CW 172
Copyright Watch 172
As the clamps come down on BitTorrent, LokiTorrent fight back.
In case you haven’t been keeping up, BitTorrent was the file transferring medium of choice for the past twelve months. With the traditional P2P networks either in court, awaiting court, or having converted to rip-off legal download services, those wanting to share online content with others stepped across to this more vague means of transfer.
While bitTorrent has a perfectly legitimate use as a means of transferring content, it of course is used to illegally share music, films, and software. This means litigious bodies had to find a new way to attack, and as is so often the case it’s taken them a long time to catch up. Of course they now have, and the result is that major sites providing the bitTorrent links that allowed users to find one another are beginning to close down. Suprnova, probably the biggest and most widely used, folded over Christmas, with other smaller sites jumping ship with it. However, because these sites contain no illegal material themselves, and nor do they facilitate the transfer of illegal material, some are questioning the validity of these threats. And one site isn’t backing down.
Loki Torrent (www.lokitorrent.com) are being sued by the MPAA, and they’ve decided to fight. Their site states, “If you’ve ever benefited from this site or file-sharing in general, now is the time to show your support. We are looking at a cost of $30K per month in fees… Help us fight back and ensure your right to share doesn’t end here.”
It should be an extraordinary case, and one that Copyright Watch will follow very carefully. At the time of writing they have managed to raise $30,000 for the first month of the case, although they need a lot more. Whatever the result, it will at least make more clear where the lines lie for file sharing, and how much control the corporations really have. Meanwhile, the Exeem project (no site yet) is developing a new means for BitTorrent file sharing without a need for the pesky central website.