By Jonathan Mathias
Like Kazaa and Napster before it, BitTorrent, the brilliantly efficient file sharing protocol, is the latest peer-to-peer technology to be denounced as a threat to the future of society as we know it.
Placing vast amounts of music, movies, games and software a few clicks away, 'torrent' sites don't actually host content, they merely facilitate its exchange – a small file is downloaded which contains information on how a given movie or album should be broken up and reassembled when sent between other users – this has so far enabled the torrent sites to avoid prosecution.
By its very nature, this technology facilitates the fast exchange of files without the overheads of needing huge storage space and bandwidth – so for instance, artists and copyright holders could register their material with a legitimate, private tracker site which could then charge users for access to the torrent file.
We constantly hear execs, studios and labels whining that file sharing is killing the industry, yet instead of openly advocating a proactive approach to solving the problem, the plutocrats seem to think that if they have a loud enough and long enough tantrum, they’ll be able to continue dictating how content is made available – thus artificially extending the lifespan of existing distribution channels.
However, the growing success and popularity of mixed pay and free download services such as 4OD and iTunes shows that, high quality, safe and fairly priced material is a better option than ‘free’, but unreliable and often illegal file sharing alternatives.
With more and more download services from the film, music and software industries becoming available, it’s clear that technology and consumers are already changing an out-dated business model. I fear we'll hear a lot more whinging though from the fat cats before the file sharing debate is finally won.
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