Torrents, Why?!?

[Madman123456]

There are quite a lot of ways to use torrents in a way that is morally alright. Well, at least in my Opinion. How would you distribute any large of data amongst a big crowd as fast as possible? Quite a lot of MMorpg companies seed their patches to torrents. If half the People who have a bit torrent client would download the patch there that would take a huge load off the download servers.

Also, you can download games. Like maybe old games which aren't on sale anymore. I downloaded "Word advanced military Commander" for the Saturn. Where would i get that if now via torrent?

Also, if there's a game i want to have from which i know it will mess around with my Computer and try to de install my daemon tools, i will buy that game and then download the same game i just bought with all the drm cut out.
Short detour: With bit torrent, i can understand why one would assume that its used for pirating mostly. I'm quite tired of the argument that any Software used to burn DVDs is used for pirating by everyone who owns that software.

So i'd buy a game and then download a version of that game which wouldn't uninstall my daemon tools or Nero.

 

[joshthor]

torrents as a technology is brilliant for any person or business that wants to distribute content to a wide variety of people while at the same time saving bandwidth. thats why many open source software uses it as a means of distribution. (not the only means though)

it also has the ability to save download time for users. for instance: if a file has a direct download or a torrent, and the servers are being overwhelmed, the direct download file might go slower than a torrent, which leaches off of current users bandwidth making it have the ability to go faster.

torrents get a bad rap because frankly, they ARE the bread and butter of the pirating community for the exact reasons mentioned above, as well as the fact its harder to track torrents than a dedicated server.

that being said: I do use torrents. I perfer them to downloads for alot of the software i use if i trust the source.

however, i NEVER use them to pirate games (as a computer science student and a 3d animation student the sheer ridiculousness of the amount of work put in games it makes me sick that people pirate them) i have however used them to pirate music, and i use them constantly to download tv shows (i consider tv shows a morally grey area. i miss the ads, but they are available free of charge. i dont have time to watch them at their air time because of school and work + i tend to buy the box set when they come out) i dont use them to pirate movies - mainly because i work at a video store and i get them ridiculously cheap.

 

[Blaster395]

Why can't you just go out and buy the damn thing with money, it helps the artist/develper ect contine what they do so why deprive them of the income that they deserve?

Because where the hell am I going to get a copy of an 11 year-old game that's been out-of-print for over half that time, was never released outside Japan, and is only available in the form of one used copy costing over $300?

Thats called abandonware.

 

[The Unworthy Gentleman]

Torrents are bad mmmkay.

Yeah, advocating piracy on this site is against the rules. This thread is more likely to just start flame wars than anything else.

 

[David Bray]

I use torrents to download games that don't have a demo. I play 1 hour of the game and if i like it i buy it, if i don't, i delete it. In the PC market where no amount of recommended specs or Can I Run It can truly asses whether you can play a game, I need a demo. If they don't provide it, i download it.
But i never keep them after one hour. That is immoral.

 

[gl1koz3]

You probably don't realize some auto-updaters/downloaders/etc use torrents, too. It's just a way of distributing large chunks of information.

 

[templargunman]

I personally have no excuse to torrent games, but I have friends who literally cannot afford games, especially new ones. I have a friend who buys about one game a year because he can't afford not to. People who don't understand why people torrent don't understand the value of money. Let me explain it in terms of economics: My utility for a game has to be above the 50 dollar price. If my utility is lower than that, I have no reason to buy it, as I will get less than 50 dollars of value. Now lets say I can get the game for free, as long as my utility is above the cost of the time it takes to torrent the game I logically should do it. My problem with torrenting is that people start torrenting games that are worth more to them in utility than they cost. People need to understand that I'm not going to buy 6 copies of a game so my friends can play it with me at a lan, I'm not even going to buy one, figuring most games I bring out at lans last around 10 minutes. I buy the big titles, I just preordered dragon age II, and next week I'll probably preorder shogun II, but I torrent things like Titan Quest or Oblivion (which I own 3 legal copies of, so I have every right to torrent that shit). Other people can only afford one game a year, that friend I mentioned will buy shogun II, and torrent something like Dragon age II, as it doesn't have multiplayer. As long as people don't torrent everything they get on the computers, and have some line they have drawn between worth the money and only worth torrenting, I don't mind people doing it.

