I’m not going to sit here and lecture you about the so called “legality” of torrents. While most big name labels and other big media organizations would like you to believe that any use of torrents/file sharing is bad and illegal, the opposite is actually true. But such things are best reserved for another post. I use torrents quite a bit. While I am plenty happy with Transmission on my Mac, I’m always open to new programs and services. If you’ve got the same mindset and make use of Firefox religiously, FireTorrent is a plugin worth looking into.
The reason you should be intrigued is that it integrates torrents directly into the browser, bypassing any separate program entirely. After giving it a whirl for a few minutes, playing with the settings and starting a few torrents, I’ve come to generally the same conclusion as RedFerret. That is, it’s extremely handy and simple though the menu system, choosing custom save to destinations, and problems here and there releasing files after they’ve completed downloading are a few snags in an otherwise perfect product.
Long time Firefox users will point out that FireTorrent isn’t exactly new. Very true, it’s been around for awhile. But a few previous versions of Firefox were incompatible. Not so anymore. Now that it’s cleared up, why not give it another shot?
RedFerret
Having a continence based guilt trip because you downloaded that one Hanson song back in the day that you had to have? Or, are you a full fledged pirate who is eschewing old ways of plunder and instead looking for a way to give back? Leak water from your eyes no more as Piracy Payback is here to help. Now, if you’re thinking what I think you’re thinking (follow that), yes this is real and no this is not a joke. Aiming to give back to artists and copyright owners, Piracy Payback users can donate to the site and have their donations given to the various labels. Drew K, the Australian proprietor of Piracy Payback got the idea back in the day when he couldn’t find one of his fave TV shows and instead turned to downloading it…illegally. Feeling bad, he wanted a way to repay someone for what he had done. Behold: Piracy Payback.
PP is a relative baby all things concerned as it was just launched in January of 2009. Again, the main purpose of the site is to donate money which PP turns around and gives to “beneficiaries”. Who are they? What label do they belong to? Which artists are actually getting accurately paid? All said details are in the dark as those involved don’t actually want people to know they’ve partnered with PP as they feel it would encourage further illegal file sharing ways. Besides paying back all of those artists you stole from, 12% of donations get held back for site upkeep. Hey, they have to make money somehow don’t they?
Personally I see this as a good idea…on paper. Translated into the real world however isn’t as promising. For one, I’m not about to give money to a company that I haven’t the slightest clue where my money is going. Not to mention such small problems as artist A getting more than artist B all while not knowing extremely important facts such as many times was artist A or B’s songs actually downloaded. You see, this is a an entirely too simple solution for an entirely too complex situation.
Finally, there’s this whole idea that big labels and content owners sipmly can’t get t hrough their think skulls, that is, simply slapping a price tag on any product or service has absolutely no correlation to value. If you’re product is deemed worthless of or little value by the public, no matter how valuable you feel it is, no one will pay. Create something actually worth consumers’ time or money and you have yourself a money tree.
More power to them. But they won’t see a dime of my money. What do you think? Good idea?
Ars Technica
Image Source
In its current state, The Pirate Bay isn’t exactly a copyright holder/content owners dream. Quite the contrary. To those wrapped up in the world of pro-RIAA fair, TPB signifies the scum of the earth, theft, and all other sorts of baddies. Then of course you have the other side, the “outcasts” if you will. These people have long been neglected by labels, content owners, etc. in regards to the fair uses and freedoms one should have with their purchased legal content. The whole mentality is more or less, “If you can’t have it your way legally, why even bother…?”. Still, the TPB trial has changed the company in that it is even mroe determined than before to remain alive and profitable. In fact, TPB owners are looking to do one thing the labels and their mob buddies never thought would happen — they’re attempting to go legit.
In what is a sad day for P2P, torrent, and file sharers everywhere, a tweet by CNNbrk sadly revealed early this morning that Pirate Bay has lost their case. Will Pirate Bay disappear and become but another story we tell our grandchildren some day. Or will it live on (albeit in another country.) Heck, even Pirate Bay themselves said regardless of the decision they and their service would live on. As with all things legal, the appeal that is most certainly to follow could and probably will stretch into being measured in years. So the labels and anti-piracy advocates claim a victory of “epic proportions” they will decry. Finally artists and creators of content will finally be paid what is due to them. Can you see right through their PR BS? The only thing this trial did for the Pirate Bay was disrupt operation for a few days at most, piracy as a whole – what trial?
Is $20+ too much to spend on a movie? Do you even find yourself questioning buying that $5 golden oldie that is sitting at the bottom of a Best Buy bargin bin? If you a movie monster, own a G1, and don’t mind doing a little pirating, things have just turned in your favor. Introducing BarTor, (formerly ScanTorrent), a torrent app for downloading movies will make the quest for free movies insanely easy. This revolutionary app allows you to scan a movie barcode which then sends the movie information such as title to your computer (which you’ve previously set up to run uTorrent or Vuze) and by the time you get home you’ll have that movie or movies that you scanned while out and about ready to watch. Granted this is highly illegal…but insanely cool. Features of BarTor include:
- Load By URL or Load By File
- KTorrent PHP and HTML Interfaces
- Support for uTorrent and Vuse
- Sort by By Seeds and Leechers (Default) or by Publish Date
- Ability to choose maximum number of Torrent Search results (25 *Default*, 50, 100, 250)
- Failed Submissions retried automatically upon application open and exit
- Purchase opportunities with Barcode Lookup/Long Click result to open Browser
Why can’t legitimate comapnies put something together like this? This is why people pirate. The record labels and movie corps continue to try and resist the digital trend and are years behind and sadly always will be. Leave it to the consumer to truly innovate the market while the big corps take all of the credit. If you have a G1 I suggest you spend the $2.99 on BarTor before it gets taken down. (We all know the MPAA will be all over this in a heartbeat).
Source: Crunch Gear, Wired
