[mythtv] RE: [ANNOUNCE] torrentocracy = rss + bit torrent + myth

[Joseph A. Caputo]

On Wednesday 23 June 2004 05:39, Tako Schotanus wrote:
> J. Donavan Stanley wrote:
> > Gary Lerhaupt wrote:
> >> On Tue, 2004-06-22 at 17:23, J. Donavan Stanley wrote:
> >>> Most of the developers, and Isaac for sure, want as much distance
> >>> between Myth and this tool.
> >>
> >> All I can do is to continue to develop on my own (and any who wish
> >> to help) in order to prove to you that Torrentocracy will not
> >> enable/promote/encourage the illegal trading of media.  There is a
> >> larger picture here and its called the public domain.  Perhaps if
> >> you reconsider the value of this in the future, you'll reconsider
> >> your distance.
> >
> > The problem is that while you or I might use such a tool for public
> > domain and other legal content the vast majority will not.
> > Tottentocracy, and by extension myth, will be "that thing you can
> > run on your TV and steal TV shows" in the eyes of the masses. 
> > We'll attract new users for no reason other than the lure of
> > sharing HDTV content.   So no I don't think the distance will be
> > reconsidered, considering that people are already talking about
> > sharing HDTV content there's not enough public domain stuff out
> > there that I need BT on my TV.
>
> Real life example: my father would LOVE a Myth box. But he only wants
> MythMusic. Why? Because it's so easy to use: you just pop in a CD,
> you let it rip to harddisk and you never have to search anymore for
> the CD trying to read the small letters on the side (my father is not
> very organized so needs to read the titles to find his CDs).
>
> Now this in itself is already illegal in some countries, but there's
> more.
>
> He can already imagine friends or family coming over with CDs he
> likes and he could just make a copy. Fortunately for him this is
> perfectly legal here (although those laws were obviously not made for
> the digital age we now live in) but in a lot of countries this is
> quite illegal.
>
> So I'm afraid Myth already has the name of enabling illegal
> activities ;-)
>
> About sharing: am I wrong in my understanding that the Bittorrent
> module has no way of publizicing the content? I know that when you
> start downloading something you automatically participate in the
> distribution but will the module also export any recordings you have
> made yourself?

I think you're right.  The problem is that as soon as anyone hears the 
term "P2P", they freak out.  BitTorrent is a method of using P2P for 
network-optimal distribution of data, but unlike KaZaa or other P2P 
file-sharing networks, it does not facilitate public sharing of that 
content.  The 'advertising' of available content must still be done in 
more mundane ways (i.e., post it in some public forum like a web site 
or ML).  In terms of architecture, yes, BT is P2P, but in terms of 
usefulness, BT is more often seen as a successor to FTP than anything 
else.  Would anyone be complaining about piracy if someone built an FTP 
client (or even server) capability into Myth?

-JAC