BitTorrent Copyright Infringement: Trouble for DMCA?
BitTorrent has been in the (copyright) news lately – and not surprisingly – after the movie studios set their sites on bringing down yet the latest iteration of file-sharing technology.
2 great background sources on what BitTorrent is and how it works can be found here and here. In short terms, BitTorrent is a file sharing technology, different from Napster and its peer-to-peer progeny in that it draws down pieces of large data files from multiple computers – rather than single computer to single computer peer-to-peer – based on a “community” structure of participating individual users. The two biggest distinctions are (1) no single source for the compiled total file contributes more than a very small portion of the total file and (2) the distributive structure finesses the constant file-sharing problem of large data transfers demanding large broadband resources.
Why is bitTorrent in the (copyright) news?
BitTorrent is in the news not simply because Netflix’ CEO stated that “we’ve finally beaten bitTorrent.” (“We”, by the way, presumably refers to Netflix’ full-file streaming capabilities.)
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