Funk Babblings

Wired has a great article about BitTorrent. Besides interviewing the author and briefly explaining how BitTorrent works, I like that the article spends a lot of time on the issue of using BitTorrent for TV show timeshifting -- "the Internet becomes a giant TiVo." That's the most interesting aspect of BitTorrent for me, but it's one that normally gets ignored in the press because the movie and record industries draw so much attention.


BTW, thanks to the Blogdex RSS feed (aka blogdex on LJ, though that's not how I read it) for pointing this article out to me. Blogdex is great for keeping up with what stories are making the rounds of the "blogosphere". (The right-wing warblogs do hold a bit too much sway in the index for my taste, but then the rest of us probably hold too much sway for their taste, so it's fair.)

Ooh, I can't wait until tomorrow night. Apparently Lana is going to play one of stega's parrots. Or vice versa. Or something like that.... ;-)

Too bad I don't get the Sci-Fi channel anymore. But I haven't heard anything about the TV people getting upset the way the movie and music people have....

Update: Ursula K. Le Guin has some comments on the miniseries. I don't think she's happy.

Much-belated second update: Le Guin wrote more about how she hated the miniseries.

It seems that Hollywood has finally noticed BitTorrent. In case you're unaware, BitTorrent is a peer-to-peer file sharing system that allows you to get high download speeds and low upload speeds by sharing upload bandwidth among all downloaders, many-to-one. (This works out best if people stick around uploading for a while after they've finished receiving the whole file.) This contrasts with most peer-to-peer file sharing systems, which share searches but actual file transfer is one-to-one. And BitTorrent doesn't handle searches at all.

Anyway, the story implies that those using BitTorrent to download movies may be the next lawsuit targets, since the protocol makes no attempt to make users anonymous. They even mention the popular torrent site SuprNova as a source for movies and such.

Of course, BitTorrent has plenty of legitimate non-infringing uses, just like VCRs.