Suprablog HQ

In my last post I went on a slight rant about the Pirate Bay. Hopefully by now, our readers know where we stand on internet piracy- i.e. it’s an illegal activity and illegal activity is bad. But the question still remains: is bit torrent therefore as a protocol bad?

First off, bit torrent, for those of you living under a rock, is an extremely effecient file transfer protocol. The vast majority of file transfers however are copyrighted material such as movies and music. The MPAA and INTERPOL are trying to put the kabosh on this kind of file transfer much like similar forms of piracy. Of course, internet piracy will always be around in some form, but because so many people use this form of protocol, it is naturally the biggest target.

So, is it inherantly evil, this protocol? Quick answer: no. Bit torrent is a super fast form of transferring large files from one computer to another without corrupting the data. Huge disc images or .iso files can easily be distributed along with other types of files. I personally have used it to transfer giant data heavy 3d model files between myself and a friend working on a film together. Downloading Linux distros is a breeze with bit torrent. In fact many software companies distrobute software and updates via “download managers” which essentially uses this protocol without actually saying so. Pretty sneaky, eh?

Laws protect the protocol now, but with it under so much fire, who knows its future?