Where others tread to fear.

I was reading an article over at one of my favorite web sites. It appears that the MPAA has borrowed the RIAA’s handbook on how it deals with online music sharing, rather than learning from the mess that has been created. They are suing web sites that host trackers for BitTorrent. You can look at the introduction page on the link to get an idea of what BitTorrent does. It's actually a pretty brilliant and useful piece of software. I've actually recommended it as a distribution system for lab images on campus.

The latest suit and action concerns a site that hosted a tracker for Star Wars Episode III before it was released into theaters. In truth the people responsible for making the file available should be the ones prosecuted. It is illegal after all. The responsibility of the site to police all of the hosting that they provide is really the question here. BitTorrent allows a site to run a tracker and provide a link to the material without ever actually coming into contact with the material. It’s similar to having a bulletin board on which anyone can post their name as having or wanting a file. It’s like a matchmaking service. Someone else is actually distributing the file. The torrent search sites merely help you find that person.

The other thing that I really love is how George Lucas is claiming that it’s stealing money from the box office. Under most circumstances, the movies you can download are of questionable quality at best. Plus, watching a grainy, staticy, lower resolution video capture on a pc with mediocre speakers is not what one would call a theater quality experience. Also, it usually doesn’t stop people from going to the theater, unless they find out the movie sucks. The fact that George can claim this while SW:EIII is making money hand over fist is quite humorous. The logs show that 10 thousand or so copies were downloaded. That’s a whole lot of money George. Way to go showing off your ass hat again.

As you can tell I have issues with George’s business decisions. He didn’t want to release SW 4, 5, and 6 on DVD because he was afraid of piracy. DVD or video tape doesn’t really affect how easy or difficult it is to pirate something. I went to a site to join a petition to try to change his mind. My reasoning at the time was that DVD would be replaced in a few years with a HD quality video system. If he released it to DVD then he could release it again in the HD system later. Boom, milk that mother twice. I always wonder if he finally realized that, or if the whole thing was merely to make more stir for the actual DVD release. The Star Wars projects that seem to have the least contact with Lucas appear to do the best. It’s a strange paradox.

I personally have used BitTorrent for many things. Just this week my VCR and I had a misunderstanding about how much room was on a tape. I lost by the way. So my recording of the season finale of Smallville was spotty at best. I hopped on a BitTorrent search site a few days later and found a recording of it. Took me 18 hours to download, but I got to watch the finale. I’m going to delete the file this week. I don’t want to distribute it. I just wanted to catch something I missed without waiting for reruns. What's wrong with that? And yes Ty I'm still thinking about the Replay TV. I’ve also downloaded tech demonstration videos, promotional videos, freeware utilities, software patches, etc.

BitTorrent has too many legitimate uses to be killed. Sites will continue to pop up, and software will be developed to offer services that people want. You can either fight each one that comes along to try to maintain the status quo or you can follow where the consumers lead and figure out how to profit from it. Most people are willing to pay for services and content, but they want convenience and ease of use in return.

Get ready for another litigation roller coaster.