The French Threaten Piracy and the iPod
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France is pushing through a law that would force Apple Computer Inc to open its iTunes online music store and enable consumers to download songs onto devices other than the computer maker's popular iPod player.
Under a draft law expected to be voted in parliament on Thursday, consumers would be able to legally use software that converts digital content into any format.
It would no longer be illegal to crack digital rights management -- the codes that protect music, films and other content -- if it is to enable to the conversion from one format to another, said Christian Vanneste, Rapporteur, a senior parliamentarian who helps guide law in France.
"It will force some proprietary systems to be opened up ... You have to be able to download content and play it on any device," Vanneste told Reuters in a telephone interview on Monday. Music downloaded from Apple's iTunes online music store currently can only be played on iPods.
The law, if enacted, could prompt Apple to shut its iTunes store in France.
Vanneste said the draft law aimed to fight piracy, encourage the development of the online digital music market in France and benefit legal online music retailers. Record sales tumbled 8 percent in France last year while digital music sales rose fivefold.
Under the latest version of the proposed law, people who download material illegally would be subject to a fine of 38 euros and those sharing illegally downloaded material with others would be subject to a fine of 150 euros.
People who make and sell software for illegal file-sharing and content downloading would remain subject to a maximum fine of 300,000 euros and prison sentences of up to three years.
The new legislation is triggered by France's need to transpose the European directive on copyrights into its own body of law, which it failed to do by the December 2002 deadline. Vanneste said France and Spain were the only two EU countries which had yet to make the move.
An earlier amendment that would have legalised the use of peer-to-peer networks to download songs and films for a flat monthly fee of several euros has been shelved,after pressure from the film and record companies.
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Michael Weiss Predicts the Death of P2P
An interesting summary of recent movements in the File-Sharing Wars over at Digital Music News reveals reveals that the CEO of Morpheus, Michael Weiss, has predicted the demise of the P2P networks.
"Most P2P companies will be gone by the end of the summer," predicted Michael Weiss, CEO of Morpheus, during a Thursday discussion at Music 2.0. "I would say there will be two or three standing," he said.
P2P file-sharing levels continue to reach new highs, the number of average simultaneous users on P2P networks approached 7 million, according to data from BigChampagne. That is a 14 percent jump over figures from last year, and nearly double levels from 2004.
Enforcement efforts have been directed against individual users and companies, though it is unclear if that strategy is having a meaningful impact. Already, the RIAA has entered into serious negotiations with leading P2P applications to create paid upgrades to their services. That includes eDonkey and LimeWire, two enormously popular clients.
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RIAA Says NO to Ripping CDs Onto Your iPod
Less than a year ago the RIAA ( Recording Industry Association of America) said that it was perfectly lawful to take a CD that you've purchased, upload it onto your computer, put it onto your iPod. (MGM Vs Grokster).
In the latest report from the US Copyright Office ( Exemption to Prohibition on Circumvention of
Copyright Protection Systems for Access Control Technologies) (link to PDF of Report) the RIAA have done a classic about-turn. They say that although CD ripping is widespread it does not make it legal.
"Nor does the fact that permission to make a copy in particular circumstances is often or even routinely granted necessarily establish that the copying is a fair use when the copyright owner withholds that authorisation," the filing states.
"It is no secret that the entertainment 'oligopolists' are not happy about space-shifting and format-shifting," said the Electronic Frontier Foundation in a statement. "But surely ripping your own CDs to your own iPod passes muster."
For sure this move will only alienate the record buying public further and drive more people to the exploding File-Sharing networks. Their products are over priced and under valued. How many tracks on the average CD are worth a second listen one - two???
They not only want to own the copyright now they want to own the format. Go and Join the EFF (Electronic Frontier Foundation) and help "Defending Freedom in the Digital World".
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Music Downloads - Google Eyes Up Napster
Could Internet Giant Google be considering an alliance or purchase of the ailing Music Downloads site Napster?
Napster, once synonymous with the pirating of music, recently laid off 10 of its middle managers and must be looking for an answer to their prayers.
However, last week a Napster spokeswoman told Reuters at an annual music industry conference in Cannes, France, "The company is not looking to be sold, the management is not looking to step out."
A Google spokeswoman today told MP3.com News that the company has "no plans to acquire Napster, nor do we have plans to develop a music store at this time."
Citing unnamed sources, The New York Post reported today that Google has been pushing to form an alliance with Napster rather than build its own online music store. That alliance, a signal that Google sees the future of digital music in subscriptions as opposed to the individual, à la carte downloads of industry front-runner iTunes, could lead to an acquisition of Napster.
Napster has gone through several incarnations since digital music pioneer Shawn Fanning created it in 1999 as a college student. Fanning's Napster went on to become a gigantic-sized thorn in the side of the music business and became synonymous with peer-to-peer (P2P) free music.
Facing a slew of lawsuits from the music industry, the company went bankrupt and sold the Napster brand name in 2003 to CD-burning software maker Roxio, which had also bought the Pressplay digital music service from Vivendi Universal. Roxio eventually divested itself of the software business, bought the Napster name, and rebranded Pressplay as Napster.
Another incarnation?
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File-Sharing not Affected by Court Cases
Global court action against music file-sharers has not reduced illegal downloading.
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The level of file-sharing has remained the same for two years despite 20,000 legal cases in 17 countries.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industries (IFPI) said it was "containing" the problem and more people were connecting to broadband.
The global music industry trade body said sales of legal downloads were worth more than $1bn (£570m) in 2005. That is up from $380m (£215m) in 2004, with "significant further growth" predicted this year. Download stores now offer two million songs - double the number available a year ago - and the total number of legal downloads shot up to 420 million in 2005.
IFPI chairman John Kennedy said the industry was "winning the war but we haven't won the war" against piracy. The fact that illegal song-swapping had not increased should be regarded as a success, he told the BBC News website.
"I would love to be sitting here telling you that it had gone down," he said.
"As broadband rolls out and as there's an explosion in many countries of broadband, file-sharing is being contained."
But the industry was finding it difficult to persuade existing song-swappers to use legal download services such as iTunes instead, he said.
"Those who've got into the habit of consuming their music for free are very difficult to shift.
More court cases
"And frankly it's an argument for increasing the scale of court cases because at the moment, people still don't think it's going to be them."
There are currently about 870 million song files available to download illegally over the internet, according to the IFPI.
