[Infowarrior] - The RIAA's Dream Turns to Nightmare

[Richard Forno]

The RIAA's Dream Turns to Nightmare -- Inside The Pirate Bay's Torrent Purge
Jason Mick (Blog) - February 14, 2012 12:47 PM

http://www.dailytech.com/The+RIAAs+Dream+Turns+to+Nightmare++Inside+The+Pirate+Bays+Torrent+Purge/article24005.htm
 
No more torrents will help more content to be shared, render "copyright watchdogs" more toothless

The Pirate Bay has long been synonymous with one thing -- torrents.  The world's largest torrent site has had more than its fair share of legal headaches [1][2][3] over the years for promoting the ubiquitous file-sharing mechanism.  Consequentially on Feb. 29 in will be taking what on the surface appears to be a mind-blowing move -- deleting all torrents hosted directly on the site, which are being actively shared by more than 10 individuals.

But in reality this move is not as mind-blowing and drastic a departure from the site's operational model as some are thinking/hoping/fearing.

The site will continue to host the content, where possible, via magnet links.  All new content will be hosted via magnetic links.

The new approach is a "step forward in technology", according to the site's admins.  And it's the worst nightmare of the Recording Industry Association of America and Motion Picture Association of America.  

The Pirate Bay can now be compressed to a 90 MB torrent-free site, for easy hosting.  Under the new scheme scores of new users will be able to host free proxy servers for The Pirate Bay, helping it escape takedown attempts, local firewalls, or ISP restrictions.

At the same time The Pirate Bay washes its hands of any of the actual process of file-sharing.  It is simply hosting magnet links -- links to torrents which share the same unique hash value.  In that regard, thousands, if not millions of users will be privately hosting the scores of torrents that make up The Pirate Bay users worldwide know and love.

And it will be far harder for lawyers and regulators to pin wrongdoing on The Pirate Bay -- assuming that the members of the international judicial committee understand how the technology works and are willing to give a fair trial, at least.  In short, magnet links are the future of filesharing and The Pirate Bay's decision to force their adoption is a sound one in terms of its future.

Magnet links represent the supreme ultimatum to media organizations (many of which themselves engage in active for-profit piracy that steals hundreds of millions of dollars from independent artists annually):   "Develop fair, reasonably priced, accessible content distribution and create content that users think is actually worth paying for, or you can and will be pirated."

In essence it will be impossible for the RIAA or MPAA to put millions of Americans in prison or fine them.  So ultimately, magnet links and other new technologies may force the RIAA, MPAA, and government to abandon traditional enforcement of file-sharing.  Thus the groups' long-standing dream of taking down The Pirate Bay's torrents has just become their worst nightmare. 

It should be interesting how the self-proclaimed "anti-piracy" advocates by day, for-profit pirates by night globally react to this new technological marvel.


---
Just because i'm near the punchbowl doesn't mean I'm also drinking from it.