BitTorrent's Loss is eDonkey's Gain? 437
MrAndrews writes "According to this BBC article, users in South Korea, Italy, Germany and Spain are using BitTorrent less frequently these days, after lawsuits by the movie industry. However: "While the use of BitTorrent has fallen, file sharers have moved to an alternative network called eDonkey". "
This is news? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:This is news? (Score:3, Funny)
In other news, Congress repeals all laws regarding theft. Shopowners are told that shoplifting is now legal, and they should change their obsolete business model.
Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:5, Funny)
I figure, in a way, I'm doing Blockbuster a favor. I typically watch movies only once or twice, so I'm just taking their "No Late Fees" policy to the extreme. They are pretty clear that the return refers to the rental, and doesn't terminate your right to view. So I figure as long as I don't distribute I can maintain a moral ambiguity long enough to justify ripping the movie and returning it, on time, to watch when it's more convenient. That way, unlike with a movie purchase, they have the hard copy to rent to someone else, and it's back in the store the day. As long as I don't distribute, it seems to be exactly the same as established precedent law on time shifting.
Flawed logic, perhaps, but a nifty bit of justification I'd say.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Your behaviour is probably Bad© and AntiAmerican©, if not CommieAnarchistLibertarian© for US standards, but it's been ruled as perfectly legal in France, and therefore would probably be in most of Europe.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:4, Informative)
To an extent, but it's not tightly coupled in all areas of the law.
While not binding at all, this sets a european precedent
IANAL, but I think that would be the case only if the decision was based on a European law, implemented by all member states.
Each member state is free to have their own laws which do not contradict any European laws. Hence the hoo-haha here right now with our (British) govt wanting to introduce laws which may breach the EU Human Rights laws. They simply can't (legally), but that doesn't stop them from trying..
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Informative)
Even if the decision was based on European law it wouldn't set a precedent for the UK (it might be "persuasive"). And most of Europe operates a civil law system which doesn't recognise the concept of "precedent" in the same way as English or US law.
Also NB the European Convention on Human Rights is nothing to do with the EU - it's a creation of the Council of Europe, which is an entirely separate body (and includes a tonne of other countries, e.g. Russia). The UK could abrogate from the Convention if it wanted to - the controversy is whether the UK is free to overrule particular parts of the Convention, but otherwise remain a party to it.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:5, Funny)
That's the sound of me packing for France.
Oh wait - isn't France full of French people?
Never mind...
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Funny)
Daniel
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Insightful)
And if you think that Libertarians are for a standing military, then you are talking about a completely different Libertarian party than I've heard about. They discuss the savings of closing all foreign bases and shutting down the military. Let the states or communities organize all volunteer groups to protect us in the case of an invasion, but with little, if any, ability to project power to the other side of the globe.
No, I've seen little difference between the ideal government from a Libertarian point of view and no government at all.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Funny)
I like Kim Stanley Robinson's explanation that a libertarian is an anarchist who wants police protection from his slaves.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Thanks for giving the RIAA/MPAA justification. Take notice, Slashbots. The parent post is a perfect example of why media industries regard their "customers" with such distrust.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, before you level an accusation like that, you'd need to point how how my logic is flawed. Blockbuster makes the same money they would otherwise, thus the MPAA makes the same money they would otherwise, and I watch the movie when it's convenient. I can't see how this is illegal, except for the fact I have to use deCSS to do it. I don't even make a perfect digital copy, which was part of the stipulation of the Sony Beta case. I make a reduced quality copy.
The only thing I have telling me it's "wrong" is some vague sense of the RIAA/MPAA wanting me to officially "buy" a copy of it. I can't even put my finger on the law that would make it "wrong" (Again, other than the DMCA). It would seem to my untrained nonlegal mind that the Supreme Court would uphold my right to make a reduced quality backup for the purpose of time shifting. Reading Blockbuster's membership terms, I can't even find where they say I'm prohibited from making a personal copy, except where it says I have to obey copyright law, which I've already explained I can't find where I'm not.
In short, my logic may be flawed, but I can't personally find where. The MPAA doesn't have to like it, if it's legal.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Insightful)
Nothing there about a "perfect" duplication. Ripping a DVD would (by my definition, anyway) constitute a reproduction.