Mr Kennedy also warned that the music industry could sue internet service providers (ISPs) if they do not crack down on their customers who flout copyright rules.
Music piracy could be "dramatically reduced within a very short period of time" if ISPs took action against their law-breaking customers, Mr Kennedy said.
The IFPI's Digital Music Report also revealed that music downloaded onto mobile phones was now worth $400m (£227m) per year - 40% of the digital music business.
'Misunderstood'
And Mr Kennedy backed the continuing use of Digital Rights Management (DRM) technology, which controls what consumers can do with their music once it has been purchased - either online or on CD.
DRM remains controversial, with some critics arguing it does little to prevent piracy but instead limits what consumers fairly should be able to do with their music.
Earlier this week, the National Consumer Council complained that DRM was eroding established rights to digital media.
Mr Kennedy, writing in the report, said DRM "helps get music to consumers in new and flexible ways".
He said DRM was a "sometimes misunderstood element of the digital music business".
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Universal Music Set To Release 100,000 Recordings
Recent news released by Reuters says that Universal Music, the world's biggest record label, is digging deep into its vaults to release download-only recordings from its vast back catalogue.
The company said on Wednesday it is embarking on a programme to digitise 100,000 out of print European recordings, beginning with 3,000 British, French and German albums from artists such as Marianne Faithfull, Brian Auger and Brigitte Bardot.
"Over the next three to four years, we aim to reissue perhaps as many as 10,000 albums for downloading, which amounts to more than 100,000 tracks," said Barney Wragg, senior vice president of Universal Music Group International's eLabs division. "This programme will offer material that, in some cases, goes back to the early days of recorded music."
The digitised songs, many of which have only been published on vinyl LPs, will then go to Universal's online music partners such as Apple's iTunes Music Store.
The initiative -- carried out after Universal digitised all of its active catalogue -- reflects the new reality of Internet music stores where "shelf space" is effectively infinite, and a large proportion of sales come from the long tail of non-blockbusters.
Digitising music, particularly back-catalogue recordings, can be complicated by the fact that older contracts with musicians and publishers did not include digital rights. That adds a tangle of red tape to the task of converting analogue tapes or vinyl into a digital file that can played by a computer or a device like Apple's iPod.
Universal Music is owned by France's Vivendi Universal.
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VAT FREE iTunes Music Downloads
Apple is reportedly looking to exploit a tax loophole in the UK to allow it to sell VAT-free music to British consumers. The money.telegraph reports that Apple is looking into setting up operations in Guernsey so it sell music to British customers--without charging the nearly 18 percent value added tax (VAT). That could reduce the price of iTunes music from 79p to 67p, according to the report.
"These fulfilment businesses have allowed retailers to sell CDs and DVDs by mail order usually for between £3 and £5 cheaper than high street shops. "Apple confirmed that it is looking at setting up a similar operation on Guernsey. This would allow it to lower the prices of music downloads from 79p, perhaps to as little as 67p."
The move mimics that of other UK retailers, such as Tesco, Asda, Britannia, HMV, Amazon and Woolworths, which have "set up delivery operations in the Channel Islands to exploit a law which allows retailers outside the European Union to sell goods worth less than £17 to UK consumers free from VAT," according to the report.
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Sony Settles for Free Downloads
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Millions of people look set to get free downloads from Sony BMG after a judge provisionally approved a settlement for many lawsuits against the music maker.
The settlement was negotiated following legal action over controversial copy protection technology.
The virus-like techniques used by the anti-copying system led to a lot of bad publicity for the music maker in 2005.
However, still pending are legal cases mounted by several US states over Sony BMG's anti-piracy technology.
The row blew up in early November following the discovery that Sony BMG was protecting some of its CDs using a system called XCP.
When played on PCs, this software installed a proprietary media player and hid itself deep inside the Windows operating system.
Following reports that virus writers were starting to use this ability to hide their malicious creations, many consumers took legal action over the software.
Other consumers took action over CDs that were being protected with a technology known as MediaMax.
The consumer lawsuits were all rolled together and a tentative deal to settle them all was reached shortly after Christmas.
Now following a hearing US District Judge Naomi Reice Buchwald has given tentative approval to the terms of the deal.
The deal involves Sony BMG giving cash refunds and downloads to consumers who bought CDs that used the XCP technology. Consumers can forgo the cash and get more downloads.
Those who own CDs protected by MediaMax will only get downloads as part of the deal.
The settlement also requires Sony BMG to stop using XCP and MediaMax. The music firm is already recalling all XCP-using CDs but so far has said nothing about swapping MediaMax-using discs. The XCP technology was used on 52 releases and MediaMax on 27.
Sony BMG has also pledged to produce tools that make it easy to uninstall all traces of the XCP software.
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Alternative Legal Music Download Sites
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Which music download sites are the best for downloading legal music? Connie over at Lockergnome has some interesting observations.
The digital music revolution is in full swing and the rush to acquire Internet download customers is on.
When there are a large number of vendors competing for what is essentially a commodity product, the end result is generally very good for the consumer (99 cents or less per song at most sites).
Because you're essentially buying the same song from the same artist from every vendor, the points of differentiation can be hard to distinguish, but they can be very significant.
Most of the differences are in the file types and whether it is a pay-per-song service or a subscription service.
In order to get the record labels blessing, all companies must incorporate some form of Digital Rights Management, which essentially makes it difficult for the music to be shared once it is downloaded.
This can be one of the biggest 'gotchas' if you don't understand what the limits are for the music you are purchasing. Even though they are all music files, the actual file type can be drastically different and may require a special program in order to play it or burn it to CD. Hardly any of the services use a standard MP3 file for downloads, which is where the complications can start.
What I recommend to anyone that is just getting started downloading music is to first determine how the music will be used once downloaded.
For instance, if the music will only be played from the computer that downloaded it or burned to CD, any of the major services will do.
If you plan on using the downloaded music on any kind of portable player, you need to do some additional homework before getting started.
If you own an Apple iPod for instance, your best bet is to stick to the iTunes service to keep it simple and avoid having to incorporate multiple programs to take your music on the go.
If you own a portable MP3 player other than an iPod, you have lots of choices including MSN's music service , Napster , eMusic , Wal-Mart , Virgin Digital , and MusicMatch , amongst a host of others.
Subscription based services that offer 'all you can eat' for a fixed price may sound like a great deal, but there are a couple of things to keep in mind. For the most part, you are essentially "renting" the song from the service, so when you stop paying them, the music will no longer play from your computer.
