What kind of file sharer are you?

Posted: Mon Mar 23, 2009 8:28 pm

Honestly, I have utilized torrents for all those reasons. Typically it's because I'm picky about my music. I don't want to buy a CD that I will only like 1 song. Waste of my money.

I also have digital copies in case my disks are broken and are lost. I bought the freakin' program and/or game, why can't I have a back up?

I didn't legally buy PS, but what intelligent person would spend $1k on PS CS4? (excluding companies) Same goes for M$ Office.

Overall, I believe I fit into the second category the most. I download before I buy so that I know I'm not getting ripped off. It's like going over to your rich friend's house and playing all his video games, watching all his/her movies, and listening to all his/her music and finally buying the ones you enjoy yourself.

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 2:53 am

Guess it comes down to two things for me: try before buy and getting my hands on things that are hardly available in others ways.

To be a bit more exact: I download Fan-Subs of anime series that will probably hit europe years later and I don't want to wait for it. Then comes the try factor because I actually BUY the series I liked.
I also encountered several huge disappointments in media in the last years. Two examples: Gothic 3 and the Ghostrider movie. Both are the equivalent of purchasing something and getting a turd in a box. That's not how you treat customers.
I also strongly dislike copy protect mechanisms, they help very little but prevent a small part of the customers of actually enjoying what they bought because it won't run on their computer or CD/DVD player. You'd never encounter something like that in the automobile industry.
To the hard to get stuff belong things like Hayao Miyazaki's daydream notes. Illustrations he made decades ago for japanese magazines. How am I supposed to get that in a reasonable way?
Or classic cartoons from the nineties. Some were distributed again in a decent way, like Captain Future that I already bought, but lots are not.

I have the impression that more control over users doesn't help the creators and distributers. I heard Apple already put this into practice with avoiding DRM but branding the files you purchased over their store.

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 6:26 am

A, B, C and E

I DL games to try them out 1st, if i like the game I do buy it.
I also DL anime as the chance of it EVER airing here is below 0.0001%, and old tv shows that haven't aired for years... aswell as music that i can't buy from a local music store, like anime and game music soundtracks. I also download mp3's of all songs i have bought so i don't have to keep swapping the cd's while listening to them.. And finally, i DL movies just cause its free, I'm only going to watch it once so the dvd would be just taking space... Oh, and I also downloaded programs worth atleast $5000, why? CAUSE THEIR PRICES ARE PLAIN RIPOFF.

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 1:12 pm

I'm nearly exclusively category E with a tiny bit of C.

I use isohunt and other torrent sites mostly for downloading TV shows. A lot like Zeustech except with TV instead of movie DVDs. What I download is nearly always stuff that I already get through my cable service, except for occasional things that are not available at all, even to purchase.

I have a Comcast DVR which is rather limited in how much it will save. Unlike TiVo, I cannot add a hard disk to it. For shows that are not available here or on other torrent sites, I record them on the DVR and then play them out to recapture them on my computer in DVD format which I then run through Dr. DivX to compress into DivX format. It's time consuming and when the recording is playing for recapture, I cannot do anything else with my TV.

Fortunately, there are a lot of nice people who have made those same shows available for download. They have even gone through and removed the commercials. I don't bother to do that with the ones I do myself, but I appreciate the effort.

So for the shows that are available for download, I still record them on the DVR, but instead of playing them out for recapture in real time and compressing them at 2x+ real time, I simply capture the Comcast "title slide" with the brief show synopsis. That is useful to keep with the full recording to identify which episode is which. I then torrent-download the video in the background and delete my original recording from the Comcast DVR.

So for all of those, I already paid Comcast for the right to record them, and I even recorded them. I just use the torrents to get around the awkwardness of the Comcast hardware that is not up to TiVo standards. Although I'm not sure how frugal TiVo is with disk space, at least you can swap external hard disks (I think).

Occasionally I find something that I can't get anywhere else. Shows on BBC that haven't hit BBC America yet and may not ever. Curiosities that someone has uploaded from their own ancient archives like an interview with Phillip K. Dick.

In short, if I had a convenient way of archiving my Comcast DVR recordings that didn't require realtime playback and were reasonably compact (e.g., 350M/hr instead of 2.6G/hr), I would be doing 99% less torrent downloading.

