Could BitTorrent Be The Distributed Social Network People Have Been Clamoring For?

from the it's-got-the-distribution... dept

One of the key things we’ve been noting over the past few months is how many more people are beginning to recognize the benefits of having systems and services that really are more distributed and decentralized, rather than very centralized. The problems with centralized systems should be obvious: not only are there single points of failure where a single mistake can knock out the entire system, but it also puts a single party in control as well. And that can lead to problems, say, when it comes to handing over private information to the government (or companies) without proper legal process.

Among the areas that have grown up with very centralized systems are various social networks, such as Facebook. In response, there’s definitely been a call for alternative, more open and more distributed social networking systems, such as Diaspora, which has received a ton of hype, but still has a long, long way to go.

But could another player enter the space and have the infrastructure in place to make it work? It appears that BitTorrent is betting yes. The company is launching its new, much more user friendly Chrysalis interface for its software, which really goes a long way in moving the software towards being a media manager program:

But that’s not what’s really interesting here. It appears that BitTorrent is effectively trying to move into the distributed social networking space, while also disrupting the business models of various cloud storage offerings at the same time (a twofer!). On the social networking side of the game, the company recognizes that a big part of the success of Facebook is in sharing personal content such as photos and movies, so it’s building off of its underlying technology to let groups and individuals create “channels” in which such content can be shared (not in a weakly compressed format either, but fully) and commented on:

If it works, you could see some pretty compelling ideas come to life. For example, it would be easy to build a group around, say, a wedding or a party, and have all attendees easily share their photos and videos from that event, allowing everyone to comment on them, etc. And it could work entirely using the BitTorrent infrastructure underneath — meaning more efficient and often faster distribution of the content. The channels can be shared widely or narrowly, depending on users’ preferences.

And it’s all done in a distributed manner.

That point is where it starts to get pretty interesting. There were recently all of those concerns about Dropbox, but you could see how something like this might provide a very compelling alternative.

That’s not to say there aren’t huge challenges. While the company has a massive installed base for its technology, many of its users probably have never thought about BitTorrent in this context, and it’s not always so easy to enact that kind of context and perception shift. The product is also still early and may be lacking in some random “killer” feature that really makes it catch on. However, it does strike me as really intriguing, and as more and more examples of problems with more centralized systems spring up, you could definitely see more people gravitating to a distributed solution like BitTorrent’s. On top of that, the company is working hard to get its software embedded directly into a variety of consumer electronics offerings, making it easier to have the necessary software installed to make use of some of these new sharing features. Finally, as part of the process, the company has also made it really easy to share content even with those who don’t already have a BitTorrent client installed — setting up what’s effectively a one-click email download “package,” so if you want to send a bunch of pictures to your family, for example, they’ll get an email that has them download the client software, prepopulated with the channel in question with all the photos.

As someone who thinks it’s important to have more distributed systems and get further away from relying on single centralized systems with too much control, but who’s also been skeptical of previous attempts at such distributed systems, I have to say that this is a lot more interesting and compelling.

Filed Under: bittorrent, distributed, social network
Companies: bittorrent

Khan Academy Embraces BitTorrent

from the nice-to-see dept

We’ve written a few times before about the Khan Academy, the free online education resource, started by a former housemate of mine, that has turned into a powerhouse in the online education space. I had lunch with Sal a few weeks ago, and he’s got some really fascinating things planned for Khan Academy that go way beyond what’s there now. If you think it’s disruptive to the educational space, you haven’t seen anything yet. The latest move by the organization is to team up with BitTorrent to make it even easier and more efficient to spread the educational videos. They’re doing this via the BitTorrent app studio platform, which is a development worth watching. The core of BitTorrent has always been the underlying infrastructure it provides, and the company is clearly moving towards enabling others to build a lot more on top of that infrastructure. As more and more people begin to realize the power of BitTorrent as infrastructure, we should start to see a lot more interesting apps come out of it. So this collaboration seems like good news for both sides, with two companies doing very interesting and disruptive things…

Filed Under: bittorrent, education, infrastructure
Companies: bittorrent, khan academy

Will Google's New Hamfisted Censorship On Autocomplete Raise Questions Of Human Meddling?

from the bad-idea dept

One of the key arguments that critics have often made against Google is that the company “meddles” in search results, effectively “picking winners and losers.” Google’s — quite reasonable — response for years has been that it’s all in the algorithm, rather than any personal choices. And, the algorithm was just trying to recommend the best result, no matter what that might be. Indeed, this is a perfect and sensible response. However, after lots of pressure from the entertainment industry (and politicians closely associated with the entertainment industry), last month Google announced plans to start censoring “autocomplete” results, such that “terms that are closely associated with piracy” don’t appear.

