BitTorrent, at its most basic definition, is a way to share files over a computer network. It is in an improvement on the direct peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing programs like Kazaa and LimeWire. These programs, enormously popular in the early ‘00s, downloaded complete files linearly from one computer to another and were great ways for people to share MP3 files, software, and maybe the occasional movie or two. Transfer rates of 50~60kbps were the norm (above 90 was excellent), and the biggest recommended file size was about 800-900MB. Most of this content was, and still is, copyrighted, making this sharing largely illegal.
BitTorrent, on the other hand, is a system that allows for files in the multi-gigabyte (1000+ MB) range to be downloaded at speeds of over 900kbps. This is accomplished through the use of a BitTorrent program, or client, and small “.torrent” files.
When a person wishes to share a file via BitTorrent, they create a .torrent file which contains data about the file that they wish to share (a target file). All the .torrent file does is take a picture of the data in the target file, break that picture into a bunch of pieces (like a jigsaw puzzle), and note the location on the target file on the user’s computer. The user then uploads the torrent file to a tracker website - a place like The Pirate Bay or MiniNova - where other users can then search for the torrent file on a tracker site and download it to their computer. Once they open the torrent file using a BitTorrent client (popular ones include uTorrent and Azureus), the client locates the target file on the original owner’s computer and starts to copy it onto the new computer. Where BitTorrent really shines is when you have a whole bunch of people download the same torrent file and start sharing the same target file.
Remember that the tracker file broke the file into jigsaw pieces? BitTorrent is so efficient because it doesn’t pull a file linearly from one computer to the other - it takes whatever pieces area available as soon as they become available. At first it might have a few corner pieces of a file, then a few edge pieces, and then, bit by bit, it completes the whole puzzle. Well, when there are a whole bunch of people downloading the same file, those pieces start flying in! The client sends requests for piece after to pieces to all the other people sharing the file, and the more people are sharing, the more likely the pieces are available, and the faster the complete file will download and assemble. Where there was a before a blank table, now there is a completed puzzle.
Unlike a puzzle, however, the number of pieces, or, in this case, the size of the file, doesn’t affect how fast the file downloads. What matters is only how many people are making their puzzle available, or seeding. The “health” of a torrent file, that is, how fast it is likely to download, is based on how many seeders (providers) it has versus how many “leechers” (coveters) it has.
In this way, people who torrent form a community. Everyone wants a file to download quickly, but the only way to achieve that is for the file to have a lot of seeders. Thus there is a lot or reciprocity, and it is considered good torrent etiquette to seed many times the amount that you leech. After all, nobody likes leechers who download the file and then close the client program - they aren’t giving back to the community that provides for them.
So we know that torrenting allows a very large amount of data (often copyrighted music, movies, and software) to move freely throughout the Internet, but how can the technology be used legally for something beneficial? I’ll give two examples.
Traditionally if someone, a music artist for example, wanted to give something away for free, they would have to host it on their website. Fans would visit the site and download the music for free, and everyone would be happy - except the hosting site. Since the music (say, 50MB worth) was hosted on the website itself, the sites bandwidth would be used every time a person downloaded the music. The bigger the music file and the more people downloaded it, the bigger the strain on the site would be. Not so with a torrent file. Trent Reznor of the band Nine Inch Nails recently collaborated with rockers Jane’s Addiction to release a sampler collection of six tracks called NINJA. The music in the torrent file that I downloaded (at 1340MB/s!) was 162MB large. If that had been hosted on a website, a lowly 10,000 hits would’ve resulted in 1,620,000MB, or 1620GB, of data that had to be transferred. Someone would’ve had to pay for that usage. But by releasing the music as a torrent file, Reznor effectively distributed his music for almost zero dollars.
OpenOffice.Org releases their OpenOffice productivity suite the same way. This collection of tools, including a word processor, spreadsheet program, and presentation software, also tips the scales at about 162MB. OpenOffice keeps their costs down by releasing it as a torrent as well.
Clearly BitTorrent has its advantages for sharing both copyrighted and non-copyrighted material. How the users use it is, or course, not something the creators have control over. As the illegal aspect of it makes the news, more and more people will become aware of it and start to use it. Since it has legal uses, the protocol itself cannot be deemed illegal. What we now have is a powerful tool for information dissemination that cannot be ignored. Rather we have to find more ways to use it constructively and, as a society, perhaps re-think our laws of copyright.
_DZ
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