Followup regarding using BitTorrent: why and what for?

[Diana]

Legitimate question. Years ago I used to play around with it, getting on UseNet and such, finding stuff. It has been years, as I said, and I have largely gotten away from it.

What do YOU use it for? What topics interest you that require it? Curious minds would like to know.

Diana

[Mr645]

I subscribe to a service that provides motorsports events from around the world. Stock car racing from Australia? British Superbikes? virtually anything motorsports related televised anywhere. Got to watch what language it's in. $15.99 per month and the array of motor sports events are available via Torrents to download. You earn discounts on the monthly fee by uploading data to other subscribers. If you serve twice as much data as you download you pay nothing for the month.

[mattkime]

[Diana]

mattkime wrote:

miley-laughing001:
No. I’m not a cop or affiliated with any law enforcement. Just genuinely would like to know what folks use it for. I found a site that has lists of large amounts of scientific data, for instance. Which surprised me, as the last time I messed with it I don’t remember it being around. Motor sports, as stated above, also surprises me.

I know some use it for getting movies and music (entertainment stuff) LEGALLY of course.

What else?

[decay]

when i used it, it was for lossless live audio recordings and sometimes video concerts. every so often an out-of-print cult movie that was otherwise unavailable for purchase or rental.

[Diana]

I got a PM regarding my question, and I thought I would expand a bit for everyone else:

The topic of pirating was brought up, not unexpectedly. The "cure" for pirating known as DRM only made it worse. It certainly did not, and still does not, address the issues of WHY people pirate. And yes, I will rip and remove all DRM on the media that I BOUGHT, if at all possible. This certainly does not mean that I'm going to just give it to everyone who comes along, just that I require fair use for the materials that I've bought for my own use.

I stopped using torrents when I started making enough money to buy. But there are still some things that I just cannot afford. That doesn't mean that I'm pirating software; often it isn't something I really NEED, so I make do with something else.

The point of my question wasn't why people pirate (I get that part), but rather what ELSE one would use torrents for. Perhaps it was a naive question.

Diana

Edit: Thanks decay!

[DewGuy]

I use it to download torrents of LibreOffice when new versions become available as it's more reliable than traditional downloads with my crappy internet.

[Diana]

DewGuy wrote:
I use it to download torrents of LibreOffice when new versions become available as it's more reliable than traditional downloads with my crappy internet.

This says a LOT about the quality of internet across the US. This is not something I would have associated with torrents, I guess because I've lived near large cities since the 1980's and my internet has been (somewhat) stable, if slow.

[AllGold]

Yeah, I remember torrenting updates to NeoOffice, LibreOffice, etc., or other open-source software, not because my internet was suspect, but because at the time, torrents were encouraged to take the load off the servers.

[ztirffritz]

It’s still the most efficient way to disseminate large popular files. I still expect it to be integrated into Linux, iOS and/or OS X at some point. Imagine pushing huge updates that download in a fraction of the time because it saturates your connection instead of waiting on Apple.