BitTorrent and Peer-to-Peer File Sharing are not Illegal
Usually when we hear about BitTorrent or peer-to-peer file sharing, it’s in the context of ‘pirated’ software or ‘illegal’ music sharing. They’re not the same, they shouldn’t be confused and I’ll explain why.
(A series of men’s restrooms? Nope, Peer-to-Peer.)
What is BitTorrent used for? BitTorrent is used to share large files. Researchers at universities use it to share data. Media make programming available through BitTorrent ( for example, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and the Norwegian Broadcasting Corporation), Amazon offers users BitTorrent capabilities in their online file storage service, the content for World of Warcraft is distributed through BitTorrent. It’s being used everywhere for ‘legitimate’ purposes.
Let’s talk about what constitutes a ‘legitimate’ use of the network on computers in a university environment. What’s obviously ‘legitimate’? – email, blogging, building web sites? But spam is email and it’s not considered an acceptable activity. A blog full of stolen credit card numbers is blogging, but it would be considered a crime. And what about a web site that incites violence?
It’s easy to see that activity on the internet is not identical to the technology used to perform the activity. The technology is a tool. Email is a tool. BitTorrent is also a tool. In reality, I think it’s more complex than that – but for now, let’s think of them as simply tools and without any moral value attached.
(How will you use your tool?)
Research by ipoque has shown that BitTorrent is the dominant protocol on the internet. That means it’s used more than http, the protocol used to serve and access web pages. To put it another way, BitTorrent is used more widely than web sites. That’s a popular tool!
Yes, BitTorrent can also be used to share a copyrighted music or video file without the permission of the copyright owner, but so can email, ftp and http and CDs and DVDs and hard drives. With Gmail’s allowed attachment sizes, for example, you can send entire albums of music in one email. But where is the effort to ban or stop email?
(This is not a crime.)
The RIAA has mounted a massive campaign against BitTorrent users – prosecuting them for sharing music. But this isn’t a new activity. When I was a kid we would copy albums onto cassette tapes and give them to our friends – this was never called ‘a crime.’ But now that the recording industry’s mode of operating is no longer profitable, they’re trying to criminalizing sharing. They ought be spending that time re-evaluating their mode of operating, but that’s another post.
Even if they succeed and even if it is ‘illegal’ to ’share music’ – BitTorrent (and other peer-to-peer sharing protocols) is and should remain a legal, usable, and useful protocol for sharing large files. As Manuel Castells said in the M. Nathan W. Levin Lecture at the New School in 2007 “The hackers built the network and they built it open.”
So, if you’re told that you can’t run file sharing software or BitTorrent isn’t allowed – ask why. Ask why they don’t want you to engage in a legal file sharing practice.
(Well, not these hackers…)
Want to give it a try and download something?
First, you need an application, you can read about some options here:
http://torrentfreak.com/mac-bt-clients/
And here are some free sites for legal torrents:
http://www.publicdomaintorrents.com/
6 responses so far
Michael
Elizabeth Housley
Of course bittorrent or other P2P networks / protocols should not be illegal. That would be like saying freeways should be illegal because stolen cars can be driven on them.
However, I think it’s disingenuous to pretend like they’re analogous to mix tapes or any other copying mechanism. P2P / torrent networks (starting with Napster & the like) simply drive up the volume of sharing because the quality is digital (read: perfect copies) and the sharing is done virtually anonymously, and virtually for free. Just because the black market is easy to get to and use doesn’t mean it’s not a black market.
Also, the notion that torrents are more “popular” than web browsing is based on sheer network volume – of course sharing movie files will result in greater bandwidth than comparably svelte web pages. In point of fact it provides a good reason why network neutrality is a bad idea, since the number of people using torrent networks for “large volume” transactions are ultimately smaller than those who want the convenience of a faster www.
The volume of sharing doesn’t make it less moral. If it’s OK to share a mixed tape, it’s OK to use technology to share that tape with 1,000 people. This openness is exactly how the network affords powerful means for resisting institutional power, creating new community and removing boundaries, borders, walls, etc. The model of proprietary data is outdated and can’t survive, they’re grasping to save it and they won’t be able to.
It can only be called ‘a black market’ because the RIAA and other lobbying organizations have been successful at framing the exchange of data that way. It’s complete hypocrisy. Those same companies and lobbying groups use material that is in the public domain every day and profit from it, while at the same time they fight to prevent data they have exclusive licenses on from going into the public domain. It’s analogous to the pharmaceutical companies who delay the creation of a generic drug even though it could save lives. Profit motive prevents the media companies from claiming ANY higher ground in this debate.
There are already limits on bandwidth use and people who use the largest volume of traffic online already pay more for it. Net neutrality would protect access to the internet, maintain the freedoms we have now online and prevent further corporate domination of the internet. Any argument claiming net neutrality would restrict any personal access to the network is propaganda straight from the talking points of AT&T.
(And freeways should be illegal, but not because stolen cars can be driven on them – because any travel at that distance should be done on a train.)
From: http://www.citmedialaw.org/blog/2009/think-twice-before-you-dust-those-mix-tapes
“The Copyright Act gives the author of a sound recording (say, a recording artist) exclusive rights to make reproductions, prepare derivative works, distribute copies to the public, and to perform the copyrighted work publicly by means of a digital audio transmission. 17 U.S.C. § 114. Making a mix tape may implicate several of these exclusive rights. Putting the mix tape on your website for download would be distribution of the work to the public. A visitor to your blog downloading the file would be another instance of copyright infringement.”
But otherwise, yes, the BitTorrent protocol isn’t illegal.
Still prohibited on most company networks.
Yes, one of the things I’m taking issue with is the idea of prohibiting a protocol. Of course corporations can police their users in different ways than universities or public institutions. But users should have a protected right to protocol freedoms.
I agree that we need to protect technical innovation and the freedom to tinker … maybe the only thing I really disagree with is the phrase “protected right to protocol freedoms.”
OMG — I’ve turned Libertarian!?
And didn’t we loose that battle with Code Red, NAT, firewalls and the growing habit to push everything over port 80? I remember when the cable modem activity light would actually stop if your computer wasn’t causing network traffic.
OMG — I’m an OLD Libertarian! (Made of STRAW!!)
Okay, um, so, to improve the argument — point out where Big Media is actually attacking the protocols themselves. Point out why this is unhelpful. Never mention music. In other words, talk hemp, not THC.
As a proud member of MAPS I always talk THC, it’s much more useful than Hemp.