The Legality Of Torrents

[rpgsearcherz 5]

Definitely true about the Linux thing. When I was downloading my Linux distros to attempt running a host on my own(rofl...It was for learning purposes but ended up becoming epicfail, ) I found the straight downloading of the ISO's off the site to be slow and/or I would get hiccups and have to restart.More or less what torrents do is they...Allow you to resume files. To put this into an easy to understand way I'll try to break it down for you.------Start------I have a file I want to send. To make this easy, let's assume that it's 100 MB's.I load up what's called a tracker, which is where other IP's can connect to get the information about the file parts, who has them, etc.Now I go and "rip" the file into 100 parts, listing the parts in the tracker. It would be somewhat like this:Part 1 - 1 MB - Start at byte xxxxx and end at byte xxxxxPart 2 - 1 MB - Start at byte xxxxx(2) and end at byte xxxxxAnd on and on.Now I post the link to this small torrent file(usually ~40 kb's or less) and others log into the tracker and pull the list of IP's that are sharing the files, along with what parts everyone has.At this point ,they start downloading one part from one person, another from another, etc.Now as for why it is faster, think of it like this...We have 10 people who want this 100 MB file. Now what you could do is send person 2 all 100 mb's at once, and then you and them can send the file to two others 100 MB's at once.Or, to make it more efficient, you would send each of the others 11 MB's of the file, so that although none of them are complete, they can all be downloading the file at once. Person 1 would get the first 11 mb's and already be sharing with person 2, person 2 would be getting the second 11 mb's and the first 11 mb's and would be sharing with person 3, person 3 would be getting the first 3 parts, and so on.This isn't exactly how it works, but it is an easier to understand generalization-------End------So as you can see, for companies that are uploading huge files(As such Age of Conan did with their 10+ gb client), this saves them a significant amount on bandwidth. Instead of them sharing 100% of the file with hundreds of thousands of people, they could share it even 1000 times and everyone would be able to download it at a decent rate.And such is why the question comes up as to whether it is legal or illegal. There are many companies that use it for legal purposes, to cut down their costs. But at the same time, it is also a huge median for software piracy for the same reason.I've actually heard of many companies that use custom trackers for torrents to send files back and forth across their workspace, because programs like utorrent and the like are very small(120 kb) and are very efficient.Hopefully this answers your question a little better, jhlaslip.

[triplebtalk 0]

I use torrents to "test" out how much I like something, if I like it I will go out and buy it, then I legally own it. I know that downloading copyrighted content off torrents is illegal, but it is more useful than criminal.

[rpgsearcherz 5]

I somehow missed the post about the seeds being important. Really, there can be 0 seeders and you can still be downloading at 50000 mb's a second.Seeders just mean that the person has 100% of the file.Most files have extra txt documents or whatever to let you know who uploaded it. Even some betas(like Funcom's) will have a document explaining special procedures.Now, if someone chooses not to download that extra file, they will lock in at 99.9%, rather than 100%. It takes 100% to be a "seeder."So technically, you could still get everything you want solely off of "leechers."

[Baniboy 3]

Torrents are legal, after all, they are just 5-60 kb files with text in them. So they are legal but what you download with a torrent client by them may not be legal, like pirated movies, games, music etc. And yes most torrent tracker sites do keep a tracker list of who has downloaded the torrent /uploaded it but it can't be proven as evidence in court as they can't prove that you downloaded the files with the torrent you have downloaded from the site. But they can take the HDD from you and search for the illegaly downloaded files and they can recover them even if they have been deleted. I don't like piracy just because the thing you want to download is probably crap, I'd rather pay for the real thing than wait for download. I read somewhere that one of the most popular torrent trackers (the pirate bay) gives people wrong IPs, torrent clients can resolve them but they never show the real ip, so the person seeding the files can't be get caught.

[iGuest 3]

ok let me start by saying that I do believe that stealing is wrong. However, large companies that are making thousands even millions of dollars still seem to be charging us the consumer out the wazoo.  So if I know that my friend has a cd for example and I want it ill just burn it and boom I have it, no expense.  now this isnt legal but its fast and I'm happy.  same with torrents and here is the big one if I like what I get I can tell other people about it. Now I see it like this if I get it free and tell at least two other people about it and they obtain it legally then this multi-million dollar company just made money off of me downloading it illegally. its like they say  there is no such thing as bad publicity.  you may not agree with my thinking but that is ok because as long as there are people like me big companies will continue to make money and we will still be HAPPY. 

Bob2k95