Aside from that, my point isn't to debate the merits of the Blockbuster/MPAA/RIAA business models. It's that actions like what you described give them ammunition to create laws that further restrict all of our rights.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Insightful)
First, you are assuming that all copyright laws are the same as US laws.
Second, you are not considering the fair use rights. The problem with the status of the law today is that prior court decisions have not been reconciled with the DMCA.
The DMCA specifically prohibits the actual act of circumvention of a copy protection for most purposes. Copying the work is no longer the violation, the circumvention of the copy protection is.
I just wish this issue would get to the Supreme Court so it can be resolved. I am always hopeful that they could basically uphold the DMCA while still guaranteeing the rights of individuals to exercise their fair use rights like archival copies and removal of the region coding.
Subject to 107 through 122 (Score:5, Insightful)
1) the purpose and character of the use, including whether such use is of a commercial nature or is for nonprofit educational purposes;
Personal use is clearly non-commercial.
2) the nature of the copyrighted work;
In this case, the work is creative which is a point for their side.
3) the amount and substantiality of the portion used in relation to the copyrighted work as a whole; and
In my case, it's a whole copy of the work, another point for their side, however it's a reduced quality copy which is a point for my side.
4) the effect of the use upon the potential market for or value of the copyrighted work.
With Blockbuster's particular business model, I've already demonstrated it's actually MORE profitable for them to have me rent a movie rip it in 20 minutes and return it. As for future sales loss, that's not relevant to this argument because of a crucial factor - I delete them after I've watched them. The Supreme Court (Universal City Studios v. Sony Corp., 464 U.S. 417 (1984)) ruled that a time shifted copy does not deprive them of revenue, and that was for a broadcast, not even a paid rental as in my case. I firmly believe that the courts would uphold my arguement that I rented the media that it's on but bought a license to watch the movie. In fact, Blockbuster's terms and conditions does not stipulate how many times you may watch a movie that you've rented, it merely stipulates how long you can keep the media. I've time-shifted the right to watch the movie until after the media is returned, but that doesn't negate my right to watch it, and the Supreme Court upheld my right to time shift it.
Re:Subject to 107 through 122 (Score:3, Informative)
You are correct here, which is why the fair use portion desporately needs to be tested in the courts, even though I don't want to be the one that has to do it! If it's fair use, than in this case the DMCA ought to be tested as to whether it's preventing fair use, and whether that's really legal.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, why do rentals typically last only 24h? Because the video club cannot own an infinite number of copies of everything. Shorter rentals cut down on the number of required copies, physical storage space and operating costs. Some clubs are even refunding $1 (or crediting on the next rental) when rentals are returned within 12h or before noon the next day.
Were it not for the potentially questionable motives behind ripping, some clubs would happily offer half-price rentals for people who rip on-site using their laptops.
Re:Every movie recently released is secretly porn (Score:4, Interesting)
That's almost the same thing I do with used CDs!
The local brick and mortar gets a cut, and I get an ever-expanding library of music that's correctly tagged, in a format I prefer, and at a good bitrate.
My experiences with downloading ripped media is that it's usually poor-quality. About the only thing useful is fan-subbed anime, and they're not on things like eDonkey
Once I get some money stored up for a new RAID in the TB-range, I'll probably start following the same process with DVDs (unless it's something I end up really liking, in which case I prefer the nice case and cover and quality of the version bought from Amazon, like Firefly for example)
Blockbusters "No Late Fees" policy is a scam (Score:3, Informative)
Blockbuster is also taking the "No Late Fees" policy to the Extreme. Their "No Late Fees" policy is a scam. Read the Policy [blockbuster.com]. After reading this, am I supposed to feel sorry for them when someone rips the DVD for personal use?
If you don't return the movie within 8 days, your "Rental" automatically becomes a "Purchase". You then have 30 days to return the movie and get a refund for the "Purchase", but you still pay a $1.25-or greater Stocking Fee. Remember -- it's not a "Late Fee", it's a "Stocking Fee".