I hope this helps,
Aristo

P.S. I have not done any uploading, but if I did, I think I might be inclined to leave the commercials in. It would be a LOT easier for me, and when the rubber meets the road, that's what the economic point of distributing the TV shows is -- to distribute the commercials. If I were to upload a show that contained its original commercials, they could not argue any economic harm because I'm facilitating their original intent, putting those commercials in front of more people. If the producers could verify that another 100,000 people would see the commercials through downloads, they could charge more for the commercials in the first place. Win/win.
--A

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 3:12 pm

This is a GREAT point that you seem to be the first to pick up on. WHY in the name of heaven should I have to pay the Beatles for the 5th copy of the White Album that I've purchased over the years, lp (twice! They wear out!), 8 track (okay, I'm showing my age), cassette (twice! They break or stretch), cd, and now a digital version! I have a huge vinyl collection, and have worn out many that I no longer have, plus literally thousands of cassettes and 8 tracks laying around unused. Even in the US, fair use doctrine includes the case for making back up copies. That was litigated through the courts when tape entered the marketplace.

There is a place where capitalism gives way to extortion. We're there. Why pay extortionate demands to the record companies for merchandise I've already purchased?

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 3:56 pm

I've been a long time user and reader if ISOHunt and now I have signed up to add to the comments here.

I consider myself as fitting in to every category, A-E.

Category A : When I was younger I was completely Category A material. To hell with rights, just download as much as possible! Now I am all grown up I realise that the creators of this content should be rewarded in some way so I have now purchased most of the content I downloaded years ago. But I have run into problems in the Category C area.

Category B : I hear a song on the radio, the DJ anounces who it is so when I get a minute I google them (other search providers are available, ofc). More and more artists these days have singles available to listen to direct from their website/myspace/whatever. Some don't. They are the ones I target with torrents. Listen to the album then download if I consider them worth paying for. Same deal with Movies, "Games for Windows", Operating Systems, anything recommended to me by friends.

Category C : I reminisce about a game I played years ago. Can I find it anywhere? No. Torrents away! I am left with no choice if I want to play/listen/watch something that I can no longer buy. This feels pretty unique within digital media as there is no physical representation (I can't copy a Ford Model T, for example).

Category D : This is the way forward to distributing large files imo. Linux distros, Computer game patches (I'm looking at you, World of Warcraft), etc. I'll always choose a torrent over a direct download.

Category E : For me, use of this category is growing at a huge rate in recent years. If I purchase a song from iTunes but want to play it on something other than my iPod, I'll find a MP3 torrent. In my mind I've already bought some right to listen to the music so who cares what format it's in.
Also for Games that have horrible copy protection. I own Spore. I upgrade my computer frequently. I downloaded Spore. Say no more.
DVDs too fit into this category. I have a file server at home to keep all my movies at my fingertips. No more searching the house looking for 1 DVD that I want to watch, I just crack open Media Center and away I go. I have copied most myself, but 2 or 3 just won't copy so I have to download.
Which brings me to Operating Systems. I have bought Vista and downloaded the same version because I don't want to go through the whole activation thing every time I reinstall or upgrade my hardware.

While we're on the subject, TV Shows are a pain here in the UK. We're catching up (24 is only 1 week behind the US this year), but damnit if I'm paying a subscription to a company to provide me with TV programmes why should I be forced to sit through 20 minutes of adverts for every 40 minutes of programme. From an hour of my life I have wasted 33% of it!

I liked someone's argument earlier in the thread about downloading being akin to a loan... I watch now and buy the DVD when it's available in 6 months or so.

There, I said it. Almost exactly what everyone else is saying. :p

Also, am I the only one to notice that the people crying about copyright infringement are the ones making all the complete and utter rubbish that nobody savvy enough to work a computer would buy anyway?

Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 5:25 pm

If I buy a product such as a DVD or CD and I choose to upload it and share it with the world, why is it wrong for you to download it? Since it belongs to me, why can I not give it away? Would it be wrong for me to walk up to you on the street and give you my purchased DVD? Of course not!

By the way, thank you all for giving me all the nice gifts, I really appreciate it...FXG and aXXo...you're the best!

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Posted: Tue Mar 24, 2009 7:38 pm

nojsirrom7 wrote:

If I buy a product such as a DVD or CD and I choose to upload it and share it with the world, why is it wrong for you to download it? Since it belongs to me, why can I not give it away? Would it be wrong for me to walk up to you on the street and give you my purchased DVD?

You have given the exact argument that contradicts your own misinterpretation. If you gave me your purchased DVD, you would no longer have it, I would. What you bought was the right to play it, not copy it. If you give the physical DVD to me, you are transferring that right to me and you can't play it any more. What you left out is that it is wrong for you to upload it in the first place. You did not buy that right when you bought your copy.

The folks who are trying to enforce their rights to digital content got the courts to agree that it was OK to prosecute the downloaders and not just the uploaders, kind of like busting johns and not just hookers. The concept is that you know it's illegal and receiving stolen property is a crime.

