So, what happened to sharing for its own sake?

[anon]

Four years ago, back in 2007, I had a 2Mbit connection and much less experience than I do now. I was slowly learning about private torrenting, and some of you may remember I was pretty lucky to be offered a TL invite back in those early days. Well, as expected, I leeched stuff from there, and one day I noticed I was almost maxing out my speed from a single peer connection.

"This guy must have a great upload speed", I thought. Then I learned what a seedbox was. And that you had to pay for it. Fair enough.

Then, some time after that, I learned about warez forums and the URL of some pretty massive ones.

I looked at the subforums and thought, "man, look at all the stuff people upload, just to share it with others and expecting nothing but a 'thank you' in return". Then I learned they were getting "points" or even money for each download, and that the thank yous they asked for were to keep the thread bumped, making it more visible and thus generating extra profit. That was pretty rough to find out about, but hey, I was getting my stuff anyway. So what?

Fast forward a lot, and some months ago, I was browsing through a tracker's torrent list, and upon loading the details page for some movies I was interested on, I noticed the same guy always first in the comments, posting screens of the videos the uploaders did not (as it was a Scene-only tracker, and they could only put untouched NFOs in the descriptions), so that we could check the quality before doing anything else. I said to myself, "hey, I'm not sure this guy's downloading every movie and taking screenshots, but wherever they're from, he's uploading them and always posting first".

Yeah, you probably already know how this ends. A bit after that I browsed that tracker's forums, just for fun, and I noticed a topic called "the image host for the screens sucks" or something similar. I opened it, and I read a nice comment from an administrator along the words of:

Maybe the hoster sucks for you, but bear with it. The screen poster is making money from that, so it's not going to change

So, everywhere I go, people appear to be somehow gaining something out of what looks like innocent sharing for the uninformed. Be it money, points to get stuff you have to buy "for free", you name it.

My question is the same one as in the title - what happened to "sharing"? Sharing a movie just because you want people to enjoy it, posting screens so that others don't have to waste time to see if the quality is good, and doing it because of that and nothing else? Is it OK for them to profit from that, even a bit, just because they're using their own bandwidth to upload someone else's work? Is it a "victimless crime" on its own world (they profit and no one is affected negatively)?

Discuss.

[Resurrection]

Perhaps you're not looking in the right places...The many music forums I'm part of don't require anything except gratitude from me and I'm more than happy to give it...


But one can always nitpick...
In any case,there's no such thing as a 'selfless act'....

[anon]

The many music forums I'm part of don't require anything except gratitude from me and I'm more than happy to give it...

Well, it's good to know there are sites out there that really believe sharing is caring, and not a means to an end.

[theintervurt]

What about public trackers ? Either way I believe all that is just part of the system and it's not something Id criticize since at the end of the day we all pretty much get what we want right.

[anon]

What about public trackers ?

Well, some people there use them as a platform to spread their trojans and infect computers for their own reasons, but maybe I'm nitpicking as Res said. I'll be frank and say my personal experience on public sites had been largely devoid of the kind of stuff I described in the first post.

Either way I believe all that is just part of the system and it's not something Id criticize since at the end of the day we all pretty much get what we want right.

Yes, I'm not criticizing that kind of actions either. If I can get the files, then I really don't care if someone's making cash off them or not, in the end. But I've had this in my mind for a while, so I thought I'd post and see the different ideas people here have about it.

[Instab]

every seedbox user dös share for free and there're lots of them. i think that's the major difference between och and torrent, it's not for the money.
and don't forget the countless home users maxing out their tiny upload speed to give a little bit, too

[Mihai]

I think it's just the same everywhere. Just check out programs for example: people make it at first and they are free but then the people making it want to get something more for it not just gratitude since gratitude doesn't pay the bills so they think of making money out of it.

It's the same everywhere and lets face it: if you could make money out of sharing would you not share even more than before just for the money?

[silencer1980]

@anon

i believe especially in Turkey , Turkish release groups like ViSiON doin' their share just for gaining FAME on torrent network.
They release every movie what other p2p groups did.

i don't think that SCENE groups like SiNNERS,ESiR,Eureka or Reloaded doing this for fame that they already got.

P2P groups are small and fame-looking youngsters

and that makes me mad.

in that case Sharing equals to gaining fame on net.

that's all i can say about it.

[anon]

every seedbox user does share for free and there're lots of them.

Yes, but that's not what I was getting at with the seedbox comment. Seedboxers themselves are obviously not making a profit, but for dedicated server and seedbox companies, torrenting's obviously a big business.

and don't forget the countless home users maxing out their tiny upload speed to give a little bit, too

Absolutely not

It's the same everywhere and lets face it: if you could make money out of sharing would you not share even more than before just for the money?

Good point.

P2P groups are small and fame-looking youngsters

and that makes me mad.

in that case Sharing equals to gaining fame on net.

that's all i can say about it.

Well, to be honest I don't really see a problem with that. Once you're an established group, if your releases are of good quality, then wouldn't you want "fame" so that more people hear about you and enjoy your stuff?

The problem arises when people start Scene groups or trackers as simply a means to an end (being "famous" on the Internet), and then turn out to be short-lived, crap projects because they only had one idea in mind.

[Instab]

Yes, but that's not what I was getting at with the seedbox comment. Seedboxers themselves are obviously not making a profit, but for dedicated server and seedbox companies, torrenting's obviously a big business

well, somebody has to pay for the lines and hardware

[anon]

That's out of the question, but the purpose of running a business is making money. The companies are obviously making some degree of profit besides the part of the money that's used to run the servers.

[Instab]

That's out of the qüstion, but the purpose of running a business is making money. The companies are obviously making some degree of profit besides the part of the money that's used to run the servers.

of course, you didn't expect companies to support torrenting?

[anon]

Absolutely not

With the way some of the onshore ones advertise themselves ("get a good ratio on torrents from private trackers!") I'm surprised they haven't been shut down. Must have an army of great lawyers.

[Instab]

Absolutely not

With the way some of the onshore ones advertise themselves ("get a good ratio on torrents from private trackers!") I'm surprised they haven't been shut down. Must have an army of great lawyers.

hehe, that's indeed borderline

[grilled]

Well personally i dont mind if someone is making money by uploading or posting screens or asking for a thank just for the thread to be bumped.When? when i am getting that stuff for free.And i feel nobody should mind.Bcoz they are sharing much of their content to a huge amount of people for free.And if the site where they post are paying them its just bcoz the site also makes money.And we the general people are benefited.

And i know many general people i am talking here i.e.the common man many have started a full fledged business with the help of free tuff.
They download latest movies both Local & foreign;porn; latest games;all new music. Copy the stuff to CD's & DVD's & open a shop & sell it in the market for a small amount of money.Many dont mind paying Rs.20 for a pirated DVD bcoz the original version would cost many times more.this is how a pirate market exist in every place.

The people who really should care about the guys being paid are the ones who are doing the same work for free.
Then they can raise question about where's the whole idea off sharing is caring.