And that "FUSF Recovery Charge" on your DSL bill is not a "Fee", it's a "Charge" and is governed by different regulation.
Re:This is news? (Score:2)
As an example, there is NO WAY you can find a movie called "Rojo Amanecer" (mexican movie abou the October 2nd massacre in Tlatelolco) on any torrent, but it is available on Emule.
I also used sometime Winmx, that was when I was looking for the digital version of back iusses of the GAme developers Magazine which I could not find on emule (less on bittorrent of course) and I think some japanesse or chinesse had it on WinMX because it was there. These days, I could find only the CD 2 of those archives. [gdmag.com]
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Interesting)
My main complaints:
1) Setup and use is much too confusing. While BitTorrent has streamlined the process by integrating such things as the "server" (tracker) into the torrent file, eMule tries to manage a list of servers, and doesn't seem to do a very good job of it.
2) It doesn't "just work". Getting your client to connect to the kademlia network is a nightmare, and after the client launches, IF you have previously been on the network, you CAN expect it to connect. Eventually. Azureus, on the other hand, connects to it's Kademlia network in under a minute, and it works every time. Azureus can also use UPnP to autoconfigure your router for BitTorrent use.
3) Downloads are slow. I thought I had left behind queues back in the days of fserves and Kazaa. There is nothing like having a file sit at 0% for several days because all the clients that have the file report that their queues are full. BitTorrent's method of isolating client instances into seperate swarms has eliminated this problem. Some clients, such as Azureus, have support for multiple swarms in one client instance, but ensure that each swarm is being properly handled, unlike eMule and it's queues (and queue limits).
4) It is hard to search. If I do a search one minute on eMule, and then try a minute later, I get quite different search results, and most of the results have very few peers. With BitTorrent, I frequent the few search sites that I use, and get consistant, fast search results. Usually what I want to download has quite a few peers.
5) eMule "swarms" have tons of useless peers. People who are leeching, or have full queues, or long queues, or are seeding too many files. In a BitTorrent swarm, EVERYBODY is uploading, because if they don't, nobody is going to upload to them, and they aren't going to get very far. BitTorrent users also tend to be dealing with less files at once (Such as only one or two), so they can "concentrate" on those files. An eMule client could be seeding hundreds or thousands of files.
I will give eMule one thing, it DOES have a lot of rare stuff. It's very hard to download, as I spent a week downloading a 90MB file, but it was sufficiently rare that it was worth it. I will continue to use eMule for when I just can't find what I'm looking for elsewhere, but for more popular files, BitTorrent is a heck of a lot faster.
The only real advantage of eMule, as I see it, other than having rare files, is that it is a tad more decentralized. Yes, it still has central servers which isn't, but a client can rely entirely on the Kademlia network (considering he can get the bloody thing bootstrapped with no servers). BitTorrent doesn't quite work like this yet. Trackers are now optional due to Azureus's own Kademlia network, and many torrents don't include a tracker at all (Of course this makes them azureus-only since no other BT client has a kademlia implementation that is compatible, or as good). BitTorrent still, no matter what else, requires a source of Torrent files, and that is usually going to be a web site.
I suppose that technically there is no reason that torrent files couldn't be served up via Azureus's kademlia network... I'm not sure I want that to happen though, as the centralized source that is websites like TorrentSpy and PirateBay just work faster and more reliably than decentralized search solutions. Still, in a pinch...
Re:This is news? (Score:3, Informative)
I'm not going to answer every point, because there's far too much, and it strikes me that you know very little about emule/ed2k and haven't tried very hard to find out.
1) Setup and use is much too confusing.
Confusing? How? Did you examine the guide at emule-project.net? Or are you just assuming that because BitTorrent (BT) does everything for you emule will do the same?
Substantiate and justify this please. (Lists of servers are largely irrelevant. One server with a large number of users is enough. See +++ below.)
2) It doesn't "just work". Getting your client to connect to the kademlia network is a nightmare, ...
Kademlia (kad) is fully p2p, no servers. You need previously-known contacts to connect. Every time you download or upload a file part from/to a client which *is* on kad, your client records that person as a contact. When you start off, you have no contacts, you need to be patient, and in any case you dont have to use kad.
