Posted by RichA on 04/22/06 23:01

Not likely. Those greedy bastards have had a monopoly in their
respective genres
ever since time began. But maybe reality is catching up with them?
Maybe they'll just do to every bit torrentor what they did with Bram
Cohen, theaten to send
him to jail (the entertainment media has good lawyers, no surprize
there) unless he sold
out to them. What is pathetic is the plastic sabre-rattling of the
entertainment cabal
and the U.S. government, approaching China with hollow threats while at
the same time
BEGGING China to open up it's markets. It didn't work with Japan, and
it won't work
with China. Truly sad.
-Rich

BitTorrent gaining more acceptance

In the world of the Internet, a new idea can be either an asset or a
threat. It depends on your perspective. BitTorrent, the popular
peer-to-peer file sharing technology, poses exactly this conundrum to
Internet service providers and entertainment firms alike.

The technology, which allows computer users to easily share and
distribute files without occupying much of their Internet connection
bandwidth, is also responsible for almost one-third of the Internet's
traffic flow, according to recent estimates.

Conversely, it's this feature that makes the technology perfect for
content distribution, especially in an era when file sizes have become
much larger. Video files, having become extremely popular due to
increased quality and more widespread prevalence of broadband
technologies, can be easily shared without bogging down a single
computer, as seen in a traditional Internet server model.

Similar to standard peer to peer sharing programs, BitTorrent allows
users to search through trackers to see which files are available on
the shared spaces of other computers, and then download them to your
shared space. Where the technology becomes different is in the idea of
contributed bandwidth.

Once a file has been downloaded, the BitTorrent program shares it out
to other users working to download the file by contributing a small
part of the computer's bandwidth to help others download the file. A
larger number of users downloading the same file will allow for faster
speeds given that each user contributes part of their bandwidth to the
overall distribution effort.

Despite sharing both legal and illegal files over current Internet
connections, BitTorrent has been eyed as an ideal distribution model
for the entertainment industry. Peter Jackson's "King Kong," recently
released to DVD, has also been offered as a legal online download in
the United Kingdom. Other studios have looked into online downloads as
a means of increasing retail sales. Once downloaded, digital versions
of a movie can be copied to a restricted number of computers depending
on the rules of the file's DRM (digital rights management) protocol.

"I think peer-to-peer technologies are starting to become more
accepted," said Tim Bajarin, an analyst for Creative Strategies. "Video
is a very important part of the Internet and with Internet
distribution, they're definitely on the right path. The important
factor is to get the content out there, which helps to curb piracy."

Although BitTorrent and online video content distribution may be en
route to more widespread acceptance, the data traffic it generates
still needs to be managed. In light of the increased network traffic,
network managers have had to craft new ways to control, or "shape", the
data flow running through their systems. For this task, specially
designed software can be programmed to identify the characteristics of
outgoing data, which can be grouped into segments called "buckets."

Each bucket, once created, is assigned a priority. The software manages
each bucket per the network manager's instructions. Specific data can
then be restricted so the network devotes only a certain amount of its
bandwidth to each bucket, according to Laura Bowser, a security
engineer.

For the home user, popular BitTorrent clients can be controlled via the
application's preferences. Simple adjustments such as capping the
amount uploaded to a certain percentage of the computer's available
bandwidth can make all the difference as well as decrease the amount
BitTorrent of data an Internet service provider has to manage on their
end.

Once considered the nemesis of the entertainment industry, peer-to-peer
file sharing has come a long way since the infamous days of Napster.
Now a bona fide content distribution tool, BitTorrent can help push
large files across the Internet through a shared effort.

Copyright 2006 by United Press International

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