As we noted when the announcement was made, this is really difficult to do in any reasonable manner. What’s “closely associated with piracy,” one day becomes a legitimate format the next. Take MP3s for example. Five or six years ago, if Google had made this decision, you would imagine that Google might have decided to block “mp3” from autocomplete — and yet, now, MP3 is the standard that is used around the world in all sorts of legitimate online music stores, including iTunes and Amazon. We pointed out that blocking things like “bittorrent” or just “torrent” would be a mistake of the same nature — as it’s just a standard that has plenty of legitimate uses, even if it’s frequently used for unauthorized copying today.

Unfortunately, whoever was in charge of handling this at Google went for a simplistic sledge hammer approach, with the company now dropping a variety of terms, many of which have perfectly legitimate uses. Many of the choices seem totally arbitrary. As expected, BitTorrent and torrent are now blocked — despite plenty of legal uses, and the fact that BitTorrent itself is a perfectly legal company with tons of companies using its technology for completely noninfringing purposes. In the TorrentFreak link above, there are reactions from a variety of companies, including BitTorrent Inc., RapidShare and Vodo, who all note that this move appears to hurt their legitimate businesses.

And that’s where I wonder if this move will backfire in a big way on Google. While the concept of “search neutrality” may be one of the more ridiculous ideas to come out of Google-haters for years, the fact that the company is now clearly hand-picking “winners and losers” when it comes to searches on these kinds of technologies and services seems like something that will be used as evidence against Google at some point.

Google had a strong defense in the past to complaints of bias, in that it was focused on not meddling with its results. However, while this move doesn’t directly mess with the actual results, by mucking with autocomplete, it is likely to have an impact on the kinds of searches that people do, driving them away from many perfectly legitimate solutions, for no reason other than that the company caved to pressure based on no legal rationale. All this really does is now open the door for others to demand that Google adjust its search recommendations and results in their favor as well. I’m really surprised Google would agree to do this in the first place, let alone do it in such a… simplistic and overly broad fashion.

Filed Under: autocomplete, bittorrent, censorship, search, torrent
Companies: google

Journalists Continue To Rely On Bogus Research About File Sharing As If It Were Factual

from the sad dept

Over the summer, we had pointed out how disappointing it was that the press relied on an obviously bogus research report from the University of Ballarat’s Internet Commerce Security Laboratory, about how much infringing content was being shared on BitTorrent. As we noted at the time, the folks over at TorrentFreak carefully picked apart the study and showed how it appeared to have been done by folks who didn’t actually understand how BitTorrent and torrent trackers worked. Apparently, the TorrentFreak guys sent a note to the authors offering to help them fix the problems in their study methodology, and all they got back was a sarcastic email from one of the researchers saying that he’d gladly send the Torrentfreak guys a complimentary copy of O’Reilly’s Statistics in a Nutshell, as it “might give further insight into statistical methodology.” Snarky!

Apparently, the researchers didn’t do much to fix their methodology, as they’re out with another report, which — yet again — the press appears to be quoting without question, even with some serious red flags — such as listing only four movies from 2010 as being among the most downloaded in 2010. Once again, TorrentFreak comes to the rescue and details the flaws in the study’s methodology. Of course, seeing as the report was funded in part by a movie studio and IBM, perhaps the researchers aren’t so concerned about getting it right as they are about getting what the funders’ wanted.

Filed Under: bittorrent, file sharing, journalism, studies, university of ballarat

Archive Of Geocities Released As A 1TB Torrent

from the archiving-history dept

In early 2009, Yahoo announced that it was going to put Geocities out of its misery and finally shut down the site entirely, even as it was still getting 11 million unique visitors per month. Soon after the announcement, we had heard about some projects to try to archive the entire site (with some claims that it couldn’t be done in time). The actual shut down occurred almost exactly a year ago, and yet a group calling itself The Archive Team is apparently releasing its entire Geocities archive, blinking flashing “under construction signs” and all, as a nearly 1 TB torrent. They don’t think they got everything, but do believe they archived “a significant percentage” of the site.

