Bits BitTorrent Seeders: Driven By Profit?

IMDEA researcher Michael Kryczka reveals that 66 per cent of torrents originate from just 100 seeders.

http://www.bit-tech.net/bits/interviews/2011/02/16/torrent-seeders-driven-profit/1

 

Wonder how much Crysis 2 helped them earn?

 

1) get content
2) seed torrent
3) ???????
4) PROFIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I thought the Pirate Bay had been shut down and the guys who ran it were all languishing in jail eating pickled herring. Obviously not...

 

Scumbags. Grrr!

 

The article sounds like a hardly successful Hollywood producer has written it. Torrents give you a preview. You can always buy a digital copy once you've downloaded it, if you appreciate the work of the developers. However, lets talk movies specifically - you go to a cinema, have no idea what the movie is like (or a 2 minute trailer at most), pay for a ticket, turns out it's a crappy movie. Can you ask for a refund? Nope.

Yes, torrent trackers are made for profit, all the commercials and banners there generate huge amount of traffic and cost substancial sums. And yes, there are select few that upload most of the content. But why should I care about that??? Pharmatics make money from people suffering, how come there's no article about this in every site?

And why I haven't seen Hollywood star starving due to piracy? Are rockstarts living in wooden sheds because I downloaded their latest album for free? I'm so sick and tired of the showbusiness's greed...

 

So many "facts" in this article are just plain wrong. The whole approach of the study is a joke.
The Pirate Bay is so mainstream by now that you can't even begin to use it as baseline for a study of the release scene. It doesn't take into account that there is more than just TPB. And they base it on the original seeder which in many cases is a bot.

I don't want to go into more detail on what's wrong with this "scientific" study but I'm quite frankly appalled by it's inaccuracy.

Firstly, the law suit is back on because they didn't accept the ruling. Secondly, the judge may not have been impartial.
Thirdly, they didn't actually break any laws in Sweden connected to software piracy, as far as I know.

They're not in Sweden anymore from what I've read.

//edit:

While partially true (as in many downloads = better sales, as proven by a couple of actual scientific studies), I don't think you can say that torrents are okay just because they give you a preview. It's still a legal grey area and shouldn't be promoted on a site like Bit-Tech.

Well, it's not on Bit-Tech because it's a tech-related site.
Still I do agree that the immorality of pharmaceutics is way greater of software/movie/music piracy.

Totally agree. They go from record revenue per year to another one the next year & the next year & ... you get the picture. I think it's mainly about crying to prevent/cover up possible failures in the creative departments which then lead to bad sales.

 

I agreee with the ideas but, one of my favourite bands recently are looking at making zero cash off their latest album because of downloads. They're really small and they invested a lot of time and money. So, now their only hope is merchandise and live performances. Makes you wonder why you'd bother recording something precious like an album...

 

Yeah, but they're rockstars, they get paid in boose and chicks!

 

If we only look at the numbers released every year by the media-companies, then we'll see, that the media-companies didn't loose any money during the last 20 years, but that their income keeps growing and growing.

Cinemas struggle a little to sell tickets, but not in a very heavy way either.

Those who download via torrent are those, who wouldn't have bough the movie/album/software/etc to start with, as they simply can't afford it.
Those with enoguh money still buy original copies.

And for the music-industry... well... they make the biggest profits through concerts and merchandising anyways these days and not by selling albums.

I couldn't care less about this whole topic actually, as I don't watch films, only listen to online-radio for the most part and I only use 3 software-suites for the last 15 years, that I've no problem purchasing.
And games? Well I play MMOs with a monthly fee or some selected titles on the PS3.

Sure there's a group of people who make some money out of the torrents, but they are also those, who crack the software, write keygens or remove DRM etc. so they still put in some work there.
It's not some 100 people seeding those torrents, but it's some 100 "hacker"groups actually, but the study didn't went there to see how many people are working behind the scenes, or how many people are using the same IP.

It's a half-assed study, not telling the full truth.

 

This comments section is bound to turn into flame wars based on the anti/pro-piracy groups on here.

I just agree to disagree and state that ISP's see ALL BitTorrent traffic as illegal, anyone who thinks otherwise is diluded.