For the server method, you only *need* one server to start - your client will learn about other servers +++ from other clients as you exchange file parts. You can *google* for server lists too, if you must. There may even be a server list linked from emule-project.net
3) Downloads are slow.
Downloads are not *instant*. Yes, there is the queuing system. Please explain to me why you should jump ahead of everyone else who is already waiting for a file? The source's bandwidth is a limited resource. emule slices by time, I'm guessing BT slices by speed. Incidentally, if you are downloading a large, popular file, receiving several parts are once, emule can really eat bandwidth. It comes down to the number of people sharing a file, ultimately.
4) It is hard to search.
At least it *has* a built-in search facility. Different search results are caused by the nature of the search mechanism (more so for kad). The search is *not* an index (unlike, say, google). Also, emule tends not to do a full search if it quickly finds >50 unique matches. And the total number of unique matches is limited to 300. With BT, you're searching (fixed) index sites. emule has equivalents, such as the-realworld, osloskop, osiolek, if you care to look.
As a side note, the very presence of a file in an emule-visible place on your computer means it can be found by someone else through a search, by just the filename. By contrast with BT (I believe) if someone doesnt have a .torrent for a file AND publish it via some *non-BT* method, such as a website, you cant ever get at a file being shared. That is, ed2k provides a way to get the filehash (torrent) without *having* the filehash.
5) eMule "swarms" have tons of useless peers....In a BitTorrent swarm, EVERYBODY is uploading
You cant upload before you have parts of the file *to* upload, true of emule and BT. And with emule you *must* share/upload those parts you already have. The emule credit system promotes (through queues) those who upload (RTFM for details). You *could* modify a client to *not* upload, but it would hurt you, because you'll sit in queues for longer. Incidentally, emule doesnt have "swarms" per se. Overnet did.
Until *you* have parts of a file to upload, *you* are a "useless peer". "Useless peers" cease to be useless when they acquire file parts.
You dont think these two are connected? People *still* sharing things they got >6 months ago while downloading other things? (There is also no "seeding" per se on emule.)
I spent a week downloading a 90MB file,...
(sarcasm) You novice! (/sarcasm) Think for a minute about the bandwidth of the person(s) w
Re:This is news? (Score:2)
Re:This is news? (Score:2)
Re:This is news? (Score:5, Interesting)
As an example, there is NO WAY you can find a movie called "Rojo Amanecer" (mexican movie abou the October 2nd massacre in Tlatelolco [wikipedia.org]) on any torrent, but it is available on Emule.
I also used sometime Winmx, that was when I was looking for the digital version of back iusses of the GAme developers Magazine [gdmag.com] which I could not find on emule (less on bittorrent of course) and I think some japanesse or chinesse had it on WinMX because it was there. These days, I could find only the CD 2 of those archives.
Re:This is news? (Score:3, Interesting)
Cooler still is M.U.L.E. [worldofmule.net].
don't spoil it (Score:5, Funny)
Pffft eDonkey (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Pffft eDonkey (Score:3, Insightful)
Hah, I moved from Bittorent to newsgroups, THAT is what I call progress !
Re:Pffft eDonkey (Score:3, Insightful)
I've given up on downloading years ago. I just don't care enough to wait days for downloads to complete and find out how to a) uncompress the shitty, obscure compression format du jour and b) how to convert the shitty, obscure codec du jour junk to something usable (or even just *play* it). Plus, if you factor in all associated cost like DSL and flat rate fees and electricity, that makes for a whole bunch of DVDs you can rent or CDs you can buy.
Funny... (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Funny... (Score:2, Informative)
The blurb on the methlab site advertises a very low CPU usage, but that's obviously only for the PG software itself as all the work seems to be done by iptables... YMMV.
Re:Funny... (Score:4, Informative)
PeerGuardian 1.x was known to 'occasionally' balloon with its CPU usage from time to time, which was a shame. PeerGuardian2 is just fine though; been running it for at least six months (iirc) and never had it higher than 1%.
Re:Funny... (Score:3, Informative)
However that was *over a year* ago - we picked up 2 new major contributors and the copy you see on that page is a TOTALLY DIFFERENT VERSION, written in C/C++ that uses ip_queue to filter the traffic.
