Lumberjack
Premium
join:2003-01-18
Newport News, VA
 ·Cox HSI
| reply to quatrix
Re: Feel bad?
said by quatrix  :Are you complaining because you legitimately think they're doing something wrong or because you feel guilty for stealing and want to deflect the blame onto someone else? The same goes for everyone badmouthing the RIAA just because they push for enforcement of laws that they broke. That type of thinking is not permitted here. How dare you call out the thieves!
The reason Comcast will continually avoid this is because the people that are most affected by the "throttling" are the ones who aren't going to show up to court and say, "So I was downloading a movie that's not out yet and I had to wait two days instead of eight hours... that's not right".
Though, who knows... some P2P crackhead is bound to do that one day for not getting his porn.
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»www.fairtax.org |
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AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| said by Lumberjack :That type of thinking is not permitted here. How dare you call out the thieves! The reason Comcast will continually avoid this is because the people that are most affected by the "throttling" are the ones who aren't going to show up to court and say, "So I was downloading a movie that's not out yet and I had to wait two days instead of eight hours... that's not right". Yes, because P2P = piracy. 
Its fair to assume you don't get out much in the computer world, do you?
I participate in legal use of P2P technologies, and I'd be well affected by Comcast's methods...if I used them, that is. However, I'm sure there are plenty of Comcast users playing games that're assisted via P2P: (World of Warcraft being a huge one here), folks that download P2P-distributed large media files (again, legal ones - I've downloaded freely-avaliable audio & video this way), most any Linux distro user, etc.
Let the suit go on. It'll be interesting to see how this breaks down in the courts. |
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Lumberjack
Premium
join:2003-01-18
Newport News, VA
·Cox HSI
| Learn sarcasm  . I know there are other potential uses for P2P that are perfectly legal. I get along fine in the "computer world" and it's quite rare to see practical business use for P2P. You're counter-piracy examples are valid but you know they only account for a fraction of the "bad" stuff. Maybe if little Joey wasn't downloading the Foo Fighters greatest hits the WoW updater wouldn't suck so bad (if you play WoW you know it's not faster than a direct download).
Trying to explain the piracy relationship P2P has by citing WoW and some video content is pretty weak. That's like saying the armed bank robber was ok in his actions because he didn't kill anybody. The point is that P2P's user base that is mostly impacted by Comast's action are not the folks that are going to complain in a court of law... because they are in violation themselves. That doesn't mean I agree in any way with Comcast's practices but hey, somebody else might (where it counts) in a court of law.
The best resolution as I see it would just be to freaking hardware throttle the connections. Why in the hell the Sandvine product doesn't do this I don't know (or I've not read enough info on it). Symantec acquired a product a couple years ago that basically put suspected SPAM relays in a stone age ISDN quality connection. This way all the traffic gets threw just fine but at a highly reduced rate. Cuts down on bandwidth hogging but still allowing people to get whatever they want. Ahh the days of content filtering... but that assumes I'm familiar with the computer world .
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»www.fairtax.org |
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AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| said by Lumberjack :Maybe if little Joey wasn't downloading the Foo Fighters greatest hits the WoW updater wouldn't suck so bad (if you play WoW you know it's not faster than a direct download). Actually, I do play, and I get my downloads just fine off the Blizzard Downloader (if not faster than the mirroring FTP sites).
said by Lumberjack :Trying to explain the piracy relationship P2P has by citing WoW and some video content is pretty weak. That's like saying the armed bank robber was ok in his actions because he didn't kill anybody. I've never heard that comparison made. Usually the closest comparsion I've seen to criminalizing a protocol is the "banning roads due to escaping criminals". Granted the ratio of criminals : legal drivers is much different, but P2P's ratio would be much less as well if ISPs had been targeting the criminals themselves, rather than lump-sum an entire protocol's user base.
And pardon the earlier "not getting the sarcasm tags". If you read some of the posts made on these topics, you'll notice that there are some that give a 1:1 ratio of P2P users-to-pirates.  |
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adam henry
@comcast.net
moderated:
February 22nd, @12:04PM
thumbs down from:
gaforces
| reply to AquaBlaze
let me guess...you download linux distros and wow patches all the time right? |
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AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
edit:
February 22nd, @12:05PM
| said by adam henry :
so in reality p2p does equal piracy you nitwit. Wow...given all your good points and mountains of research, let me reply appropriately:
Nevermind, I guess the mods did it for me.  |
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Lumberjack
Premium
join:2003-01-18
Newport News, VA
·Cox HSI
| reply to AquaBlaze
Hardly any protocol is single usage. But I'd have to say it's almost fair to say that P2P is 1:1 with Piracy for most people that use P2P knowing it's actually P2P. And more than likely if you ask the general populous for a description of P2P they'd probably say "that's how I download my music and Heros episodes".
So I'm not good with analogies... my point is, trying to defend P2P as a viable protocol for non-pirated content is somewhat pointless (even though you're correct). P2P was created not to share linux distributions, WoW patches or whatever else... it was created to share mp3s ripped from CDs. And even if it's now used for legitimate things it still has and will always have that label.
Technically though I still think it's a spammy protocol and direct transfers or even mirror'd transfers are better. One connection, one stream is less "messy" for a network than hundreds of connections. Hell, that's probably more of an issue to providers than bandwidth... a lot harder for the feds to spy on that .
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»www.fairtax.org |
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NormanS
Premium,MVM
join:2001-02-14
San Jose, CA
 ·Pacific Bell - SBC
| said by Lumberjack :So I'm not good with analogies... my point is, trying to defend P2P as a viable protocol for non-pirated content is somewhat pointless (even though you're correct). P2P was created not to share linux distributions, WoW patches or whatever else... it was created to share mp3s ripped from CDs. That may be true for Napster, and its ilk, but that isn't the same as BitTorrent (AFAIK).
Oddly, I have only downloaded 46 mp3s that can be considered pirated, and I did not use any P2P for those, just HTTP. Pirated in the sense that the distributors were not authorized, that I know of. However, I know that the source albums are out of print, and I searched long and hard for used copies. I drew a blank. They are imports, and I'd probably have to haunt the used CD stores in Akihabara in hopes of finding them.
Technically though I still think it's a spammy protocol...
Not by any accurate definition of "spammy". Of course, we always play fast and loose with words in English, and many words have taken on meanings far from the original. "Hacker", "Pro Life", "Saturday Night Special", and "Assault Weapon" come to mind. They currently have an evil aura, and are used as catch words for ideologically charged arguments.
...and direct transfers or even mirror'd transfers are better. One connection, one stream is less "messy" for a network than hundreds of connections. Hell, that's probably more of an issue to providers than bandwidth... a lot harder for the feds to spy on that .
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Norman
~Oh Lord, why have you come
~To Konnyu, with the Lion and the Drum |
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AquaBlaze
Premium
join:2004-02-02
Encino, CA
| reply to Lumberjack
said by Lumberjack :P2P was created not to share linux distributions, WoW patches or whatever else... it was created to share mp3s ripped from CDs. Actually, the protocols they're going after (ie. BitTorrent) were created simply as a cheap means to distribute large files over the web - no specific purpose/reason was made or given. It was the pirates that jumped on this, feeling they were "untraceable" at the time, that made the protocol seem so closely tied with the technology.
Is piracy a greater volume of P2P traffic than legit users? Yes.
Does this mean that P2P = piracy? Absolutely not.
As I've said before, get the criminals off legit and legal protocol channels, not just criminalize the entire sect of the technology. |
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