an image of an eye glowing green...

0wn yourself

2007-02-28

in all the wrong ways...

you might have heard that bittorrent dot com has announced a new modus operandi--they've partnered with major media corporations to transform into a 'new' legitimate channel for distributing media for money.

there are two problems which spring immediately to mind with this scenario. one--with the bittorrent protocol you need to have a good upstream going where you share the pieces of the object being downloaded that you already have with the other people downloading that object (so everybody shares with everybody, all at once--that's how download swarms work), which adds to your bandwidth usage. and two--the effing industry powerhouses are still the ones getting in there and setting the prices and restrictions (and other unnecessary middleman-type behavior).

nobody (well, almost nobody) has a problem with paying the artists they want to support, but who wants to support these tycoons who've had the industry cornered and divided for longer than any of us can prolly remember? i don't.

i think that at one point in time these middlemen (a comparison i'm fond of) were a necessity. you really couldn't get out and touch the whole world unless you had some help. please bear in mind that this in no way excuses some of the practices which evolved in these industries, but this is another matter, i s'pose.

the bittorrent protocol allows for user moderation in a sense. it's self-feeding (almost like a turbo). when a file becomes more popular (and more people are downloading it) then it becomes much easier for everybody to find other users to swap packets with ('cause everybody's downloading the same things) and start getting all the pieces they need ('cause everybody's downloading the same bleeding things).

media of small or infrequent interest is prolly better off with more traditional (http/https/ftp/etc) protocols, but in pretty much any situation where multiple people are going after the same file(s), bittorrent is the modern-day supreme protocol for the job. there's just nothing better (yet, anyhow). makes the most efficient use of bandwidth, runs hashes for verification, supports resumes, etc. and the more people going after it, the better the whole system will work for everybody.

but the question still begs--if this magic protocol is running the show, these aggregator sites for torrents are creating the jumping off point (with search capabilities), the artists are making the media, and it's our (the consumers') bandwidth that's making this a reality, then what do we still need the likes of mtv and paramount for?

there're about six billion creative and vibrant people out there with ideas of their own, many of which have something to say (a few of which are saying it) and the internet brings us all together. what are you going to do now?

--cid

0wn the media distribution channels

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