 

A couple of years a go I would watch VHS recordings recorded be my friends, that is what happens when we download a TV episode. The deferent’s is that I don’t know who I’m borrowing the TV episode from… But I believe that this module for distribution is fitting as it better reflects the stat of our disconnected society, and to be fair I don’t know the guys/women/children who make my shoes. And if they/multinationals want US to feel bad, they should look at them-self’s and think about how they are exploiting us the mechanical wheel of their capitalist machine.

Lets NOT make this about morals and ethnics its is simply about profit and them fighting for there once dominate market share

Sending out love to all the P2P seeders out there… keep seeding…

 

First off, i am not endorsing or condemning anything i am just wondering if the people that illegally download albums/films such as the one above would have actually paid the money had the Torrent not been an option. In a large number of cases i would guess that they probably would not. Admittedly any sales from the downloaders would help out the smaller bands/artists/actors/film crew ....etc. etc. etc. but i think it would be interesting to get statistics on that

 

It is upto the service providers to provide an alternative service.... basically the compaines screwed up, waited to long, now everyone thinks it should all be free,

netflix is the answer - get it world wide fast

 

Something that strikes me as strange is how people feel piracy is something new that's destroying these companies more and more each year. Yes it's gone digital, but it's just another form of the same thing that's been happening for years!
In the music industry there has always been piracy, cassettes could be copied with ease, CD's were even more of a joke. The industry was always fighting these things - the minidisc was meant to deter people from piracy by making it harder etc.
In the film industry arguably it's been the same, people just taped things off the TV or copied it.
I don't agree with piracy but I don't get caught up in the hype that it's a new, devastating, problem for these companies.

 

I'm sorry, but that is the biggest pile of rubbish I've read in the last months.

The release groups who reverse-engineer code, build VMs to work around current DRM, or simply write key generators are not in it for money. They release their stuff to a very elite group of people, often groups that started out as real life friends. That their stuff then hits the open is not their goal. If you read more about this you'll find that there is quite a lot of anger in the scene about releases always being leaked to torrent trackers & direct download sites.
And there is a disclaimer at the bottom of almost every "proper" release groups' NFO saying "if you like it, buy it"...

I wonder where they are supposed to be getting ANY money from it. Release groups don't host public file servers or public trackers. They don't upload to Rapidshare/Megaupload/etc... They do this stuff mainly for fun and to show off.

Jesus, does anybody today not build their opinions on filtered reports on mainstream media? Who still tries to actually read about stuff at the source?

 

How many times have you purchased a game and thought wow what a load of s**t only to be left with it sitting there not being able to return it, sell it or get any of your money back. Same with movies and perhaps to a lesser extent with music.
Perhaps if the corporates tried embracing some of this technology instead of steadfastly trying to shut it down we might find some compromise?
If I did use torrents to download movies and games and if I enjoyed them I wouldnt think twice about buying the full product - is that just me?

 

So because they went through the effort of cracking it it's alright for their friends to get a free copy but not for anyone else?

 

"You may be fighting official corporations if you download copyright material via BitTorrent, but you're often still indirectly funding someone's business"

Is this article trying to reveal new information or is it simply bias?

Perhaps both.

 

I think the major problem with digital downloads illegally is that its so easy. We all knew someone who managed to get hold of Betamax or VHS copies of E.T. back in the eighties and everyone still went to see it at the Cinema because the copies were so bad. However, not everyone knew how to replicate the video tape themselves. LP's or taping off the radio was easy because everyone could do it in their own home.

Now digitally, everyone can get hold of everything high qulaity in just a few short clicks, be downloaded and on your generic MP3 player or media steamer faster than you can say "Stop Thief!" As a whole, the music/film industry just did not prepare for such easy access to their intellectual property.

However, we shouldn't feel sorry for the music industry as all this has done is make the artists focus on doing things their own way first. 4/5 kids in a garage can play/record/upload/stream their own material across the world and get more recognition then any marketing pr department of record label. Arctic Monkeys are a great example of that. I'm not saying they are my cup of tea but you cant deny they made themselves before someone "packaged" them together.

What IS wrong with the music industry is the monopoly of the auto-tune/Cowell/talentless brigade that gets pushed out to every screaming teen. THIS MEANS YOU BIEBER! (did you see him last night on the Brits? looked more like a rabbit in the headlights) but this isn't the right forum for that discussion.

Rant over!