A Question About Torrents

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I'm a regular user of them, and I'm just wondering, is it illegal if you download a torrent, don't bother to seed afterwards, and just keep it to yourself until you want to delete it.

For example:

I've just download the new Korn Album "Untitled" which is not due out for another couple of days. I didn't bother to seed it, added it to my iTunes Library, and am now listening to it on my iPod.

Would like feedback,

Thanks.

What's a torrent?

Tim

Its technically unlawful regardless if you seed or not. Seeding is just doing your part to help the next criminal get his copy. My rule of thumb is to seed slightly more bits than I download so I maintain good karma.

I think it's like this: When you buy a cd, cassette, eight-track , you were able to make a copy for your own use. Because it was impossible to track if you gave copies to friends, there was a surcharge added to the price of blank recoding material to compensate for bootlegging.

In the digital age, it's a little more complicated because bits, etc. are not physical properties. When you encode a song, there is no material product, only information, so the issue becomes not about material theft, but of theft of intellectual property (not just the music, but the code of the mp3, etc.). As it currently stands, if you copy music and share, you are not breaking laws against material theft, but violating COPYRIGHT laws, meaning that the original author or composer has exclusive rights to the copy and distribution of the material, and any sharing must have their consent.

You'll hear a lot of debate over this issue, the most cogent so far being that of Alvin Toffler (author of FUTURESHOCK, current book REVOLUTIONARY WEALTH), who makes the argument that information, unlike material goods, is not diminished when shared, and that it actually creates new wealth because other people can now expand on that knowledge (think open source software like Linux.) There's still the moral issue, such as, should a composer turn a blind eye if his music is sampled in a violent rap song that he disapproves of? That's getting a little beyond your initial question, but it's all related. There's a lot of debate legally on this, but current laws DO discourage filesharing, so keep that in mind.

You have probably uploaded part of the data, even if you do close on completion. (thats the beauty of the torrent system, and precisely why its gotten so popular)

As you live in the UK i wouldnt worry about it.

I usually seed only if the torrents from a private tracker which would penalise and/or ban me for keeping a poor ratio.

Otherwise i spontaneously develop a moral law-abiding nature upon completion, and close down immediately to stop any further criminality and protect the artists livlihood. Unless there is some compelling ethical reason to continue seeding - like spreading propaganda documentaries or something.

Thanks for letting me know.

and Tim here's an explanation of what a Torrent is:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

Any use of a product without the express permission of the originator... no matter if it's legal or not... is on shaky territory ethically.

Torrents aren't illegal, but getting pirated software through them is. If I wanted to download a linux distro from a torrent it's legal but getting music, software that costs money, videos, cracks, etc is not. Also, you don't have to seed, it doesn't matter, seeding just helps others get what you were downloading quicker.

Thanks for letting me know that too.

All I now know is, that it's only illegal if I sell what I downloaded in the market.

no. the moment you get software that your supposed to pay for onti your computer fro free its a crime.

Oh dear.

I downloaded FLStudio, and a couple of converters.

I can't tell you another software, as I'm paranoid with the theory that spies are on the internet too.

Well.. no, your not supposed to be getting things that cost money without paying for them in general. It doesn't matter if you sell them or not.