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March 11, 2008
Begging ... the BitTorrent culture
Most of the increasing number of people who download BitTorrent files of television shows seem to use aggregators like ISOHunt (which is currently displaying an impressive graph tracking the growth to 1 million torrents). But if you're really addicted, and you want faster downloads and a good selection, to say nothing of better protection against malware, it's infinitely better to join a dedicated site that specialises in a particular geographical area, or possibly a genre.
In our next column, for instance, we've mentioned UKNova and a couple of others (although we've just discovered TheBox.bz, which seems to be by far the best source for British TV).
These sites don't allow just anybody to use their trackers. You have to be a member, and you have to observe certain rules, including maintaing a decent upload/download ratio. They maintain strict membership quotas to manage their resources, and often it's difficult to join. You have to wait until somebody leaves or gets kicked out, and the attrition rate for the really good sites tends to be disappointingly small.
There are classes of members, which enjoy different privileges, and over a couple of years now, we've managed to maintain PowerUser status on our preferred sites, which means we've uploaded far more than we've downloaded. We've also tried to contribute to the online forums etc. It requires quite a commitment, and not everybody is prepared to do it.
If you are prepared to put in the effort, however, you can obtain the occasional invitation which you can distribute to friends. Here's the difficult part. If your friend turns out to be a "leech", and doesn't take his or her responsibilities seriously, your recommendation can cause you problems ... even losing your own membership.
That's why the increasing posts to various forums begging for invitations to one site or another constitute a growing irritation. If you don't know the person making the request, it seems irresponsible to give them what amounts to a character reference. Unfortunately we don't have well-defined rules of etiquette in these matters, or the equivalent of those signs that used to hang in many businesses before the days of credit cards, declaring "Please do not ask us to cash a cheque, because refusal may offend".
If you don't have any way of demonstrating your bona fides, it's better not to ask. And if you do have an invitation to share, you'd better take care to spell out to whoever you might be thinking of giving it to, precisely what will be required.
Having made that perfectly clear [grin] we'd love somebody to send us an invitation to Diwana and/or AussieTorrents.
Posted by cw at March 11, 2008 09:40 AM
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Comments
The recent demise of demonoid saw a flood of refugees looking for alternative sites. I remember scouring my network of contacts for a demonoid invite though i stopped short of 'begging'. Instead I found my current site which operates exactly as you described in your post. We had quite a few demonoiders land at Crikeym8. I hadn't even heard of the two sites you mention (probably more a reflection on me). Usenet too though will give you quicker access to content but you need to pay for access as far as I know. Torrents sure are the easy option.
Posted by: flotoonie at March 11, 2008 01:18 PM
Posted by: Stephen at March 12, 2008 05:56 AM
Excellent post, Stephen. UseNet does not exist, of course. But if it did, you'd have to be very careful about downloading stuff.
There are some helpful tutorials on how to use the non-existent service (although the author does seem to have a bit of a burr under the saddle about Internode.
I, however, am awfully glad I've got an Internode account.
Posted by: cw at March 12, 2008 10:45 AM
˙ʞǝǝds ʇǝǝl ǝlƃooƃ ˙ʇǝǝl lǝǝɟ ʎǝɥʇ os ǝʇıs ǝʇɐʌıɹd ǝɹǝɥʇ ɹoɟ ɹǝʞɔɐɹʇ ɐ ǝʇɐǝɹɔ uǝɥʇ puɐ ʇǝuǝsn ɯoɹɟ sǝsɐǝlǝɹ zǝɹɐʍ qɐɹƃ ʎldɯıs sɹǝʞɔɐɹʇ ǝʇɐʌıɹd ʎuɐɯ ʇnq llɐ ʇou
Posted by: Stephen at March 12, 2008 02:27 PM