Why BitTorrent is Here to Stay

So I wrote this paper for my TC201 class. It’s only about 3 pages long, but I thought it was sort of interesting and vaguely worth posting on my site. So, for whoever’s interested, you can read my paper. Just click the more link after the first paragraph.

BitTorrent is a truly amazing technology. Invented and implemented by lone hacker Bram Cohen and distributed for free, it has quickly become one of the most popular and revolutionary P2P-style file sharing systems on the Internet. It has been successfully used to distribute giant files ranging from several hundred megabytes to gigabytes in size across the Internet without the use of a monolithic server with fixed bandwidth. Companies like Red Hat have been distributing their free software (which can be several CD's in size) across the Internet without saturating their own servers' upload bandwidth -- a huge legitimate win for such legal content. This revolutionary technology, like so many others, has its potential for abuse. It can be used by pirates to share large video files and software quickly and efficiently without the bandwidth issues that arise from serving them up with HTTP or FTP from a single host. The Induce Act, however, aims to correct this very "problem," but many people say the act is far more reaching than its proposers will have you believe.

According to Yahoo News India, BitTorrent traffic has grown to take up a whopping 35% of Internet bandwidth, which is more than all other peer-to-peer programs combined, and makes "mainstream" traffic like web pages seem like almost nothing (Pasick, 2004). So, while the Induce Act doesn't specifically target BitTorrent, it would surely be one of the more prominently affected technologies.

It is a combination of several key characteristics of this technology that make it so powerful. First, its seamless integration with the web makes it a cinch to use: just click on the torrent file link, and open it with the BitTorrent client. The rest of the brilliance exists in or as a result of the very optimized algorithms the software uses to split the files into pieces (and further, 16 kb "subpieces"), negotiate which pieces to send (rarest first and random first methodologies), find the best peers to upload to and download from (so as to saturate and make best use of the TCP link), and checksum everything so an uncorrupted download is guaranteed. The P2P nature of the system means that as a node (your computer) is downloading pieces of the file from several locations, it is simultaneously uploading to other peers on the network. Since the capacity to serve up the data increases as more people join a torrent, it has been found that the system is extremely scalable (Cohen, 2003). Furthermore, the protocol specification and implementation that make it all possible have been released under the MIT license, which is open source in nature. The license basically says that anybody can implement BitTorrent technology into their software for any reason (even for commercial purposes), and all they have to do is include the license in their product. Of course, all this means that the free exchange of information on the Internet just became much easier, and that makes the profiteers and those associated with them quite scared indeed.

Without much regard to legitimate sharers, Senator Orrin Hatch's proposed Inducing Infringements of Copyright Act, or Induce Act, says that anyone who "intentionally aids, abets, induces, or procures" a copyright violation by a third person could be subjected to civil penalties (Vaidhyanathan, 2004). And according to Hatch, "intentionally inducing" would mean "knowing that infringement could happen."

If interpreted this way, the Induce Act would essentially overturn the 1984 Betamax case in which it was found in a 5 to 4 ruling that the Betamax was legal because it was capable of "substantial noninfringing uses." BitTorrent legitimacy seems to be arguable in much the same way. Sure much of BitTorrent usage is illegal copyright infringement, but the potential for "substantial noninfringing uses" is there. Ironically enough, knowing that the Senate's Induce Act hearing would only be broadcasted over the web once, singer and songwriter Tom Barger recorded it and made it available on the Internet for any who wished to view it using the very technology the Act set out to outlaw -- BitTorrent (P2P Congress, 2004). Obviously, there are plenty of very beneficial and legal uses for the technology.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation, a political activist group looking out to protect consumer's digital rights, wrote "Prelude to a Fake Complaint" in response to the Induce act in which they argue that passing the act would have several far-reaching implications. The attached fake complaint against Apple, Toshiba, and C-Net stakes the claim that, because Apple sells iPods with hard drives from Toshiba and C-Net explains how it's done, one can (or is even lured to) use the products of these companies to conduct copyright infringement. Along with countless other sources, the EFF also notes that the general upshot of the act is to stifle innovation for years to come. Products that we know today would become illegal, and ones that haven't even been invented yet will never become commercial (EFF, 2004).

Fortunately, though, according to a blog entry posted October 7, 2004, Art Brodsky notes that the Induce Act most likely died the previous night after a five-hour negotiating session between RIAA, MPAA, and BSA (Heller, 2004). It seems that the courts are heeding to the Betamax precedent that you can't outlaw something just because it has the potential to allow for copyright infringement, even if it encourages such activities.

It must be tough being a preserver of intellectual property these days. Pirating movies, music, and software over the Internet has never been easier, and unless certain corporate entities start suing people en mass, it's quite a risk-free endeavor. It's a sad fact, but most people fall short in the way of morals when it comes to attaining pirated content over the Internet. The providers of digital content (movie studios, record labels, etc) will eventually have no choice but to offer their product in a way that is more convenient to the consumer than finding a pirated copy, and at a competitive price, too! I see nothing but growth in the future for P2P technologies, but BitTorrent in particular. I'm excited to see what innovative applications people will come up with using this technology by integrating it with websites and enriching our Internet experiences.

Works Cited

Cohen, Bram. “Incentives Built Robustness in BitTorrent”. Retrieved Nov 13, 2004. http://bittorrent.com/bittorrentecon.pdf.

Electronic Frontier Fuondation. “Prelude to a Fake Complaint”. Retrieved Nov 13, 2004. http://www.eff.org/IP/Apple_Complaint.php.

Heller, Kevin J., Esq.. “INDUCE Dead?”. Retrieved Nov 13, 2004. http://techlawadvisor.com/induce/2004/10/induce-dead.html.

P2P Congress. Untitled. Retrieved Nov 13, 2004. http://www.p2pcongress.org/.

Pasick, Adam. “LIVEWIRE – File-sharing network thrives beneath the radar”. Retrieved Nov 13, 2004. http://in.tech.yahoo.com/041103/137/2ho4i.html.

2 Comments to Why BitTorrent is Here to Stay

1. 

   Nice article, thread. Things like bittorrent are indeed a good thing, and raising awareness that it’s not just a pirate tool is even better.
nightmare on November 14th, 2004
2. 

   Thanks for the comment, nightmare. I didn’t think to initially, so I added my works cited section with links to my sources for those who like links. :)
thread on November 14th, 2004