The script was a thing I posted on our Forums, was never posted on the front page (to my memory).
Try it, you'll see it's a lot better.
This should give you an idea of the CPU usage:
root 5729 0.0 0.4 13312 2196 ? Sl 12:00 0:00 peerguardnf -d -c
Still incomplete, but I'm sure some more work will bring it up to the standard of the Windows version.
That said, the safety of Bittorrent over eDonkey is questionable, I'd say that neither is safer than the other. A big dose of common sense is helpful in both situations - stay away from suspicious torrents and servers.
Just look at some friendly *MediaSentry* owned eDonkey servers - http://blocklist.org/ip/1143410646 [blocklist.org]
We're not totally sure what they're being used for, but I imagine setting up their own servers allows them to keep logs far more easily, although they'll still have to get some data from you for it to stand up in court.
Re:I agree -- PGLinux is junk (Score:3, Informative)
The final version will have a GUI and all the prettiness you would expect, but until then we have to deal with one problem at a time.
Any help the OSS community feels like giving us, the codes on our CVS...
peerguardian.sourceforge.net
PeerGuardian; false sence of security (Score:4, Informative)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeerGuardian [wikipedia.org]
Re:PeerGuardian; false sence of security (Score:5, Insightful)
Actually I have, you presumptuous jackass. When they release;
- Seasons 6, 7, 8, 9 and 10 of Frasier;
- The Daily Show complete run from 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004 and 2005;
- Scrubs seasons 2, 3 and 4;
- The West Wing seasons 5 and 6;
- the entire run of Top Gear;
- the entire run of The Wonder Years;
- the entire run of Parker Lewis Can't Lose;
- not to mention about a dozen Japanese dorama series
on DVD, then be sure to let me know; I'll buy them.
Parker Lewis Can't Lose (Score:3)
Also, let me add this to yout list:
- Complete seasons 1 and 2 of Get a Life (the available DVDs only have a few 'best' episodes).
Funny... (Score:3, Funny)
You'd have thought (Score:5, Funny)
... that the movie industry moguls had played Whack-a-Mole at the amusement parks before and learned something. Guess not.
Re:You'd have thought (Score:5, Insightful)
Anyway, I thought the algorithm of the moment was "If it's popular, torrent it, use emule if it's rare (and be prepared for it to take forever.)'
Re:You'd have thought (Score:3, Funny)
Hmmm... yes, I've seen a lot of "burgerly" police officers, but most of them are more "donutly" in my experience.
How long is this going to go on? (Score:2)
Legit or not? (Score:3, Interesting)
If the previous uses of that technology were not valid according to the laws of the country in question, then the people who are sourcing the illicit data should be smacked around in court and life moves on.
If you don't like those terms, stay the fuck away from data that you don't have a legal right to transfer, and produce more original data which will have the transfer rights (public domain, creative commons, gpl, whatever) you prefer.
This has NOTHING to do with the trend to replace [insert your old P2P tech here] with [insert your new P2P tech here].
Re:Legit or not? (Score:3, Interesting)
Are you saying that because Jack the Ripper used a scalpel, my surgeon has to operate me with a spoon? That since crackers use Linux, we should forbid it (yay, forbid computers altogether!)? That since speeders use cars, we all have to walk only? That since Lucrezia Borgia poisoned people, we should ban chemistry?
Get the difference: there can be uses and abuses of the same thing.
Re:Legit or not? (Score:2)
The technology is irrelevant. It's all the same for BitTorrent or eDonkey or whatever. Switching technologies has nothing to do with the core issue: current laws protect movie industry content in many countries. If you're copying movies that you aren't authorized by law or contract to copy, prepare to be squashed no matter what tech you are using. If the movie industry is suing to try to stop legitimate copying in countries where that right is held by the people, then the movie industry should be thrown out of court, preferably with heavy fines to stop their barratry.
Where did you live... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where did you live... (Score:5, Informative)
eMule is a popular client supporting the eDonkey network.
eDonkey2000 is the official eDonkey client.
eMule also supports the decentralized Kad network [slashdot.org], which is a Kademlia [slashdot.org] implementation.
