P2P file sharing, torrents and video streaming – the tools of disruption

DivX shuts down Stage6

Just a little article describing why DivX decided to close the site which was meant to be the serious competition of YouTube, at least in the superior quality of the streaming videos. The basic idea behind video streaming was to enable the online viewer to see movies at high quality without downloading them. DivX Player offered such a quality that I often found myself watching movies over the Internet rather than downloading or asking among friends for them. Literally, there was NO difference in quality, no pixels, weird blurs or anything. The very first movie I enjoyed watching this way was “The Others”. I was quite shocked to see a sharp image, clear sound, smooth playback at a lower rate than the streaming speed, all this from my browser! Only several weeks before that I had a little argue with my sister about the fact that there will never ever be possible to stream full length movies over the Net. Man, was I dumb!

Why tool of disruption? I recall an excellent site, tv-links.co.uk, now deleted, which had THOUSANDS of streamed movies, from Hollywood blockbusters to obscure European ones, from the Hitchcock series to Naruto, you name it, it had them all. TV shows, soap operas, anime, everything the online addict could desire (well, except for porn, the main reason of maybe 50% of world traffic today, 50% being a VERY positive thought…). But, unfortunately, it had to be banned. Why? Because some jackasses considered posting links to streamed movies as illegal. The site had NONE, I repeat, NONE of those movies stored in his server(s), only links. Was that such a serious crime? Come on! Google should be prosecuted as well for having links to streamed videos (to name but a few: Resident Evil: Extinction, Surf’s Up, Ratatouille; yeah, search’em, you’ll see), let’s not even mention YouTube, on which I’ve seen myself at least two movies (The Pride and Prejudice 1995 mini-series and Siworae-a.k.a. the original Lake House, not that soapy hollywood copy).

I really don’t understand the movie producers. I completely approve prosecuting those that steal the movies and post them on the Internet before their official release, as these actions can really harm their business, but c’mon, why do you need to close something which had movies from the ’40s or ’50s? Or TV series which are dead for some good time, such as Star Trek: The Next Generation (of which, btw, I’m an avid fan) ? Speaking of TNG, there was once a site, niteshdw.com, that had all the seasons of it, and it was, as well, deleted. Hopefully for me – – the trekkies never let this fantastic TV show to perish easily, and sites with full seasons in DivX quality can still be found, SideReel being one of them, and the NiteShdw torrents are pretty much alive and kicking.

Ah yes…BitTorrent. It’s appearance on the Internet was and still is a pain in the ass for most movie producers, as well as software companies. The whole concept of having a file or a group of files shared among hundreds of individual computers, which then have it/them split into virtual pieces which in turn are sent quasi-randomly across the torrent’s peer domain was annoying. Who could you blame? An IP? The tracker server which keeps the contact between the seeds and the peers? (for those unfamiliar with the terms, the seeder is the individual that has a complete copy of the file(s) and sends them to those that have missing pieces, the peers – some named as “leechers” because, as a leech, they fail to comprehend the functionality of the torrent and as soon as they finish downloading , they close the transfer and never become seeders). One of such sites that provides a serious database of torrents is IsoHunt , whose motto is very significant for those that perceive the torrent community as what it should be: “Share, not steal”. It’s like borrowing a movie from a friend (well, in this case, hundreds of friends), you gain no wealth from it except the joy of possessing something you wanted to see for ages. Those greedy bastards in the movie industry never understood the fact that not all of us afford buying a new movie at any time we want to see one. Michael Moore , the thorn in the American presidency’s side, famous for its movies, such as “Fahrenheit 9/11″ (which I strongly recommend to see all willing to depart for the grand USA) and “SiCKO” (one of my next interests in my to-see list, a movie about the American health care system), acknowledged one of the major roles of the torrents and file sharing, that of making information available at a much higher rate and he didn’t felt awkward about his movie being copied all over the Internet. The only real problem of torrents is that software can be very easily downloaded and used illegally. But let’s be serious: which one of those in Romania that like photo editing, for example, paid the license for Adobe Photoshop? And if they actually have artistic inclinations and skills, should their first expo be charged with overdue license fees for illegal use of software?

As I went backwards related to the title, the last issue is Peer-to-peer file sharing. In this category enter products such as eMule, DC++, Shareaza, ARES, and so on. This version of sharing is possibly the most direct of them all, the download taking part only between two entities, one that searched for a certain item and one that had it and was available for transfer to commence. This is the ultimate example of the concept of sharing, thing which some group of interests want it stopped (see the example of the old Napster, which was transformed once from a free sharing program into one in which you had to pay for the downloaded music). As for musicians: I see, you make a new album, you sell it in grand numbers, you get a s**tload of cash. That’s perfectly fine. You get even more money from promoting your album in concerts. Great! Why do you need us then to pay for your tracks, a good while after your album was released? Don’t you get enough to maintain your 1 billion $ villa, your bitches and your crack addiction? Or you think things can get out of control and you may never know when your fame is going to fade and you’re going to hit the bottom of your life, so you need any dollar to survive? Don’t be ridiculous! Once you’re famous, your very name makes money for you, so stop complaining.

Sharing is here to stay. It’s something in the very nature of humans to share things among them. And, as a little example, here’s a little list of nations which I’ve seen peers from: USA, Canada, Holland, Sweden, Norway, Hungary, UK, Germany, Spain, Greece, France, Thailand, Myanmar, India, Australia.