Pay-per-song services tend to give you the most flexibility; many sites offer both options.
The bottom line is to make sure that your music player is compatible with the service (they generally post compatibility lists at their sites) and you totally understand what the limitations are for the music once you download it.
If you want to ensure that you have total control of any of the downloaded music you buy, burn them to an audio CD then convert them back to a standard MP3 on your computer. This can result in a slight loss in sound quality, but it will essentially shake the proprietary file restrictions off!
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Where to Download and View Anime
Dedicated anime fans watch their favorite shows on the Internet
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for the convenience and quality. On television, anime has been censored to tone down violence, and voices are dubbed.
``The anime on TV is really bad unless you have Cartoon Network, because the stuff on TV is edited so everything good is taken out,'' said senior Jennie Chen of Cupertino High School. ``True anime fans like watching it online in Japanese with English subtitles.''
``The Internet has made this process very fast. Not only does knowledge of new animes spread quickly, entire animes can be sent to a large amount of people in a relatively short amount of time,'' said senior Bryant Kou of Saratoga High School.
Typically ``fansubbing'' groups in Japan download anime programs, subtitle them in English and upload them to the Internet. Because sometimes it takes years to license anime for the American market, the underground downloading movement continues to make anime available to markets outside Japan.
Anime is usually sent through Web sites such as Bittorrent.com. Anime is to Bittorrent as music is to Kazaa. The legality of file-sharing anime that is licensed in Japan but not in the United States is ambiguous. But once the producer exports those programs to a U.S. licensee, users would be violating the license agreement by downloading.
To view anime, try these Web sites:
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Legal Music Downloads Explode
A record 20 million music tracks were downloaded in the final week of 2005.
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In the seven days between Christmas and the New Year, millions of MP3 owners in the US bought tracks from download retailers such as iTunes and Napster.
It smashed the existing record of 9.5 million - which was set the previous week - according to tracking firm Neilson SoundScan.
Sales were boosted by the number of people who received MP3 players and download gift vouchers for Christmas.
Peer-to-peer
An explosion in the number of MP3 players - such as Apple's iPod - sold during 2005 meant total download sales were almost three times the amount sold in the same seven-day period in 2004.
Despite the rise, the number of illegal music downloads from peer-to-peer networks still outstrips legal ones by a ratio of at least three to one.
Peer-to-peer monitoring service Big Champagne estimates that at least 250 million tracks are downloaded worldwide each week from file-swapping services.
Sales of MP3 players have surpassed those of personal CD players for the first time, according to research firm NPD Group.
"We have definitely moved from MP3 players being a computer-oriented product to a consumer-directed product," said Stephen Baker of NPD.
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Google's Entry into Video Downloads
Anyone the least bit concerned about DRM (digital rights management) technology would likely have been put off by Google co-founder Larry Page's ho-hum approach to revealing the company's new proprietary media locks. And with good reason.
"We have our own DRM that we're using," Page said, during a keynote at CES. "We'll be open to other things, but (creating our own) seemed like the easier thing to do."
Google's DRM will make its first appearance as part of a new video downloading service. Page revealed that customers will be able to buy TV shows from CBS, NBA basketball games and a host of other content with Google serving as the delivery broker for the video. This move mimics other technology companies - most notably Apple - which have struck deals with large media houses to send video over the web for a fee.
Along with the service, Google has also released its own, slick video player.
None of this is bad or surprising when examined from Google's perspective. The ad broker has every right to push on with new businesses and use its might, prestige and hype to secure prominent partnerships with the likes of CBS. And, heck, if Apple and Microsoft can create DRM systems, then why can't Google?
You can, however, see a crisis evolving for internet users and consumers. Apple has a very locked down DRM system that revolves around iTunes and iPods only. Microsoft has a lot of partners for its DRM, making it look open and like a standard. Of course, the MP3 players and services that support Microsoft haven't garnered near as much interest as Apple's rival offerings. So, Microsoft isn't really a standard at all but rather a small, less closed garden. Meanwhile, Real Networks comes off as a type of neutral player that also has its problems by not being promoted on the iPod and by relying more on a music rental service than a booming per song shop like iTunes.
Now, you can add Google DRM and Google Video to this mess.
We might be less nervous about Google's DRM revelation if it provided more information on the technology. Page refused to say anything beyond the two sentences above, and played off the whole DRM thing as no big deal.
We also can't locate much of anything about Google DRM on the company's corporate web site or fantastic blogs. Perhaps your Googling skills are better than ours, and we welcome aid.
Is Google DRM simply a mechanism for protecting the videos of its partners and making sure they get paid for their content? Or is it much broader than that?
How will it work with Microsoft's DRM, Apple's DRM and Real's DRM? Will it extend to music? If so, what will the limitations be on how often you can copy songs or how many devices can store the tunes?
Google says that one of its corporate goals is to "do no evil." Hasn't it just crapped all over that objective by entering the race to weigh down our culture with cement bricks?
That last query may be over-dramatic. But, then again, it might not be.
Continue reading "Google's Entry into Video Downloads"
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The Music Download War has Begun
Well folks. It's happening. Mr Gates,in the blue corner, has challenged Mr Jobs, in the red corner, to a bare nuckle scrap. The gloves are off and let the battle commence. The prize is the world domination of Music and Video Downloads - the fastest growing area of the entertainment business
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MTV Urge, launched in collaboration with the music channel, will be built into all new Windows Vista software and will provide access to two million songs and thousands of videos from MTV's library.
THE PUNCH LINE - They will not be playable on an Apple iPod
WOW. What a surprise.
Will they make it illegal to run iTunes on our PC's??? Will some software engineer not come up with a converter in about ten minutes? I reserve the right to choose my MP3 player and if I prefer the design and functionality of my ipod there isn't a Cat in Hell's chance of me changing it! In fact I might change my PC for an Apple and *****ck* to Microsoft.
The full story as told by Sinead Mcintyre
MTV has promised to work with artists to develop exclusive content for Urge as Microsoft battles to end Apple's dominance of the online music market.
iTunes, which involves music lovers paying to download tracks over the Internet, recently overtook sales from record shops in the U.S.
Recent figures show a huge surge in the amount of music sold online in Britain as more and more digital players are sold. Last year alone 20million tracks were downloaded by UK music fans.