The official BT client also use a Kademlia algorithm for its trackerless torrents, along with Azureus. No implementations are necessarily compatible.
In other news (Score:5, Funny)
You can't kill the nature of internet :) (Score:2, Insightful)
Seriously, for any network they "shut down" 10 new will popup. The reason for that is that its hard to prove that they're used only for illegal file sharing, many like, BitTorrents and other havea very legitimate use.
But, that's what makes the world go round these days and lawyers are all the more happy because that's more money in their pockets.
quality over quantity (Score:5, Informative)
Re:quality over quantity (Score:3, Insightful)
With the ed2k network, you find many more people who simply share out certain directories, so that those files are available whenever they're online, and for a very long period.
As such, I find the eMule is a MUCH better place to look for less popular things.
The drawback is that ed2k is usually a much slower way to get something. I usually see transfer rates around 15KB/s on Bittorrent, with a fast/popular file sometimes reaching around 100KB/s. When using eMule I usually see speeds closer to 4KB/s, with a really fast file sometimes hitting 20KB/s. Usually downloading a large file is a matter of hours on Bittorrent and a matter of days on eMule.
I use both quite a bit myself, but I think that I use eMule a bit more.
eDonkey (Score:5, Informative)
Re:eDonkey (Score:2)
Re:eDonkey (Score:2)
What site did you think you were reading?
Being #1 is good? (Score:5, Insightful)
They're moving on? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:They're moving on? (Score:2)
This isn't the end (Score:3, Insightful)
the experts: CacheLogic (Score:2)
I hate to be a stick in the mud, but... (Score:5, Funny)
Bastard media, be on our side for once.
Re:I hate to be a stick in the mud, but... (Score:3, Insightful)
Bastard media, be on our side for once.
You do realise that it's the media industry you're raping, right?
BitTorrent usage in S. Korea (Score:2, Funny)
Whack a mole (Score:2, Funny)
See It's Karma! First you have fun whacking the game, Now you're fighting for your lives attempting to whack any file sharing out there!
Ooh, It's Napster! WHACK! OOOH it's KAZAA! WHACK! OOOH IT'S BITTORRENT ! WHACK! OOOH IT'S EDONKEY! WHACK!
eDonkey can't stop MPAA/RIAA (Score:3, Insightful)
Why is this news? (Score:2, Informative)
Different purposes... (Score:5, Informative)
Of course, now you need to be patient. This is where most people fail. It may take you a solid 90 days to download something old or obscure from eDonkey. It is not an instant-gratification network. Just let the sucker run and it'll come down in its own good time. Let the client software worry about it. I've fished out all manner of content from there that was impossible to find on bittorrent, usenet, or IRC. Old Mike Oldfield concerts, a mint copy of Giorgio Moroder's Metropolis, dozens of old TV shows... average time to download something like that is around seven days. The torrents of the old Dr. Who TV series (every single episode, 26 seasons) took nearly three months. It was around 212GB of data, of course.
You may want to make sure your firewall can handle a couple thousand connections. If your p2p experience is always sucking hind tit, that might be the cause of your problems. That little Linksys router isn't capable of doing it. Well, maybe if you put linux on it, but why bother when distros like m0n0wall, ipcop, and smoothwall exist? It helps loads if you prioritize ACK, DNS, and any small packets.
At least... (Score:2)
Genie out of the bottle (Score:2)
Anyway: To much work to sue everybody anyway, but it keeps them busy, in view, and gets their budget will get bigger to do their work (ie: Sueing)
copyright bs (Score:2)
My guess, all of it, except of what is known to be public domain.
Copyright isn't evil. OSS is copyrighted, just like all those "quality" movies from Hollywood.
Why do they always confuse "copyright" with
I do prefer emule/edonkey... (Score:2)
However, the bigger servers (Razorback et al) don't always work very well with NAT - behind an ADSL router you can't change the setup of, you may as well not bother. In those cases, Bittorrent works faster because it usually ends up with more valid, reachable seeds/peers.