 

[Gigano]

Why can't you just go out and buy the damn thing with money, it helps the artist/develper ect contine what they do so why deprive them of the income that they deserve?

Because where the hell am I going to get a copy of an 11 year-old game that's been out-of-print for over half that time, was never released outside Japan, and is only available in the form of one used copy costing over $300?

A fair sentiment I should think.

If a digital product have no position on the market - and in fact here never even had one in the first place - the purpose of copyright laws, to ensure a reasonable rate of return from the markets released on, is utterly moot.

No one is harmed in the scenario above (no one ever sought or expected payment from that market in the first place), and thus copyright law extends further than it should there.

 

[Devil919]

Ok ok i may of just been a bit pi**ed off when i created this post, and yeah maybe some are ok if you can't buy the game/music anymore. The main reason i posted this is for the people who torrent new or not even realeased games/music just so they don't have to pay. So i apologies if my facts where not 100% valid.

 

[VaudevillianVeteran]

My father actively uses torrents to get access to American shows that won't broadcast over here in England. He mainly does this so he has something to watch when he can't sleep. He does preach to me about them, but I don't think I could get into it. *Shrug*

 

[LittleJP]

Most of everything has been said already, so I'll just check my two cents in.

I mostly use torrents for mod downloads. Getting a 1 gig file from a torrent is heck of a lot easier than getting it from an overloaded server.

 

[Phishfood]

Pirating = bad
Bittorrent = tool

Yeah, so addressing what you probably meant as in "why do people pirate?" its because people want something for free. I am not immune, I used to pirate a lot back when I was a penniless student. It was a simple problem: I had no money, lots of free time and fast internet. I couldn't afford to buy things and would have gone insane without free entertainment. Thing is, since I graduated and got a job I have more money and less free time, resulting in me buying legit copies of a lot of what I pirated. Especially now most of it is budget range.

Every time this discussion surfaces (about fortnightly ) I have trouble drawing the line. In my mind, buying 1,000 games and pirating 1 is ok. Pirating 1,000 games and buying 1 is wrong. So I have a line somewhere, I just can't definitively place it. Reasons DO matter. Its not a lost sale to pirate a game you can't afford to buy in the first place. Therefore, no harm done I say. On the other hand pirating a game so you can afford more beer is taking money from game developers and giving it to brewers. Both deserve your money, sure, but stealing one thing to buy another is wrong. See, now I can't even get my thoughts out straight. Such a complicated issue its hard to just say "yes this is right and this is wrong"

 

[Antari]

My father actively uses torrents to get access to American shows that won't broadcast over here in England. He mainly does this so he has something to watch when he can't sleep. He does preach to me about them, but I don't think I could get into it. *Shrug*

I pretty much do this in reverse. I am a big Top Gear fan, but don't have any BBC channels where I am. Torrents are the only way I can see Top Gear, and until recently Doctor Who. And no I'm not about to pay $3200/round trip to go there to see it, don't be stupid!

 

[subfield]

Morality?

Oh I get it - you must be joking.

 

[Hashime]

First off i would like to say that i hate torrents, they are immoral and illegal. But more and more people use them, but why? So many of my friends use them and it just f**ks me off big time; espically when they try and get me to use them as well. Why can't you just go out and buy the damn thing with money, it helps the artist/develper ect contine what they do so why deprive them of the income that they deserve?

So fellow escapists, do you use torrents? if so why do you use them?

Well, the crysis 2 demo is 1.6Gb. I used a torrent version to download it as a file that large takes a long time to get from one source. I do the same for many large files like Linux distributions, TED talks (there is a built in downloader) and many large mods for games.

P2P is a perfectly legal distribution means and is not at all bad.