Continue reading "The Music Download War has Begun"
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MP3's Condemn CDs to the Dustbin
With the PC fast becoming the world's most popular music download centre past technolgies are once again littering the great scrapheap in the sky. MP3 players and iPods are set to rule the world.
I enjoyed this 'Cautionary Tale' from Ellen Portnoy. She mirrors what is happening in millions of households throughout the world
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When did CD players become obsolete?
I noticed that in my house, empty CD players are like litter. One is sitting on the dryer in the laundry room, another sits empty without headphones in the kitchen. How did they get there? Why are they just sitting?
I remember when they were first in stores. Wow! Portable CD players! It was amazing. They replaced cassette players so quickly. The quality of sound was wonderful. I never thought they would be obsolete. But now they are! There is truly something better — the MP3 player. iPods, iRivers, Rios — the words vibrate in our new technology lexicon. From small to really tiny, these devices have altered the music world.
I actually fought against getting one.
My husband, Jay, and my children, Lara and Mike, had them for at least a year when Jay suggested I get one for our next plane trip. “No,” I said. “Wait until my birthday. I really don't want you to get me one.” I was worried about learning to download my music. I was fine with the knowledge I had.
But it did not matter what I said. Jay had it in his mind that I needed one. And he was right. He ripped 250 of my favorite show tunes and songs from CDs that we own. I have told him that I now want more.
Continue reading "MP3's Condemn CDs to the Dustbin"
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The Future of Video Downloads
Video has been the big news at the Consumer Electronics Show. But all the competing video download services and two types of high-definition DVDs will have to battle to win the hearts of computer users.
That means Dell Inc., the world's biggest personal computer seller, will be in the middle of the competition for video domination. The Round Rock-based company has taken sides on the high-definition DVD front, but it's neutral on video downloads.
Dell sold more than 10 million computers in its fiscal fourth quarter. With that kind of volume, the company has an important say in which technologies will eventually take hold among consumers.
On Friday, Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. both announced new video download services. Yahoo is offering free videos for now and plans to eventually sell content. Google already has deals to offer CBS shows and National Basketball Association video for sale. The two search engine giants join the likes of Apple Computer Inc. and Microsoft Corp. in the video download race.
Most of the video services don't work with one another, which means computer users will have to have several megabytes' worth of software installed to get everything available.
Continue reading "The Future of Video Downloads"
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Music Download Problems in Eastern Europe
An interesting perspective from Katya Zapletnyuk about the problems facing content providers in the former Eastern Bloc from music downloads over the Internet. File sharing is here to stay and the providers have got to find a way of living with it. Let's read...
Fans of Croatian jazz, Polish hip-hop and other nonmainstream music from Central and Eastern Europe will soon be able to download songs from their favorite artists for a small fee through a Web site operated in Prague.
Tamizdat, a Prague- and New York City-based distributor of independent music labels from the former Eastern bloc, plans this month to enlarge its online CD store by selling downloads of some songs based on the model made popular by Apple's iTunes.
Like other music distributors, Tamizdat faces the thorny legal issue of consumers downloading and copying audio and video content from the Internet. This phenomenon is changing how the music industry works and is forcing media companies to reconsider the way they do business.
"This is changing business models radically because there is clearly a trend," said Matthew Gertner, chief technology officer at AllPeers, a company based in Prague and London that is developing software for sharing files in peer-to-peer networks. "It is going to be huge over the next 20 years." "We plan to start selling MP3 downloads through iTunes and our Web site," said Marek Čulen, Tamizdat's Prague office director. "It looks like it will be a worldwide trend."
Tamizdat started in 1995 as an endeavor with a mission to promote independent bands from Eastern and Central Europe among West European and North American listeners.
The company opened its Prague office in 2000. Tamizdat managed to survive the burst of the dot-com bubble later that year and has steadily increased sales by targeting an elite group of customers.
Now, however, it's facing a new challenge plaguing any media company distributing audio or video production: uncontrolled and almost unregulated downloading and copying of content via the Internet.
"There is so much free music on the Internet that less people want to buy music," Culen said.
Continue reading "Music Download Problems in Eastern Europe"
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Music Downloads Round the House
The home computer is becoming the home music processing center. It's where we rip tracks from CDs, download new selections from the Internet and make our own mixes. The computer has given us more control over our listening choices than ever before.
Just one big problem.
The room where you have your computer is probably not your favorite place to listen to music. The challenge is getting that music from your computer to your stereo system, where it can be enjoyed in all its sonic glory. So says David Colker of the LA Times
You can carry music from one room to another in the form of CDs you've burned or portable music players onto which you've downloaded your mixes. But the process will involve much burning and downloading and carrying. The most elegant solution is to go wireless, sending music directly from the computer to the stereo. I've been doing it for more than a year and have gotten so used to the convenience of wireless that when the CD player on my stereo system broke, I never replaced it. Now I listen to my CDs, music mixes (great for dinner or holiday parties) and even online radio stations on a living room stereo, via a computer that sits in a home office.Read the full article and then decide if it's worth the money and hassle. Maybe someone will get him an iPod for his birthday. That can be his home entertainment centre.
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Top Ten Movies FileShare Downloads.
Movies Top Ten File Share Downloads, Global
Week ending December 29, 2005
| Ranking | Movie | Number of Downloads |
| 01 | >>> King Kong + #8 | 1,000,737 |
| 02 | >>> Harry Potter And The Goblet Of Fire - #1 | 990,575 |
| 03 | >>> The Chronicles of Narnia ( unchanged ) | 974,343 |
| 04 | >>> Mr. & Mrs. Smith - #2 | 946,252 |
| 05 | >>> War Of The Worlds ( unchanged ) | 926,206 |
| 06 | >>> Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith ( unchanged ) | 924,671 |
| 07 | >>> The 40 Year Old Virgin + #9 | 915,346 |
| 08 | >>> Fantastic Four + #10 | 878,209 |
| 09 | >>> Charlie And The Chocolate Factory ( new ) | 869,744 |
| 10 | >>> Walk The Line - #4 | 866,721 |
Kindly compiled by the guys at p2pnet.net
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BitTorrent's Popularity for Music Downloading Grows
Despite of all the lawsuits and several desperate attempts to shut down torrent sites, bittorrent's popularity is still growing. Based on Alexa rankings, the bigger torrent sites still seem to grow. And besides this, new sites a launched succesfully.
