Bittorrent

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"BitTorrent is a free speech tool that gives you the freedom to publish material previously enjoyed only by a few selective with unique equipment and lots of money."-- Journalist A.J. Liebling.



=What Is It?=

BitTorrent is a free software product that provides a solution to the inefficiency of file sharing. If one wants to put up a large music or video file, software, or a game that others may want to have, a barrier of high bandwidth cost is usually placed on the distributor of files that incur high popularity. If your webhosted file becomes phenomenally successful and hundreds or thousands try to get it at once, your servers could crash, and you could be liable for thousands of dollars in bandwidth fees.

BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file. However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers. The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth. The key philosophy of BitTorrent is that users should upload (transmit outbound) at the same time they are downloading (receiving inbound.) In this manner, network bandwidth is utilized as efficiently as possible. BitTorrent is designed to work better as the number of people interested in a certain file increases, in contrast to other file transfer protocols.

Cooperation = Distribution
The main key to the success of healthy distribution is cooperation. Those that provide the most to others get the best treatment in return. Cooperative distribution has unlimited ability for growth because each new participant brings not only demand but also supply. And because each new participant brings new resources to the distribution, you get limitless scalability for a nearly fixed cost.

BitTorrent is not just a concept; it has been implimented in an easy-to-use package capable of swarming downloads across millions of users over hundreds of unreliable networks. BitTorrent has been embraced by numerous publishers to distribute their software to millions of users.

Some BitTorrent providers include [|BitTorrent] and [|TorrentSpy]

. == Programs through which one can access the BitTorrent network are:
 * [|uTorrent]
 * [|Azureus]
 * [|ABC]
 * [|BitTornado]
 * [|BitComet]

=Issues Regarding Copyrights=

A very frequent use of BitTorrent has been the illegal downloading of copyrighted music, games, applications, and motion pictures. BitTorrent has the potential to become a center of controversy regarding the swapping of this data. Just as Napster had faced its ordeal with regard to music artists, BitTorrent may also find itself in a war with the industry giants. Because of the way BitTorrent is structured, without any centralized servers, it is difficult for coorporations to target the millions of users. Their main mode of attack has been to eliminate or subdue those who //upload// files to the network on large scales. Because of the large number of people who mainly use BitTorrent networks for //downloading//, most are realatively safe from being prosecuted for copyright infringement. BitTorrent is also on the other side of the trademark laws, trying to keep its trademark name from being used on sub-par programs.

=Works Cited=

BitTorrent Introduction. Feb 25. 2006  Image: http://www.bittorrent.com/images/bittorrent_logo.gif