Chris Pirillo » torrent

Software Piracy

Chris — Thu, 13 Mar 2008 06:50:58 +0000

Software Piracy is a post from Chris Pirillo

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Matt is a YouTube community member who watches us regularly. He recently sent me a very interesting email, asking about my thoughts on piracy, and how to put a stop to it. Piracy of music, software and movies is rampant these days, and there is just no one sure-fire way to put an end to it.

I had some questions about piracy issues on the Internet today. I watch your videos everyday on Youtube and find them very informative. I noticed that you haven’t done a video on anti-piracy. I was wondering about your thoughts on how software piracy or piracy in general should be stopped on the Internet. Is it the software developer’s responsibility to stop users from cracking their program? Or… is it the users’ responsibility to resist using the program without paying? How can piracy best be slowed down?
My personal thought on this is that piracy will never completely go away. Piracy can be slowed down, but not completely stopped. A lot of software piracy happens because users want to use a program but are unaware of the program’s ability. This motivates them to crack the software to try it for themselves. I think a demo of all commercial software today would help decrease software piracy. I’m sure there are many more motives as to why people crack commercial software. I’m not sure of what they are exactly, but I was wondering about your thoughts on this. Thanks.

Piracy is nothing to joke about. I’ve seen too many people admit that they pirate, and that they’re proud of it. That’s not fair… at all. It is SO much easier to approach a vendor and ask if they have a review or NFR (not for resale) copy. You can write up a review after receiving it. Bang! You have free software… legally. It’s simple. DON’T. PIRATE.
If you don’t want to pay for it, find freeware. Find Open-Source alternatives. Develop your own! In many cases, Open-Source or free software is better than the paid alternative. You’d be better serving the developers and yourself by taking a moral approach to this situation. If you can’t find a legal, free alternative or don’t want to spend the money, then the answer is simple. Don’t use the software!

POST UPDATE After this was posted, I received some excellent thoughts from “Terminator” in our chat room.

I watch your videos on YouTube a lot these days, and I just saw your video about piracy. I am against it in general, but its not the same as stealing a car (or a cup of coffe). Well it is the same, but not through the eyes of the consumers. The problem is that you get a choice. Will you buy this car… or will you take the other one, thats the same, for free. What would you do? I think this is the major problem of software piracy. If you would go to jail or have to pay a lot of money for stealing the software, then everything would be different. I think, or rather, I’m sure we dont need all that pirated software and free movies and all that. People download movies they dont even watch, just because they can. Before downloading was possible, you could still see all the movies on tv when they came out. When I go and buy a movie, people look at me and ask me why I didnt just downloaded it. We got pretty spoiled. We were all fine before that trend began. Of all the people I know in my neighborhood, maybe 95 % dont have even one original piece of software. As you said, there are tons of free programs that are very good and you can use them without spending a buck. If people started facing consequences, then everything would change overnight. Consequences are the key, but not an easy thing to make possible. If we would face them, we would suddenly realize, that we can survive without all that pirated stuff that we “really” needed the other day, and just get freeware versions.

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What is a Torrent? Is BitTorrent Legal?

Chris — Thu, 22 Nov 2007 05:27:28 +0000

What is a Torrent? Is BitTorrent Legal? is a post from Chris Pirillo

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MadMike wrote in to ask what exactly a Torrent file is, and whether or not they are legal. He also is wondering how you can tell if something IS illegal or not.

A Torrent file isn’t really a file to download, rather it’s a link pointing to where you can download a file from. Torrenting Torrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources. Instead, when data is distributed using the Torrent protocol, each recipient supplies pieces of the data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and burden on any given individual source, providing redundancy against system problems, and reducing dependence on the original distributor.

Now, let’s get into the legalities of Torrenting files. I personally use Torrents to download my Linux distros. By downloading them this way, I get them much faster. It saves the companies hosting dollars. Instead of having to supply hosting for the different distros, the developers can simply put them up on a Torrent, and share them that way. That is perfectly legal. Also, downloading different Virtual Machines for VMWare is legal.