If you upload it, you are not giving it AWAY, you are distributing it to many people and you still have it. You are, in essence, going into the publishing business with content that you don't have a right to publish because you have no agreement with the creators of that content to publish it for them. That's what "intellectual property" is about. I won't get into publishers who rip off musicians, etc. That's not what this conversation is about. The courts have upheld the right to copy for personal use, to change formats, etc. But if you give me the DVD while you keep a copy for yourself, you are going past what you paid for.

If you go into a grocery story that has nuts or candy in bulk and you take a bag and you munch half the bag before you get to the checkout counter, it's stealing if you don't pay for what you ate. If you went back and refilled the bag before you checked out, it would make no difference. That's not the agreement on how it works. You might get away with it once or twice or dozens of times, but if everybody did it the store would have to take out the bulk bins.

The kicker, of course, is that it's so damn easy to make those copies. Your agreement when you buy it is that the copies stay with you. If you give them away, you are not giving away what you own, you are breaking the agreement that is part of what makes the whole system work.

Millions of people around the world are suffering from economic problems that were created by people who stretched the rules and did unethical and immoral things that were not strictly illegal. They got a short-term profit (the biggest transfer of wealth in the history of the world, from the middle class to the upper class) and caused the whole structure to fall apart. That's the risk of using the wrong metaphor to make ethical decisions.

I hope this helps,
Aristo

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:23 am

I go for E, but like most of us I'm probably a bit of everything. I have used torrents to put my LP collection on the PC and iPod, old TV shows, ... even down to lost music (remember those parties in the 70s..I don't !!). The other main reason is to timeshift TV...sometimes ahead of local broadcast.. but DVD recorders and station schedules are so hit and miss......

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:47 am

I am sure there must be a whole lot of people out there who don't live in the USA or the country that they are originally from.
Personally I live in China and am from the UK, bit torrent is my lifeline, literally, otherwise I would never get to relax and watch Battlestar, Lost, Southpark, LasVegas, The Westwing Etc etc and instead enjoy the propaganda news and the pop idol ripoffs, in Chinese, which are broadcast all over the networks here.
Even if I was in the UK I wouldn't want to wait the usually many months, until the shows air, then have to suffer through 20mins of ads for every 40mins of entertainment from a network provider that I am already paying through the nose for.

I use Bit torrent so that I can watch TV shows when its convenient for me and possible four eps at a time. Its a much better experience, get a much better feel for the story arch and character development, and as I am sure many are the same I hate waiting a week or more between EPs.

I am sure there are arguments against this, but popular TV shows will always get massive ad revenues regardless of downloaders, as the audiences will be there, the content already in the home.

SO I am mostly type ''F''.

Although when I first discovered file sharing, I was bad!!!
I blatantly ripped music until my hard drives creaked, with little intention of purchasing the CD. That said a good 90% of what I downloaded was music that I would never ever buy anyway, and really accounts for music that I would term as good, but not worthy of purchase.

Long live P2P.

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:51 am

4 me it is simple, nothing is free, everything has a cost, and every person has a price they r willing to pay 4 something.

Its like the story of the Indian who is selling 3 pots on the side of the road. A dude walks up & says “hey Indian guy, how much r each of these pots?” & he replies” well this one is $10, this one this $20, and tha last one is $30” the customer than says, “but Indian guy, all three of these pot look exactly tha same, why r they 3 different prices?” the Indian guy looks up at him & says “buddy some people wanna pay $10 for a pot, some want to pay $20 & some will pay $30 for a pot”

Me, (what I said in the thread about feeling guilty for using torrents) I look at it as art, just be happy people r enjoying your creation. This concept of “reward” pisses me off.

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 9:42 am

There is another category, which might just be squeezed-in to category E.

I pay a TV license in the UK and am entitled to record TV broadcasts for the purpose of time-shifting my viewing.

I prefer to use BT for this as it is easier than programming my TV DVD-recorder. I also prefer BT to the BBC and other TV companies own 'catch-up' web broadcasts as those are time-limited and DRMed to only run on certain players that I don't like.

Several cable TV providers in the UK record TV broadcasts and allow their users to watch them on-demand. I can't really see a difference between these companies and Isohunt and other trackers or meta-trackers.

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 1:52 pm

depends

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 2:05 pm

petru_tiriac wrote:

depends

what these?

Posted: Wed Mar 25, 2009 5:00 pm

I started off as B. The user who sampled music first. I own at least 400 CDs (yes that archaic plastic disk...lol) and a few dozen LPs.

I now use bittorrent for linux distros and other freeware applications as well as A.

I also use it to grab TV shows I missed for some reason or another.

And food for thought that someone probably already mentioned, but to the MPAA, how can you expect to raise ticket prices in a crappy economy and expect attendance to not drop? Same with the purchase-able formats...get with the times quit bitching because you're too slow to adapt.