Don't know if there's good technical reasons for the edonkey servers not allowing people like me on (my old house had a nice person in charge of the router, new house doesn't, so I can't connect to any decent edonkey servers any more), but torrents do nicely, albeit more cumbersome to deal with...
shhhhh!!! (Score:5, Funny)
My trouble with eDonkey clones (Score:3, Interesting)
1: Do not offer as many features as their Windows counterparts,
2: Not as stable on Linux as they are on Windows,
3: Are plain ugly and
4: Are damn slow on Linux.
The only software I find a pleasure to look at and also exists for the Windows platform is OpenOffice.org and the GIMP. There are more open source softwares out there but I haven't found them.
eDonkey??? (Score:2)
One Word.... (Score:3, Funny)
The ORIGINAL file sharing protocol. P2P's come and go - FTP will remain mighty!!
I was addicted to pirated movies (Score:5, Funny)
Eventually I realized that I had no time left to actually watch any of it, so I deleted all my collection.
Now I have more time, but no movies to watch.
The real problem with BT (Score:4, Interesting)
The whole BT thing is a good idea for software releases and large files people are looking to download from a single site, say I go to a distro site and have a choice of FTP/HTTP/BT but to use it for P2P is just useless in my eyes.
The whole Zen "the interface is no interface" thing was a little unsettling too as I had no idea that my downloads were being slowed by my firewall back when BT first came out until I used a version that showed that there was a problem.
I still think there is a place for BT and software like it, but not for P2P filesharing. As much as I hate to admit it, I like having n00bs and clueless users on my system so I can access stuff easier and faster. BT was more for the tech savvy and they tend to be smart enough/greedy to never seed a download unless they happened to walk away from a download that completed.
I still pine for the days when Kazaa lite was not full of viruses/spyware/fake files and instead was a great easy quick system to get exactly what you wanted ASAP.
Re:The real problem with BT (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:The real problem with BT (Score:3, Insightful)
That would be much like USENET has been and still is. It's as fast as your newsfeed provider allows. News hosts can be found that hold files for at least 30 full days. Leeching doesn't hurt anyone. The initial part of the learning curve is high which stops a lot of people from uploading junk. File verification is easy. Don't download the file until it's been up for a few days. If it's bad/non-working then there will be plenty of replies mentioning that.
eDonkey? Yeah right (Score:3, Interesting)
All the DAP stuff I really wanted I got through torrents anyway.
The only way (Score:5, Insightful)
I have little sympathy for the *IAA. Do you think they gave us CD/DVDs because they gave us better quality, or because they increased profit? The fact that they were too miopic to realise that the same technologies that were dropping their bottom line could enable consumers to replace them is karmic.
The creators of optical media suing bittorrent et al, is like the great ship builders suing boeing and airbus. It shouldn't be allowed to happen. Artists need to stop looking for recording contracts and start looking for marketting contracts. You can still make money in popular arts, its just you can't expect to make money by selling digital facsimilies of that art.
my P2P round-up (Score:5, Informative)
IRC is also slow and a pain in the ass - too interactive (they frown at automation), too many different ways of doing things and you have to deal with a bunch of pricks that want you to be grateful that you part of their little circle of piracy - too juvenile. Does anyone really still think, "OOH! look at me, I'm a PIRATE!"??
Gnutella is very nice for MP3s and small files - the biggest you want here is a music video perhaps at 50megs or so, there doesn't seem to be much large content like movies. With the swarming ability that the clients have these days, downloading can be AMAZINGLY fast - why does eDonkey get more attention than Gnutella? Everyone should put large content files on Gnutella - do it, now! ;) gtk-gnutella is a nice linux client. It's not as pretty as Limewire, but nicer on the ram, etc.
Bittorrent is the second fastest way that I've seen for downloading large content files, even DVD collections, say, of emulator games come rather quickly, usually approaching 60% of top download speed or more once it throttles up. The downside is the scrutiny at the moment, made worse by the fact that you must leave your download open - that is, you need to keep your client running even after you download the file to share with others - not doing so will get you "punished" in various ways by the sites offering this stuff, sometimes by not allowing you back. This also means that for a large DVD type download, you have 5 gigs of data on your drive much longer than you want - at least it's a problem for me. Further, unless you want to run the client forever, you need to set your upload rate pretty high. On my 1.2Ghz machine, bittorrent takes a toll in resources as well...
