BitTorrent Use Up 24% Since November

dingalig writes "It looks as though the MPAA's fight against The Pirate Bay and other BitTorrent sites isn't going very well. Ars Technica reports that BitTorrent traffic is up by 24% since before the holidays. 'BitTorrent traffic spiked over the December holidays. After a peaking at almost 12.5 million downloaders on the 200 most popular files, traffic dropped at the beginning of January — about the time that school started up again. But one figure that will prove alarming to the content creation industry is that the numbers are higher now than they used to be. "The baseline has been elevated," notes [BigChampagne CEO Eric] Garland. "Not only did the spike happen, but the bar was raised."'"

Getting the old folks on BitTorrent

[PRlME]

My 65 year-old parents recently asked me how they could also watch all the shows & movies that I've been downloading all these years. So being the good son that I am, I set them up with uTorrent, the appropriate bookmarks, VLC, and a tutorial on how to handle everything. They were quite happy. :)

Yarr, scurvy MPAA will be dancing the hempen jig.

[falsemover]

In Australia a CD / DVD be around $40 (about US$37). Since this represents about $37 o' pure greed, it's no wonder t' people be votin' with their mouse. I say, when t' sea be rough, jump on t' starboard ship.

Arrr, ahoy landlubbers, we be PIRATES and YOU MPAA will be dancing the hempen jig.

Re:Victimless

[Yvanhoe]

Well the point is more "right now this is illegal but this is sustainable for everyone so why not change the law ?"

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[account_deleted]

Comment removed based on user account deletion

When talking about BitTorrent...

[the_arrow]

Things are happening in the case against The Pirate Bay. One of the police officers involved in the investigation now works for Warner Brothers in Sweden. See here [thelocal.se] for more info.

Re:Victimless

[MttJocy]

Seams to me that copyright was and is doomed to failure on the simple grounds of human nature, human culture exists exactly because humans enjoy sharing ideas, creativity influences etc that have meaning to them with others this is how influences get spread within a culture and become identifiable attributes of that culture without that aspect of human nature culture and society itself would completely fail to function properly neither can happen if influences and ideas are not shared between the members of that society.

It is only natural that people were and still do have a natural desire to share those influences that have an impact on them with those around them, it is natural to want those in your social circle to be able to share in those experiences that feel significant and/or influential to yourself so thus any creative work which has the ability to influence people in any meaningful way are also going to become things that people want to share socially with others.

Failing to understand this is what is causing content providers to alienate society itself, trying to stop a society sharing cultural influences generally tends to anger that society for many people trying to tell them they cannot share a good meaningful book with those they are close to is much like trying to tell people they can't share any idea that they find meaningful (ie it is like trying to block freedom of speech and expression, which people are strongly against). The content providers are attacking an aspect of human nature and culture which has grown and been ingrained into the consciousness of every human society for thousands of years and they suddenly expect that they are going to fight such a deep human behavior?

Interestingly however they do seam to realize this about something like sharing a book with a friend but not where it concerns a movie or a song, the internet etc, the problem is it is part of the same human desire to share cultural influences with others which creates the former, anyone that does not understand the human desire even need to share cultural influences with others is doomed to fail, thousands of years of precedent are against you and history of that magnitude is near impossible to defeat no matter how much you scream shout and kick your feet about it.

Re:Oblig. Office Space Reference

[__aapego3562]

Theft is theft. Period. If you don't like it, change the law.

And by changing the law, theft wouldn't be theft anymore? That's hypocrisy!

Re:Victimless

[Anonymous Coward]

Ideas are owned by society.

If everyone feels that way, why aren't copyright protection and patent laws abolished? The truth is that you are being presumptuous; your idea is a minority viewpoint. That doesn't mean it's an immoral point of view, but you shouldn't presume to have the authority to dictate what "we, as a society" think.

If your theory of "nobody owns an idea" is indeed ubiquitous, why has it never been codified, while the opposing viewpoint (that inventions and creative works can be "owned", with some restrictions, through copyright and patent law) has been embedded in law?