It’s worth reading the blog post by the folks who did this explaining why they did it, noting how little people realized that this was basically erasing digital history and culture:

What we were facing, you see, was the wholesale destruction of the still-rare combination of words digital heritage, the erasing and silencing of hundreds of thousands of voices, voices that representing the dawn of what one might call “regular people” joining the World Wide Web. A unique moment in human history, preserved for many years and spontaneously combusting due to a few marks in a ledger, the decision of who-knows for who-knows-what.

This is interesting on a number of levels. It is fascinating how little most people seemed to care about the loss of Geocities. Yes, it was quite an abandoned digital hangout for much of the past decade, but the group is right that it represented an important watershed in recognizing that anyone could be a content creator. I first learned to make websites via a Geocities account (before it was even called Geocities, mind you). And yet, Yahoo just dumped it.

Of course, someone could make the argument that this archive is copyright infringement. I doubt anyone will, but it is an interesting question. The archiving is an important point in preserving digital history, and yet it’s also a moment of massive copyright infringement — technically speaking. This is the sort of bizarrely bad result you get in a world where copyright is automatically given to any content at the moment of creation. Most of the people creating Geocities pages would have no reason (or desire) to copyright what they created, and yet they all got it by default.

Hopefully, no one decides to pursue the copyright issue in any serious manner. In the meantime, we’ll leave you with the parting words of The Archive Team:

While it’s quite clear this sort of cavalier attitude to digital history will continue, the hope is that this torrent will bring some attention to both the worth of these archives and the ease at which it can be lost — and found again.

Filed Under: archive, bittorrent, copyright, geocities
Companies: geocities, yahoo

Would IMDB Really Not List A Film Because It Was Distributed Via BitTorrent?

from the really? dept

Allen was the first of an awful lot of you sending in this story of how independent film producer Enzo Tedeschi claims that Amazon-owned IMDB.com refuses to list his film in their database, because of plans to distribute it via BitTorrent. The story is pretty heavy on the speculation side, unfortunately. Tedeschi seems to be doing some interesting things, looking to use crowdfunding to finance the movie, but he claims that IMDB won’t list the movie.

The explanation that it’s because of the BitTorrent release is pure speculation. Another article, from TorrentFreak provides some more details, with notes of rejection from IMDB. They claim that the movie needs to be associated with a production company that has a history of releasing movies, in order to get listed at this early stage. However, Tedeschi notes that this is a real production house that has released movies in the past, all of which have been listed in IMDB. The only thing that he sees that’s different is the planned BitTorrent release.

I’m not sure that’s really the case. My guess is that IMDB’s admins are somewhat arbitrary in determining what to list, and they have some policies about making sure a movie is really “real” before it gets listed — hence the claims of not listing it until there’s more evidence that the release is coming soon. I’m not sure if this is the best policy for IMDB, but it doesn’t sound quite as nefarious as some have made it out to be.

Filed Under: bittorrent, crowdfunding, listing, movies
Companies: amazon, imdb

BitTorrent Begins Directly Promoting Content Creators Willing To Embrace New Forms Of Distribution

from the a-step-forward dept

We’ve covered the Pioneer One and Yes Men video releases via BitTorrent, in combination with Vodo, and now BitTorrent Inc. is trying to ramp up similar efforts as well. This week it’s helping to promote a new album released via BitTorrent from the artist PAZ, as it kicks off an effort to help those who embrace BitTorrent for distribution.

One of the obvious benefits of using BitTorrent or other forms of free music distribution is that it makes it easier for people to hear your music. But, of course, you still need to convince them to make that first step and download — and so these recent efforts to use a BitTorrent release specifically to promote a bit of content is interesting. I imagine that the skeptical response is that “this only works when just a few artists are doing it.” That may be true in the present form, but I would bet that if more and more content creators embrace these forms of distribution, in combination with smarter business models, there will be many ways to deal with it, including greater personalization/filters for those who are actively promoting their works via platforms like BitTorrent.