The way you get into illegalities, is when you download something that is being distributed without owner permission. This covers most music, film and programs for a computer. There are exceptions to the rule, of course, such as with Indie music or films. They want their stuff circulated, to bring attention to it. For the most part, though, artists and companies do not agree for you to obtain their material without paying for it.

One other thing to remember is that any P2P type file sharing program can cause you to get malware on your computer. Many files that are available for download have attached viruses, trojans, spam, and the like. Simply downloading the seemingly harmless file and trying to “play” it in your favorite media player can quickly infect your machine.

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BitTorrent for Windows Media Center is Coming!

Chris — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 08:38:06 +0000

BitTorrent for Windows Media Center is Coming! is a post from Chris Pirillo

There’s no code to look at right now, but I’m surprised this news hasn’t been picked up anywhere (that I can see)? The author says that there’s currently no download available, but it’s still an amazing application to look forward to – especially if it beats Ted. Here’s some of the features the dev is planning, per the Aufero blog:

Aufero uses about fifty sources for its information gathering, a lot of it is irrelevant but over time it gathers more relevant information about present and future. For instance it definitely is worth scheduling the download of “Magnum P.I. ‘trailer’” (scheduled for release sometime in ‘07) already today.
Notification of relevant events through mail when you are not in front of your TV.
Automatic download of videos on your Wish List as Torrents becomes available (give it some hours to monitor activity after something is released)
Aufero is written completely from scratch with the sole purpose of being a Vista Media Center application.
Seemlessly play non-WMV (eg. XviD etc) on XBox360 using Aufero’s media library (requires TVersity)

Dude. This sounds awesome. Right now, my scheduled torrenting is somewhat of a kludge. I really should get my ol’ Media Center set up again, eh? Maybe I’ll try that beta of Windows Home Server and see if that works well enough…

BitTorrent Tips and Tricks

Chris — Sat, 05 Aug 2006 21:14:05 +0000

BitTorrent Tips and Tricks is a post from Chris Pirillo

It’s real easy to get started with BitchTorrent for your distribution needs. To begin, all you need is a feeder. The feeder takes and seeds files called bleeders. With the feeders soon seeding bleeders, you’ll find yourself flooded with needers needing bleeders finding feeders in the seed.

When your feeder seeds the seed, you need the needer needing needs on the feeds you can bleed while bleeding feeders what they call stackers. Now, stackers sit and sack the seed while bleeders knead the needers and the hackers pack the stackers in the needy feeder feeds. Slackers take the sacking stackers in the feeder bleeding seeds.

Then the tracker stacks the hacker needing feeder feeding feeds, while the bleeder seeds the seeds and the stacker tricks the tracker into bleeding needlessly. While the tracker stacks the stacker in the feeding bleeder deed, you can sick the needy knocker in the bleeder seeding feed.

It’s just that simple, folks.

MoveDigital is Moving Forward

Chris — Tue, 18 Jul 2006 19:08:48 +0000

MoveDigital is Moving Forward is a post from Chris Pirillo

You’ve probably seen the news – Senator Edwards is using BitTorrent to distribute video now! Like Dave says, it’s a big deal. I didn’t realize that Gary Lerhaupt had the Senator lined up when he emailed me about his new MoveDigital service last night. Not sure if the following points are available anywhere else, but… here are seven things you can do with MoveDigital (as relayed by Gary himself):

Sign in with your Prodigem account or create a new account (all Prodigem users get a free year of service).
Upload your files to be served as direct downloads.
Convert your video and audio to mobile phone format (3GP) so that they can be streamed directly from your MoveDigital mobile page.
Create torrents of all your stuff.
Use the rectangular Web widget (the rectangle to the left of each file you upload) to easily reblog your links. The HTML for the embed can be found from the Share button.
Once you you have your widget on your blog, people can click the Share button to directly add bandwidth into your account to help you out (each 5GB they add, adds 1 to their own account) – aka social bandwidth sharing.
Enjoy the fact that bandwidth on our service acts like prepaid cell phone minutes with unlimited rollover. That is, it doesn’t recycle at the end of the month and it only disappears when you use it. Moreover, for direct downloads we only charge you for bandwidth for files which are completely transferred. If someone stops half way through, no bandwidth is considered used (though torrent and mobile hosting are done per byte).

