BirTorrent: issues of Piracy

(Source: Techweekeurope)

        Nowadays, as technology getting advanced, we people is able to get information/files that we needed through the internet easily. This included books, magazine, movies, music, games and so on. However, also due to the technology, piracy and illegal file sharing issues is becoming more serious today.

        BitTorrent enable users to downloading large and high qualify files faster through its computer program. The more people download the particular file, the faster it will be. (BitTorrent, 2013) Due to its nature, BitTorrent has quickly become a platform for people to practice piracy and illegal downloading. Music, movie, dramas file have been share by people illegally all over the world. On the other hand, since BitTorrent do not intended to have things like that to happen, it started to find a solution to solve it. BitTorrent change their search engines that make legal files have higher priorities and collaborated with other company to deliver legally FOC files.  (Holpuch, 2013)

        Ever wonder why people want to share file to internet for others to obtain? It could be sharing things with other is part of our nature just like we like to share our life/story with others. A research based on piracy files sharing indicated that 32% of users enjoy sharing files with other people. (Karagains and Renkema, 2011) Although I think sharing is good since it bring happiness. But there is still a boundary between reasonable and unreasonable. Reasonable behavior in file sharing is only sharing among family members; while making a file to be accessible by large amount of people (online file sharing) can be perceived as unreasonable behavior.

        I believe that unethical users are the root of the problem of piracy and illegal file sharing. BitTorrent case shows how people abuse a useful website into a global illegal file sharing websites. What are the reasons make people to download these illegal files? Based on research, regarding movie/drama files, 42% indicated that they downloading illegal file to skip commercial on TV. Other reasons are legal versions is expensive and illegal version is more accessible and easy to obtain. (Karagains and Renkema, 2011)

       Glad that BiTorrent found its ways to solve its problem. People outside are struggling to solve the problem as piracy issues harm music, software and movie industry so badly. What I think is most important is to educate people what behavior is perceived ethical and reasonable and what is not.

References:

1. BitTorrent, 2013, Beginner’s guide. [online] Available at: < http://www.bittorrent.com/help/guides/beginners-guide> [Accessed 11 June 2013]

2. Holpuch, A, 2013, BitTorrent goes straight in effort to end association with piracy. [online] Available at: < http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/mar/13/bittorrent-goes-straight-piracy-illegal-downloads> [Accessed 11 June 2013]

3. Karaganis, J and Renkema, L, 2011, copy culture in the US and Germany. [online] Available at: < http://piracy.americanassembly.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/Copy-Culture.pdf>  [Accessed 11 June 2013]