Some traffic details of the 5 most popular torrent sites over the last 3 months:
Site Traffic IncreaseAnd this trend seems to be the same for the smaller torrent sites. Not to forget about newcomers like Newnova.org and Seedler.org who are about to enter the top 10 of all torrent sites.
Torrentspy.com + 37%
Thepiratebay.org +15%
Mininova.org +41%
Isohunt.com +37%
Torrentreactor.net +15%
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Bittorrent Brunch of Music Downloads
An interesting selection of Torrents has been posted by Largehearted Boy. Including Elvis Costello in Berlin '99, Neil Young, Radiohead, Roxy Music '79 BBC. Also on his site he has the Live 8 downloads and other festivals.
Scout Niblett: 2005-11-10, Munich [flac]*
Erin McKeown: 2005-10-29, Edinburgh [flac]*
Killers: 2004-12-01, Toronto [flac]*
Mekons: 2004-03-13, Hoboken [flac]*
Elvis Costello: 1999-10-05, Berlin [flac]*
The Tragically Hip: 1998-12-12, Milwaukee [flac]*
Radiohead: 1988, demos [flac]*
The Fall: 1985-04-01, Cleveland [flac]*
Roxy Music: 1979, BBC Rock Hour [flac]*
Neil Young: "5X or Less" live compilation [flac]*
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What you Need To Download Music and Video to your iPod
Buying prepackaged music videos or TV shows to download onto your iPod is just the beginning. To beef up your video library while saving money over the long haul — those two-buck hits can really add up — you can tap into a dizzying variety of services and software offerings.
With the right tools, you can "rip" movie DVDs and move their contents to your player. You can convert home videos on your computer into iPod-usable form. If you use a Windows PC or a Macintosh for TiVo-style TV recording, you can transfer shows to an iPod. And you can scour the Web for video "podcasts" and other clips by the hundreds.
Ripping DVDs: Richard Erickson of Burnsville uses Pocket DVD Studio software to convert his store-bought DVDs, such as "It's a Wonderful Life" and "The Incredibles," for personal Pocket PC consumption.
The software yanks both video and audio off a DVD platter and deposits a movie file on his desktop. He transfers the file to a flash-memory card and sticks that into his HP Pocket PC. He is then able to watch his new video anytime.
"When I downloaded a trial" version of Pocket DVD Studio, which "does five or so minutes of video, I was hooked," says Erickson, who works as a video engineer in downtown St. Paul.
PQDVD.com, which sells Pocket DVD Studio, also offers Windows software for video iPods as well as Palm-based organizers and PlayStation Portables.
In the Macintosh realm, a free program called HandBrake rips DVDs for Mac and iPod use. Greg Swan, a resident of downtown St. Paul, had little trouble using the software to move "Batman Begins" onto his video iPod.
This kind of DVD-ripping software looks to be Kat Carney's salvation. The Durham, N.C., fitness buff owns more than 600 exercise DVDs, and she's desperate to get some of these onto her new video iPod so she can refer to the player (which she attaches to her arm via a Velcro holder) during gym workouts.
Previously, she relied on DVD audio transferred to an older iPod, but the routines were hard to follow without the video. So, "when I found out about the iPod video, I said, 'Oh, here we go — now we're in business.' " Last week, she had her workout videos "nice and stacked up, ready to go" for iPod conversion on her home computer.
Converting home videos: Home hard drives are typically loaded with home videos, and getting these onto an iPod or other video gadget is relatively straightforward. Apple Computer, for instance, offers a "pro" version of its QuickTime software that can convert many common kinds of video, as well as detailed video-conversion instructions on its Web site (see sidebar).
Michael Keliher of Minneapolis prefers to use Windows-based Videora software.
"This software automatically converts digital video files that are already on your computer (.mpg, .avi, etc.) into a format that's compatible with the video iPod," says Keliher, who works for a St. Paul-based marketing company. "Also, Videora can be used to download videos from the Web, convert them and transfer them to an iPod — all automatically."
Swan isn't as impressed with Videora, noting the firm's iPod Converter program "is pretty terrible, in my experience."
Videora Holdings provides a range of video-software utilities aimed at iPod and PlayStation Portable users as well as those using Xbox 360 gaming consoles and TiVo television-recording devices.
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iPods and Music Downloads End Year on a High
According to figures from Hitwise, the online intelligence company, visits to music download sites, such as Apple's iTunes Music Store, saw a 50 per cent increase between December 24 and 25. Hitwise also found that visits to download sites were 15 per cent higher than last Christmas.
Even before the Christmas increase, the BPI, the UK record companies' trade association, said download sales had topped 23m this year, five times the 4.7m sold in 2004.
Weekly downloads already exceed 650,000 and may pass the 1m mark for the first time this holiday season.
The figures reflect the growing popularity of MP3 music players such as the iPod, which were among the most popular Christmas gift items this year. A number of retailers, such as Dixons, John Lewis and Amazon, have reported that MP3 players were their biggest-selling electronic items in the run-up to the holidays.
Some analysts expect Apple to have shipped 37m iPods worldwide by the year-end, with about 10m sold in the key Christmas quarter.
Apple's iTunes Music Store increased its dominance of the download market, receiving twice as many visits as its next closest rival, Sony's Connect internet site. This compares with Christmas Day last year, when iTunes was only 10 per cent ahead of its then closest competitor, Napster.
Despite trailing some way behind Apple, Sony's Connect site, which was launched 20 months ago, has also seen phenomenal growth this year. Last Christmas, the site was barely on the radar screen, ranked 15th most popular among internet users. This year, it is the second most popular destination for music downloads.
Heather Hopkins, director of research at Hitwise UK, said the increased traffic to the Connect site may reflect the popularity of the Sony Ericsson Walkman mobile phone, which has an integrated MP3 player and which is working closely with the Connect site on content.
Demand for the Walkman phone has been enormous since its launch in July, helping push up Sony Ericsson's third-quarter handset sales up 29 per cent year on year and taking the group up to fourth position in the global mobile handset market.
The music industry expects downloads and mobile phone ringtones to account for 6 per cent of all revenues this year.