Cease and Desist

Chris — Wed, 14 Jun 2006 23:07:43 +0000

Cease and Desist is a post from Chris Pirillo

It seems that both Jake and I are now officially members of the prestigious “Cease and Desist Letter” club. We are not saddened by this turn of events, as it was wholly expected – and neither of us had ever received a “Cease and Desist Letter” before. We would much rather have received a printed form to print out and hang on our walls for posterity, but the email from Microsoft to remove the Windows Vista BitTorrent tracker will have to suffice. My question is: does the Windows User community care, either way? Should we have even bothered to do it in the first place?

Windows Vista BitTorrent Tracker

Chris — Sun, 11 Jun 2006 23:46:52 +0000

Windows Vista BitTorrent Tracker is a post from Chris Pirillo

Okay, we’ve done it: VistaTorrent.com. I’ve set this up with Jake Ludington, so that (a) people can use BitTorrent to download Windows Vista Beta 2, as they’re likely using BitTorrent to do it anyway; (b) people will now have an official MD5 hash to check against any Windows Vista (Beta 2) ISO files they might download elsewhere; (c) we can help Microsoft, based on earlier reports from them and subsequent complaints from users. We’re only doing this to help, knowing that nobody wants to wait 4 weeks for a DVD to arrive when the ISO could be downloaded so much quicker through peer-to-peer networks (with a MANDATORY MD5 CHECKSUM comparison). If you send anybody anywhere, it’s all on VistaTorrent.com. This is not a crack, this is not a hack, this is not software piracy – it’s unofficial mirroring with official validation.

We are fully prepared to kill the seeded torrent upon request, but would appeal to Microsoft’s better senses – if Microsoft isn’t going to do it themselves, isn’t it better that someone trusted is doing it for them?!

How to Handle Remote Tech Support

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 13 Jul 2009 06:30:00 GMT

Using GoToAssist is the easiest way to view and control another person's computer online. Use it to provide instant technical support to family, friends and customers. Start a session with just one click, and instantly connect with the other party.

Network Tools for Windows

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

You need these network tools, no matter which operating systems and networks you have to support. SolarWinds ipMonitor: Affordable Network Monitoring for SMBs. Get turnkey network, server and application availability monitoring with SolarWinds ipMonitor v9.0. This easy-to-use, reliable solution for SMBs delivers out-of-the-box availability monitoring so you always know exactly what's up with Active Directory, DNS, Exchange, FTP, Web, IMAP, MS SQL Server, and SMTP. Download your free trial today. Or, try their totally free tools! And, through 2/29, save 20% when you purchase ipMonitor 9.0.

Get Your Own Web Site

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

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VMware and Parallels for Virtual Machines

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Mon, 25 Feb 2008 06:30:00 GMT

It doesn't matter if you're running on Windows or Mac OS X - every power user needs either Parallels or VMware (or both). There's never been an easier way to test software without destroying your primary operating system's stability. Think of how many times you wish you could press a 'reverse' button on your computer. Plus, there's no easier way to try new Linux distributions - see what all the fuss is about. Run Windows in OS X, run Linux in Windows, but the best way to do either is with VMware and/or Parallels.

Coupons for Online Shopping

chris@lockergnome.com (Chris Pirillo) — Sat, 12 Jul 2008 07:56:13 GMT

This feed is fueled by Lockergnome Online Shopping and Coupon Codes

Before you shop next time, see if we have a coupon first.