Poll: I'm A Torrent User

[Joe]

This poll was inspired by the folks that like to watch Yanqui or Euro TV but don't have the bandwidth to use streaming web sites.

 

[thorsten]

"I belive using Torrents is illegal" - you should add an option "Depends on the content"

 

[PhilipDT]

Go back to poll making school Joe! We can indicate that we don't download torrents in the first question but in the follow up there is no 'not aplicable' answer, nor is it possible to leave the second question blank. FAIL

 

[scotttswan]

I used to torrent games but i tend not to any more as steam along with a few other sites like GOG.com has made it much easier to get the games and play them whenever.

I used to torrent music albums and then bought the cd for the ones i really liked, now i subscibe to spotify and haven't bought a cd in years. I only have an xbox to play music cd's on as my laptop removed the obsolete drive years ago.

I torrent movies and tv because i pay cable tv enough as it is without paying extra for netflix or the likes. If i was in the uk sky/virgin/BT etc all have streaming sites and on demand stuff. Nothing like that exists so fuck em, i'll torrent stuff.

 

[thorsten]

Btw: a group of developers from Buenos Aires created a "torrent-based Netflix" called Popcorn Time. Its technologically pretty smart and the user-interface is so easy to use that even a grandmother could manage to stream the newest blockbuster and select the desired quality/subtitles. Unfortunately Hollywood sent out the lawyers to threaten a long legal fight (even though technically the program is just as legal as any P2P client) and they were successful. However, the geeks from BsAs believed in open sourcing and thus a clone is back (http://get-popcorn.com/)... Entertainment hecho en Argentina!

 

[scotttswan]

Btw: a group of developers from Buenos Aires created a "torrent-based Netflix" called Popcorn Time. Its technologically pretty smart and the user-interface is so easy to use that even a grandmother could manage to stream the newest blockbuster and select the desired quality/subtitles. Unfortunately Hollywood sent out the lawyers to threaten a long legal fight (even though technically the program is just as legal as any P2P client) and they were successful. However, the geeks from BsAs believed in open sourcing and thus a clone is back (http://get-popcorn.com/)... Entertainment hecho en Argentina!

http://www.popcornexpress.me/ was just launched with a browser plugin instead of a download.

 

[gpop]

Several years ago (circa the infancy of Napster and certainly when the first reactions to P2P sharing started making a lot of noise) I was in search of an obscure CD. I searched for YEARS in many local music shops in Montreal. No joy.
I finally put in an order for it at HMV (for the US residents, it's like Tower Records). 2 weeks later they called me, where they informed me that the record company cannot, WILL NOT, and HAS NO INTENTION of EVER re-releasing that recording because there is not (and do not expect) enough demand to justify a re-release because it is not economically feasible for them to do so.
Now, I'm not ignorant to to business aspects of supply and demand, but in a digital age all these jokers needed to do was open up it's vaults and set up a e-commerce system. They could have offered an alternative, put me with a distributor that may have what I wanted to buy. Instead I was basically told that "you can't have what you want because we won't make enough money off of it". Hey, I tried to do it legally.
I found it on Napster after that, it was difficult and barely acceptable quality (you could never be sure of what you got, there is no quality guarantee when using P2P), but I finally got what I wanted. A short time later I finally found the album on CD and bought it from a independent record shop. I backed it up in FLAC format as CD plastic degrades with use.
The record company is not concerned with the rights of the artist as much as with their greedy bottom-line. The artist gains nothing if there is no exposure for them. The record company really only promotes pop music; they have no interest in artists that are not on the charts.
I don't feel guilty nor that I did anything wrong especially after I made great effort to purchase a legit copy. Seems to me that it's the record company is holding these recording hostage waiting for a big-enough ransom. I support the artist fully and promote their music buy going to concerts, and sharing URLs where the item can be purchased. It's no secret that the percentage they see from album sales is less than 10% of the cost of a disk.

 

[wineguy999]

Several years ago (circa the infancy of Napster and certainly when the first reactions to P2P sharing started making a lot of noise) I was in search of an obscure CD. I searched for YEARS in many local music shops in Montreal. No joy.
I finally put in an order for it at HMV (for the US residents, it's like Tower Records). 2 weeks later they called me, where they informed me that the record company cannot, WILL NOT, and HAS NO INTENTION of EVER re-releasing that recording because there is not (and do not expect) enough demand to justify a re-release because it is not economically feasible for them to do so.
Now, I'm not ignorant to to business aspects of supply and demand, but in a digital age all these jokers needed to do was open up it's vaults and set up a e-commerce system. They could have offered an alternative, put me with a distributor that may have what I wanted to buy. Instead I was basically told that "you can't have what you want because we won't make enough money off of it". Hey, I tried to do it legally.
I found it on Napster after that, it was difficult and barely acceptable quality (you could never be sure of what you got, there is no quality guarantee when using P2P), but I finally got what I wanted. A short time later I finally found the album on CD and bought it from a independent record shop. I backed it up in FLAC format as CD plastic degrades with use.
The record company is not concerned with the rights of the artist as much as with their greedy bottom-line. The artist gains nothing if there is no exposure for them. The record company really only promotes pop music; they have no interest in artists that are not on the charts.
I don't feel guilty nor that I did anything wrong especially after I made great effort to purchase a legit copy. Seems to me that it's the record company is holding these recording hostage waiting for a big-enough ransom. I support the artist fully and promote their music buy going to concerts, and sharing URLs where the item can be purchased. It's no secret that the percentage they see from album sales is less than 10% of the cost of a disk.

So, what was the CD?

 

[Joe]

Last year I bought a TV series in the Google Play store when I was in Canada. But I was unable to play it when I left the country because of some international licensing BS. It inspired me to start using torrents.

With a torrent download you can watch it offline and so once it's downloaded, the speed of your internet connection is irrelevant.

You could download several TV series and movies overnight and odds are all of them will be completed before you wake up.

For popular items there may be several downloads available of different quality. So for example if you are playing back on a large screen TV you might want to download a higher resolution torrent.

 

[ARbound]

The legal argument is the difficult aspect. I really don't think it's cut and dry and that's why I answered no opinion.

On one hand, if you torrent you're not paying for the content of course, but you're also not stealing (implies that the
owner no longer has access to said item) and you aren't making a profit.

The only case I would say that is a clear violation of law is the guys on the subways here who sell CD's they've burned
for $15 ARS with the latest hits on them. It's a clear violation of legal statutes as you intend to profit of the unpaid copying
of content. (I have no idea who buys from them, it's 2014, who uses CD's anymore/don't know how to get music online?)

I also think if cable providers (Comcast since they own everything now) weren't so huge and controlling of content creators
then we would have a different method of accessing programs. If people could pay and watch the individual TV shows they
liked at the same time as cable viewers then they would.

I don't have cable or satellite because 95% of the time nothing I like is on, and there are only a few shows I watch anyways.