Thanks to the Financial Times
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Glossary of BitTorrent File-Sharing Terms
Here is a brief list of words associated with BitTorrent and their meanings.
torrent Usually this refers to the small metadata file you receive from the web server (the one that ends in .torrent .) Metadata here means that the file contains information about the data you want to download, not the data itself. This is what is sent to your computer when you click on a download link on a website. You can also save the torrent file to your local system, and then click on it to open the BitTorrent download. This is useful if you want to be able to re-open the torrent later on without having to find the link again. In some uses, it can also refer to everything associated with a certain file available with BitTorrent. For example, someone might say "I downloaded that torrent" or "that server has a lot of good torrents", meaning there are lots of good files available via BitTorrent on that server.
peer A peer is another computer on the internet that you connect to and transfer data. Generally a peer does not have the complete file, otherwise it would be called a seed. Some people also refer to peers as leeches, to distinguish them from those generous folks who have completed their download and continue to leave the client running and act as a seed. seed A computer that has a complete copy of a certain torrent. Once your client finishes downloading, it will remain open until you click the Finish button (or otherwise close it.) This is known as being a seed or seeding. You can also start a BT client with a complete file, and once BT has checked the file it will connect and seed the file to others. Generally, it's considered good manners to continue seeding a file after you have finished downloading, to help out others. Also, when a new torrent is posted to a tracker, someone must seed it in order for it to be available to others. Remember, the tracker doesn't know anything of the actual contents of a file, so it's important to follow through and seed a file if you upload the torrent to a tracker. reseed When there are zero seeds for a given torrent (and not enough peers to have a distributed copy), then eventually all the peers will get stuck with an incomplete file, since no one in the swarm has the missing pieces. When this happens, someone with a complete file (a seed) must connect to the swarm so that those missing pieces can be transferred. This is called reseeding. Usually a request for a reseed comes with an implicit promise that the requester will leave his or her client open for some time period after finishing (to add longevity to the torrent) in return for the kind soul reseeding the file. swarm The group of machines that are collectively connected for a particular file. For example, if you start a BitTorrent client and it tells you that you're connected to 10 peers and 3 seeds, then the swarm consists of you and those 13 other people.
tracker A server on the Internet that acts to coordinate the action of BitTorrent clients. When you open a torrent, your machine contacts the tracker and asks for a list of peers to contact. Periodically throughout the transfer, your machine will check in with the tracker, telling it how much you've downloaded and uploaded, how much you have left before finishing, and the state you're in (starting, finished download, stopping.) If a tracker is down and you try to open a torrent, you will be unable to connect. If a tracker goes down during a torrent (i.e., you have already connected at some point and are already talking to peers), you will be able to continue transferring with those peers, but no new peers will be able to contact you. Often tracker errors are temporary, so the best thing to do is just wait and leave the client open to continue trying. downloading Receiving data FROM another computer.
uploading Sending data TO another computer. share rating If you are using the experimental client with the stats-patch, you will see a share rating displayed on the GUI panel. This is simply the ratio of your amount uploaded divided by your amount downloaded. The amounts used are for the current session only, not over the history of the file. If you achieve a share ratio of 1.0, that would mean you've uploaded as much as you've downloaded. The higher the number, the more you have contributed. If you see a share ratio of "oo", this means infinity, which will happen if you open a BT client with a complete file (i.e., you seed the file.) In this case you download nothing since you have the full file, and so anything you send will cause the ratio to reach infinity. Note: The share rating is just a number that is displayed for your convenience. It does not directly affect any aspect of the client at all. In general, out of courtesy to others you should strive to keep this ratio as high as possible, of course. distributed copies In some versions of the client, you will see the text "Connected to n seeds; also seeing n.nnn distributed copies." A seed is a machine with the complete file. However, the swarm can collectively have a complete copy (or copies) of the file, and that is what this is telling you. Referring again to the "people at a table" analogy , consider the case where the book has 10 pages, and person A has pp.1-5 and B has pp.6-10. Collectively, A and B have a complete copy of the book, even though no one person has the whole thing. In other words, even if there are no seeds, as long as there is at least one distributed copy of the file everyone can eventually get a complete file. Meditate on this, the Zen of BitTorrent, grasshopper.
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File Sharing on the Internet for Music Downloads
BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file. However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers. The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth.
The key philosophy of BitTorrent is that users should upload (transmit outbound) at the same time they are downloading (receiving inbound.) In this manner, network bandwidth is utilized as efficiently as possible. BitTorrent is designed to work better as the number of people interested in a certain file increases, in contrast to other file transfer protocols.
One analogy to describe this process might be to visualize a group of people sitting at a table. Each person at the table can both talk and listen to any other person at the table. These people are each trying to get a complete copy of a book. Person A announces that he has pages 1-10, 23, 42-50, and 75. Persons C, D, and E are each missing some of those pages that A has, and so they coordinate such that A gives them each copies of the pages he has that they are missing. Person B then announces that she has pages 11-22, 31-37, and 63-70. Persons A, D, and E tell B they would like some of her pages, so she gives them copies of the pages that she has. The process continues around the table until everyone has announced what they have (and hence what they are missing.) The people at the table coordinate to swap parts of this book until everyone has everything. There is also another person at the table, who we'll call 'S'. This person has a complete copy of the book, and so doesn't need anything sent to him. He responds with pages that no one else in the group has. At first, when everyone has just arrived, they all must talk to him to get their first set of pages. However, the people are smart enough to not all get the same pages from him. After a short while they all have most of the book amongst themselves, even if no one person has the whole thing. In this manner, this one person can share a book that he has with many other people, without having to give a full copy to everyone that's interested. He can instead give out different parts to different people, and they will be able to share it amongst themselves. This person who we've referred to as 'S' is called a seed in the terminology of BitTorrent.
How does BitTorrent compare to other forms of file transfer?
The most common method by which files are transferred on the Internet is the client-server model. A central server sends the entire file to each client that requests it -- this is how both http and ftp work. The clients only speak to the server, and never to each other. The main advantages of this method are that it's simple to set up, and the files are usually always available since the servers tend to be dedicated to the task of serving, and are always on and connected to the Internet. However, this model has a significant problem with files that are large or very popular, or both. Namely, it takes a great deal of bandwidth and server resources to distribute such a file, since the server must transmit the entire file to each client. Perhaps you may have tried to download a demo of a new game just released, or CD images of a new Linux distribution, and found that all the servers report "too many users," or there is a long queue that you have to wait through. The concept of mirrors partially addresses this shortcoming by distributing the load across multiple servers. But it requires a lot of coordination and effort to set up an efficient network of mirrors, and it's usually only feasible for the busiest of sites.