The fastest way to download something is via the newsgroups. Yup, the oldest way is still in some cases the best (it's not P2P, but it fits in my rant anyway). The downside here is for good news service, you have to pay, while the other methods are free.
Still, with a service like Easynews, you get 3 week retentions - meaning, a "post" stays alive for 3 weeks. Advances like par and nzb make this much easier and more reliable than it has been - it's almost too easy now. An nzb file points to specific articles in specific groups. For anyone familiar with this process, with nzb, you can avoid the old norms of subscribing to groups, downloading headers, searching for content, marking your choices, and telling it to download. Web pages such as binsearch.info allow you to use a web interface to select your content, and will then generate an nzb file for you.
With a broadband cable connection, you can download DVD sized content in about 2 and a half hours from the groups. Some ISPs still come with news feeds, but they usually aren't worth bothering with. My ISP has retentions lasting just a few hours, with a 1gig/month download limit.
So, IMHO, use gnutella for MP3s, short popular video clips/music videos and other smaller files (since there isn't much large content to be found). For anything larger, use the newsgroups if you have a good news feed. If not, try your luck with bittorrent.
Use the donkey only if you can't find it anywhere else and if speed isn't a problem. Oh, and avoid downloading from IRC...
Of course, I only download legal content :) Legal MP3 files, or copies of files I already own, or emulator ROMS of games I already own, or DVD collections of abandoned ROMs, Linux distributions, or tv shows that I already pay my Cable provider for, etc.
Re:my P2P round-up (Score:4, Insightful)
You are a leecher.
You entire posting, informative as it is, it is a cookbook for leechers. You don't like bittorrent because you have to seed. Too bad for you. You don't like emule because it's slow. Has it ever occured to you that its slow because people like you refuse to share and you get little credits? You like Gnutella because it allows you leech freely. And you like messing up the usenet by abusing any part of the word "privilege" that it used it be.
I am glad you don't use ed2k. Just be aware that it works perfectly for those who contribute and those who share.
edonkey/emule is SLOOOOOOOOW (Score:5, Informative)
Also...that network is swamped with script bots that download EVERYTHING. I shared out a folder I had with OLD device drivers and out of date software...files that nobody should want. They were being downloaded in a short amount of time which leads me to believe that automated software probably contributes to the slowness.
Re:edonkey/emule is SLOOOOOOOOW (Score:3, Informative)
As someone who has had to rebuild old Windows 95 era machines, I have hopped onto P2P services in search of old device drivers for long obsolete hardware as kind of a last resort. Didn't have much luck though.
But yeah, if someone started just downloading them enmass then they are probably just a bot.
Notoriety = Bigger Target (Score:3, Informative)
decentralised? (Score:2, Interesting)
The most widely used ed2k server software is Lugdunum, although MLDonkey provides an open source alternative...(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/eDonk
Doesn't seems more decentralised than bittorrent to me..
Re:Stallman slams Slashdot; Slashdot silent (Score:2)
Re:Stallman slams Slashdot; Slashdot silent (Score:2)
Re:Stallman slams Slashdot; Slashdot silent (Score:2)
Seriously, is that who you're talking about?
Re:Stallman slams Slashdot; Slashdot silent (Score:2)
Personally, I don't think people on Slashdot will look at a Microsft ad in this site and think to themselves 'Well there you go, I was wrong all along. Windows is better'.
Re:eDonkey isn't new (Score:3)
> name of it though. It was originally a page to archive tv shows like the State and MST3k, and moved
> on to archive other shows... it was eventually shut down though, as it got more popular to share tv
> shows and the authorities started getting involved.
You're referring to the Digital Archive Project [dapcentral.org], which still exists. The one for MST3K is also still around [dapcentral.org].
I can't remember what Best Brain's take on that project was, but I believe they got fairly enthusiastic support from MST3K luminaries like Kevin Murphy. The project leaders were very careful not to make available any episode that was available for purchase through Rhino Recordings.
Re:Good Riddence. (Score:3, Informative)
Work that one out