Filed Under: bittorrent, paz, promotions
Companies: bittorrent

Kids In The Hall Admit They 'Pirate' Their Own Shows, Because They Can't Get Them Legally

from the copyright-law-in-action dept

In a TorrentFreak article about a Czech TV station hosting unauthorized copies of the TV show Fringe on their server (the show appears on a competing station, and an employee had missed some episodes so he downloaded — and then hosted — them), there’s a mention of a recent interview by Keith Olbermann of the famed Canadian comedy troupe The Kids in the Hall, where Dave Foley admits to having downloading “unauthorized” copies of his own shows via BitTorrent due to the difficulty of getting legal copies. He jokes:

“So I eventually just downloaded the whole series on BitTorrent. So I illegally downloaded. So come after me FBI!”

We hear this sort of thing all the time, and it sort of highlights the ridiculousness of some of what’s going on today. When the easiest most efficient ways for content creators to get access to their own work is illegal downloading, perhaps it’s time to realize that criminalizing this activity is a mistake, and the real problem is trying to force everyone into less efficient mechanisms?

Filed Under: bittorrent, david foley, kids in the hall

Why Does The Press Still Blindly Believe 'Studies' Put Out By The Entertainment Industry?

from the makes-no-sense dept

For years upon years, we’ve seen the press parrot the “findings” of various entertainment industry “studies” about copyright or file sharing, and usually, as you dig into the details, you discover that the report’s methodology is laughable. You would think that, with the GAO highlighting how bogus most of these reports are, earlier this year, that the press would be a bit more cautious about simply repeating the findings. No such luck.

A bunch of you have been sending over various versions of the story about a new study, sponsored by the movie industry in Australia, suggesting that practically all BitTorrent traffic was for infringing files, with the number 99.7% of the traffic being thrown around by otherwise respectable publications. Thankfully, TorrentFreak actually bothered to look at the details and rips apart the problems with the study, noting that each of the four questions the study “answers” appear to be based on bogus data.

None of this is to suggest, of course, that the majority of BitTorrent usage is not likely to be infringing works. I don’t think anyone doubts that it is most widely used for such things. The question, however, is whether or not it’s really just 0.3% that’s not infringing. It’s possible, but the study used here doesn’t seem to support the claim.

Filed Under: bittorrent, file sharing, studies

Yes Men Release Movie Via BitTorrent To Avoid Legal Hassles

from the getting-it-out-there-is-most-important dept

Earlier this year, we wrote about the ridiculous hoops that filmmakers need to go through these days just to get “E&O” or “errors and omissions” insurance. Basically, the lawyers want to make sure that anyone displaying the movie won’t get sued, so they force you to get this kind of insurance. To get E&O insurance, you basically have to go through the movie, frame by frame, and show how every single possible bit of content that might possibly lead to a lawsuit has been “cleared” by the rights holder. This includes some ridiculous things like, if your movie shows someone walking down the street, that the businesses seen behind them have signed a legal “ok.” It’s pretty ridiculous, and many indie filmmakers just don’t bother — making it more difficult (if not impossible) to get their films into traditional distribution channels.

Of course, these days, there are more ways around this — such as releasing the film yourself online using BitTorrent or some other system. TechnoMage points out that this is the path taken by notorious pranksters, The Yes Men for their latest movie: releasing it via BitTorrent, and asking for donations. Of course The Yes Men have some advantage in that they’re already pretty well known, but the legal troubles they faced in getting the movie out were interesting. There’s the unique situation in that they’re currently being sued by the US Chamber of Commerce for their prank fake press conference, where they pretended to be US CoC officials changing the organization’s policy on global warming. The movie includes footage from that event — and lawyers flipped out about showing such footage while the lawsuit was ongoing.

Of course, stuff like that may be unique to The Yes Men — but other situations, involving copyright, are not. Take for example this bit of info:

“For us to get our ‘errors and omissions insurance’ required for any distributor to take it, we had to clear the rights on all sorts of stuff we should not really have had to… including music written in the 17th century, which apparently because of some kind of law in Austria was not public domain according to the interpretation of insurance industry lawyers!

This is a problem many face. It’ll be interesting to see if more indie filmmakers jump on alternative distribution platforms not just because they’re more efficient, but also because it gets them around having to deal with overbearing E&O insurance issues.

Filed Under: bittorrent, copyright, e&o insurance, hassles, yes men