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>It's important to note for any curious readers that downloading torrents of copyrighted files can often be a very bad thing... there are trackers attempting to find your IP address, and there have been quite a number of lawsuits filed against people. While they may or may not win in court, it's still going to cost you a ton of money in lawyer fees. Sure, you can try and use the tools to block people from tracking you, but it's rarely worth it just to download some awful sound track from the 80s.</p> <p>Downloading open source or free applications via torrents is perfectly fine, legal, and sometimes a good idea. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23112 Wed, 07 May 2008 04:38:08 +0000 ScottW 23112@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>While the lawsuits may not have resulted in any decisive legal victories, they have been used to put pressure on Torrent sites and shut some down. First, Suprnova went, now TorrentSpy is unavailable here in the US. ThePirateBay was raided by Swedish police, but is still open...for now. The MPAA and their cohorts beat up on one site until it gives in, then move on. IsoHunt seems to be in their crosshairs now and probably several others.</p> <p>All of this legal wrangling reminds me of the music pirating days of Napster -- before Napster was "legitimate" -- when the RIAA was the bad guy. Part of the problem is that the music and now movie industry was not quick enough to market their media with the convenience of Internet stores. Online music sales are now quite common, but still lacking in completeness of their catalog. Movies and TV are still learning to crawl in this area. For net TV, I like <a href='http://hulu.com'>http://hulu.com</a> and all the broadcast networks are starting to make their shows available streaming online some even in HD. Also, pay services such as iTunes and Xbox Live Marketplace are bringing a limited catalog of shows, some in HD, but the prices are still too high. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23110 Wed, 07 May 2008 04:15:44 +0000 Budohorseman 23110@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Why thank you, you are too kind. What can I say, I read a ton of Slashdot (/.) and TechDirt so I can keep on top of such things ;-) </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23108 Wed, 07 May 2008 03:58:58 +0000 jack7h3r1pp3r 23108@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>very good explaination budohorseman (two thumbs up) </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23107 Wed, 07 May 2008 03:55:30 +0000 Budohorseman 23107@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Hopefully third time's the charm...</p> <p>Torrents are a distributed distribution network. When you begin to download a torrent you become part of the swarm. Members of the swarm will request pieces that they do not have from others in the swarm, so as time goes on, you will be both up/downloading. The advantage of torrents is that they spread the responsibility of the 'host server' to several (if not hundreds) of individual pc's.</p> <p>A leech is a person who only downloads (or has a pathetic upload rate). Many clients keep track of your share ratio, your upload:download ratio. As your ratio improves (gets closer or exceeds 1:1) you will typically get better download speeds.</p> <p>The legality of the downloads comes down to the files themselves. If you see a torrent marked 'Office 2007 with crack' it is obviously an illegal file and the crack may crack more than just the copy of Office, so beware!<br /> EDIT: Others such as open office, firefox, and many other open source files are just fine for torrent downloads. Odd are if it's free, they don't mind the torrents as it keeps people off their main download servers and as such saves them money.</p> <p>As for the lawsuits, they have been mostly against the torrent trackers, and most of those have failed to hold up in court. Torrent trackers are just search engines for a specific type of file. </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23103 Wed, 07 May 2008 03:14:32 +0000 jack7h3r1pp3r 23103@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>well see torrents are just another kind of p2p sharing and they are legal as long as they are not copyrighted so if it would be illegal to download them anywhere else they are still illegal in torrent form. and as far as lawsuits go it is about the same as it was before when people were downloading copyrighted material. also while they may seem like an easy way to get good things for free there are ways that you can still be caught very easily and that there are a lot of viruses to go along with them. but torrents are also popular too because you can download them faster. so before you download some torrents make sure that they are not copyrighted and not viruses.</p> <p>hope this helps </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/torrents-advice#post-23100 Wed, 07 May 2008 02:45:55 +0000 elpaelpa 23100@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Need to pick you guys brains about torrents.I understand the basics, what I need to know is are they legal and what's going to happen in the future in regards to lawsuits,etc.? What are the protocols (ex.leeching)?What are the pitfalls of torrents in regards to software troubles? I've tested some of the 'free net tv'programs and I certainly wouldn't pay for any of them while torrents sounds interesting.TKS </p>