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File-Sharing Survey of 2005
The year 2005 was an excellent year, depending of course on your point of view. For the tech industry, BitTorrent soared to new heights while Steve Jobs enjoyed record breaking iPod sales. Yet not everyone shared this success. The RIAA continued its fight against P2P networking with little effect, as Sony-BMG disgraced itself and the DRM concept.
Great article from Tom over at Slyck's I've added a few links for extra info.
Winners
BitTorrent - There is little doubt BitTorrent has emerged as the quintessential file-sharing protocol in 2005. Estimates on its size are staggering – anywhere from 60%-90% of a ISPs bandwidth is consumed by this protocol. In addition, it's suggested that up to 10 million individuals are transferring files via the BitTorrent protocol at any given moment.BitTorrent has emerged as a legitimate distribution source as well. Being a highly efficient protocol for the distribution large files, it has become a popular method for distributing the Linux operating system and authorized multimedia entertainment.
Apple Computers, Inc. – Apple has managed to resurrect itself despite the overwhelming PC market. But Steve Job's success isn't attributed to a more practically priced Mac. Instead, Steve Jobs can thank the iPod. After selling over 30 million units, it has become nearly synonymous with the term “MP3 Player.”
Several variants of the iPod; the iPod Nano, the iPod Shuffle, and the new video iPod, have helped Apple once again become a house hold name. The residual effects of the iPod success story have helped Apple add 1 million Mac users, while doubling its stock value from $34 a share in January to $74 at close of business yesterday.
LimeWire – There was a time when the Gnutella network was little more than a running joke in the P2P world. The network was largely inefficient, file transfers were slow, and resources were scant. But then the remarkable happened. Led by the developmental efforts of Limewire and BearShare, the old problems associated with this network were swept away paving the way for the Gnutella resurrection.
Limewire has since remained at the forefront of Gnutella development and has quickly become the mainstream P2P program of choice. However unlike Kazaa, Limewire is highly respected among new comers and hard core file-sharers alike. Although Limewire's network crawler estimates over 2 million connected users (a majority of which are Limewire clients), the number is suspected of being much higher – perhaps exceeding 5 million.
Open Source P2P – On September 13th, the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) sent approximately seven ‘cease and desist' letters to various commercial P2P developers. The letters demanded they impede the infringing activities of their users or face litigation.
Limewire, BearShare, MetaMachine (eDonkey), WinMX, and Ares Galaxy are believed to be among those contacted by the RIAA. The reaction varied among each developer. BearShare closed its forums and hasn't released another version since September. WinMX completely shut down its operation. MetaMachine “threw in the towel.”
While the effort appears to have stifled commercial development of file-sharing, it served only encourage open source development.
Because of Limewire's open source nature, development continues unabated. Even if Limewire institutes the anticipated DRM version, or shuts down completely, development should prosper without consequence. Limewire development is a community affair that exists outside the mere confines of a corporate office. The result of this community effort has spawned the popular Frostwire variant that likewise is built upon the same open source principles.
Although it's doubtful we'll ever see another official eDonkey client, eMule and its variants continue to evolve. Already controlling over 90% of the network, open source eDonkey2000 applications have made MetaMachine irrelevant. If you're worried about eMule, don't. Considering it's an already stable client, development has always been on the slow side. Yet to sooth any concerns, an eMule developer recently told Slyck.com, “Development goes forward normally, and a new version will be released eventually.”
The story is similar for BitTorrent as well. Built on similar principles as Gnutella, BitTorrent is the very definition of a free community. Dozens of open source clients are regularly updated, and of course the protocol is free for anyone to examine.
At the end of 2005, 4 of the 5 largest communities – BitTorrent, eDoneky2000, Gnutella, and Ares Galaxy – are all open source.
ThePirateBay – With 836,879 registered users, 2,451,086 peers and 113,419 tracked torrents, ThePirateBay.org has become the most popular BitTorrent indexing site. Its ever expanding server farm helps millions of individuals share information, and the fact it resides in the BitTorrent friendly country of Sweden has allowed this tracker to remain intact.
ThePirateBay has grown in notoriety as being clearly defiant of any kind of copyright enforcement. The site's administrator, Anakata, has become well known for his handling of DMCA and other copyright violation notices. From its early days in mid-2004, when it only served 6750 torrents and 156389 peers, ThePirateBay.org has become a leader in this community.
Losers
RIAA – The RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) wasn't without its fair share of successes in 2005. As a co-plaintiff in the Grokster vs. MGM lawsuit, the Supreme Court remanded the case to the lower courts and ruled this file-sharing company could be sued.
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Mom Fights Music Downloading Suit on Her Own
It was Easter Sunday, and Patricia Santangelo was in church with her kids when she says the music recording industry peeked into her computer and decided to take her to court.
Santangelo says she has never downloaded a single song on her computer, but the industry didn't see it that way. The woman from Wappingers Falls, about 80 miles north of New York City, is among the more than 16,000 people who have been sued for allegedly pirating music through file-sharing computer networks.
"I assumed that when I explained to them who I was and that I wasn't a computer downloader, it would just go away," she said in an interview. "I didn't really understand what it all meant. But they just kept insisting on a financial settlement."
The industry is demanding thousands of dollars to settle the case, but Santangelo, unlike the 3,700 defendants who have already settled, says she will stand on principle and fight the lawsuit.
"It's a moral issue," she said. "I can't sign something that says I agree to stop doing something I never did."
If the downloading was done on her computer, Santangelo thinks it may have been the work of a young friend of her children. Santangelo, 43, has been described by a federal judge as "an Internet-illiterate parent, who does not know Kazaa from kazoo, and who can barely retrieve her email." Kazaa is the peer-to-peer software program used to share files.
The drain on her resources to fight the case _ she's divorced, has five children aged 7 to 19 and works as a property manager for a real estate company _ forced her this month to drop her lawyer and begin representing herself.
"There was just no way I could continue on with a lawyer," she said. "I'm out $24,000 and we haven't even gone to trial."
So on Thursday she was all alone at the defense table before federal Magistrate Judge Mark Fox in White Plains, looking a little nervous and replying simply, "Yes, sir" and "No, sir" to his questions about scheduling and exchange of evidence.
She did not look like someone who would have downloaded songs like Incubus' "Nowhere Fast," Godsmack's "Whatever" and Third Eye Blind's "Semi-Charmed Life," all of which were allegedly found on her computer.
