Thread: Torrents!

If torrents are illegal why hasnt anyone shut down the webistes, and why is it the people who use torrents are the ones who are punished. Why arent they looking for the person who made the website??

Because torrents contain only information that can be used, with the aid of a program, to perform illegal actions, such as transmitting copyrighted content to another person (or downloading as well, depending on jurisdiction). And the information is basically a bunch of servers and some other stuff.
You can't incriminate someone for providing server addresses and some information about files. You'd have to shut down all the chemistry labs as well, for they could be used to produce drugs or explosives. You'd also have to ban all knives since they could be used to murder someone. The same goes for all burning programs, ... the list goes on.

and actually sites have been shut down...look at oink.cd no charges have been filed yet...but they are in the process of trying to punish the creators and users.

Well, quite frankly loopholes, like what Korittke said. Theres ways around everything. The long story short is that many torrents are "legal" because they require no cost/time from original distributor to host or get their work out there. Many torrents are funded by legal companies who simply bought the rights to share the product from whoever owned it at an obviously reduced price. (They know its going to get ripped, may as well make a bit of $$ (Doesnt happen often in "Big Blockbuster Movies" )). The torrent hosting site can easily make the money back through adds from sponsors/premium memberships for access to the 'top quality torrents'.

Not all torrents are rips of copywrited information, and that is the reason many websites are still going. It would be like shutting down you tube because one person posted porn. Go to your favorite torrent site and I guanuntee you will see a disclaimer along the lines of "The administrator is not responsible for any/all material posted by users on this website, its purpose is not to host illegal torrents, lala".

Of course we all know 99% of the shit on these sites are rips, and really some big lawyer making legal threats are enough to shut most sites down because they know at the end of the day they were in the wrong one way or another, so it dies.. another site takes its place. Many sites do fight, but its like trying to arrest a police officer, pick your battles.

Such is the circle of life until they make a real law, or accept public file sharing. I wouldnt hold your breath for the latter.

And certain countries have more relaxed laws, such as sweeden - where PirateBay is hosted.

I love to laugh at the idiot efforts from MPAA and friends to take down internet piracy.

I remember when they were all euphoric, saying the pirate bay had "sunk", it was on the news everywhere and a "special" logo was even made. Three days later the pirate bay comes back online, more popular than ever thanks to all the free publicity.