Her former lawyer, Ray Beckerman, says Santangelo doesn't really need him.
"I'm sure she's going to win," he said. "I don't see how they could win. They have no case. They have no evidence she ever did anything. They don't know how the files appeared on her computer or who put them there."
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eMusic Reaches 1 Million Music Downloads
Proclaiming that it has” the greatest independent music catalogue ever assembled,” eMusic recently announced the addition of the millionth track to its subscriber-driven online music service. The track, a new live version of the Pixies' "Here Comes Your Man," brought the subscriber-based service full circle. In 1998, the first two songs in eMusic's library were by Frank Black and the Catholics, whose frontman Frank Black is now in the Pixies.
In the past six years, independent labels have emerged as the hottest force in the record business, and through partnerships with thousands of independent record labels eMusic is now delivering in excess of four million downloads per month to more than 100,000 subscribers. Its entire catalog is in MP3 format, and selections run the gamut of musical styles, from Alternative/Punk and Urban Hip/Hop to Classical and Inspirational.
I (Frank Moldstat) recently became a trial eMusic subscriber, after being solicited with an offer of 50 free songs. The offer required that I register on the site, providing my name, contact details and credit card information. The subscription takes effect after a two-week trial period; if I terminate it within two weeks, there's no further obligation – and the 50 tracks are mine to keep.
But after exploring the site in some depth, I've decided to keep the subscription. The content is fresh and extensive, the cost is reasonable, and eMusic offers multiple ways of discovering new music. It provides write-ups from the All-Music guide, subscriber-written reviews, and columns such as former New York Times music critic Ann Powers and Newsday 's classical music critic Justin Davidson. It also publishes genre-specific monthly e-newsletters that highlight new releases and offer reviews and commentary. An in-house magazine, appropriately called “magazine,” is linked from eMusic's home page, covering all genres with artist spotlights, daily reviews and editor's picks
In addition, personalized recommendations are available through member playlists, and you can access download lists from “Neighbors,” members whose taste is similar to your own. There are also fairly active user forums on the site, where people tout new artists they've discovered and discuss current musical trends.
A built-in search function enables subscribers to find specific artists, albums, labels and song titles. Finally, there's the good old reliable method of discovery -- browsing. eMusic breaks down its catalog by genre, style, region, era, most-downloaded albums, live shows and other categories.
Genres include Alternative/Punk, Blues, Classical, Country/Folk, Electronic, Inspirational, Jazz, New Age, Rock/Pop, Urban/Hip-Hop, World/Reggae and Soundtracks/Other. Clicking on any of these leads to a dedicated page for further refining a desired musical style. As an example, style categories for Alternative/Punk are Alt/Punk Ska, Alternative, Alternative Experimental, Alternative Hard Rock, Brit Pop, Emo, Garage Rock, Goth, Hardcore, Indie Pop, Indie Rock, Industrial, Live Alt/Punk, Math Rock, New Wave, Post-Punk and Punk. Each has hundreds of entries.
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V Cast Music - Competition for iTunes with Music Downloads
Verizon plans to launch, on January 16, a music-download service wirelessly, via mobile phones onto Windows PCs, writes CNET. Called V Cast Music, the service is intended to compete with Apple's iTunes and other, and it would give Microsoft, which is Verizon's partner in the project, a better foothold in mobile services. The service will be available via Circuit City, Verizon Wireless stores and Verizon's website, allowing customers to browse, preview, download and play music from a mobile handset and a computer.
Verizon expects the service to offer more than a million songs by spring, including music from artists on major labels, such as Warner Music Group, EMI Music, Universal Music Group and Sony BMG.Through a partnership with Microsoft, Verizon's V Cast Music service allows the transfer of music between Windows PCs and mobile phones, giving Microsoft a better hold in the mobile infrastructure market.
Music execs, in turn, are eager for alternatives to iTunes and Apple's ability to set industry-wide prices and policies for digital music.
Today, Verizon Wireless only offers music phones , similar to Rork that Motorola, Apple and Cingular launched to much fanfare in September. Only, unlike Rork, Verizon's music phones don't easily work with iTunes, the service that's used by the lion's share of digital music downloaders. And while Cingular made a big deal of the service, Verizon hasn't made much noise about its phones so far.
In rolling out a service allowing for over-the-air music downloads, Verizon is clearly behind Sprint. And while Verizon says its service's features will be more exciting than Sprint's, I've got to see that to believe it.
What I've read about the new service so far seems to be a rerun of what Sprint or Cingular offer already. Sure, the new music service will allow not just for over-the-air music downloads but also for transfering music between Windows-based PCs and mobile phones. But Sprint users can already do that .
Perhaps Verizon, which developed the feature together with Microsoft, is going to make the process more seamless. That would be very valuable.
Perhaps the service will also be less choosy than Sprint's in terms of the types of music files it can play on cell phones. Sprint's service can't play certain music files formatted for the PC.
I hope that's the case, and that Verizon will introduce some unique capabilities rather than simply play catch-up.
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The BitTorrent Route to Download Music and Video
First released two years ago the BitTorrent P2P filesharing protocol has been steadily picking up users.Over the last six months it has really taken off — its creator Bram Cohen claims that BitTorrent accounts for a third of all Internet traffic. Most recently it hit the headlines when Cohen met with the head of the MPAA (the US cinema industry association) to discuss how BitTorrent could be used for legitimate commercial services, and agreed to remove any links to copyrighted content from his website.
Firstly, let's clear up the issue of what BitTorrent is and isn't. The press reports on Cohen's meeting with the MPAA have somewhat misleadingly implied that BitTorrent is a P2P network, such as FastTrack or Gnutella, or a software application such as Kazaa or Grokster. It isn't really either of these things — when people say "BitTorrent", they generally mean the open source protocol that can be used to share files over the Internet. There is no BitTorrent network, and neither is there any single piece of client software, although Cohen created the original client, which is also called BitTorrent. However, this is far less popular than other BitTorrent clients from different developers, such as Azureus, BitTornado and BitComet, which have more functionality.
Files are shared by means of a very small "torrent" file placed on a Web site; when a user opens this link with their BitTorrent client, they are connected to a network made up of all the users uploading/downloading that particular file. The BitTorrent protocol works by breaking each file into a large number of small pieces, which are simultaneously uploaded and downloaded by those who are connected to that particular file. In this way, BitTorrent maximises network efficiency by enabling users to simultaneously upload and download the same file.
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