Why every Torrent thread is ultimately closed?

Why?

All agree that Torrenting is not illegal.. infact its the best use of Internet.

and Downloading big files like Setups, Sending your camcorder videos, your Mixes ..it all is so easier with P2P .


So why do mods dont let us discuss effectice use of Torrents?

Trying to improve Torrent speed by bypassing ISP firewall or Port forwarding is not illegal

 

I totally agree, It was the only way i could get a copy of Vista and do a clean install!

 

LOL...isn't this the reason they close these kinda threads ?

 

Most likely, but it`s not illegal as long as you have a valid licence, you just have to be careful of virus, spyware!

 

You don't really pay for the files - you pay for the key. It's legal.

Edit: To the OP - It seems like EVERYONE has this taboo thinking that OMG TORRENTS ILLEGAL DOWNLOADS MUSIC HACKS FILES OMG OMG OMG.

 

Probably because, sooner or later (usually sooner rather than later) such threads almost inevitably start bringing up questions about assistance with doing things of dubious legality, and NBR seems to have a more-or-less consistent policy of being conservative with respect to matters of questionable legality (when you cannot afford to keep a team of lawyers on permanent retainer, taking the conservative approach is the only way to go these days).

Quite frankly, even one lawsuit against NBR on the ground that it illegally facilitated the violation of someone's copyright by providing the means by which the actual violator learned the techniques needed to do so, even if meritless, would most likely bankrupt NBR - you're talking at least $50,000 to $100,000 in legal fees just to get such a lawsuit dismissed with prejudice. Anyone care to pony up that kind of cash as security for NBR so that they can be more liberal in letting such discussions continue?

For example, all would agree, I think, that a mere discussion of the torrents technology, divorced from any particular use, is fine and dandy because there are certainly plenty of potential uses for it that are perfectly legal (e.g., moving your own stuff around amongst various different computers/servers that you own and that are only accessible by you).

However, as soon as some pops up with a question about, e.g., running torrents through a school network, and it isn't clear from the post that the poster has obtained permission from the school's network admin to run torrents on the school's network, the subject matter has gone from a discussion of things that are clearly legal to a discussion of things that are of dubious legality (in my hypo, getting around restrictions that a network owner has put in place and exceeding the terms on which you, as a student, were permitted to access that network).

As another example, take Tinderbox_(UK)'s situation - if Tinderbox posts asking for help on how to torrents a copy of _Vista, but doesn't make it explicitly clear that s/he already owns a valid _Vista license, and that s/he is trying to torrents a copy of _Vista from a legitimate source that has the permission of Microsoft to "publish" copies of _Vista in such a manner, then s/he would be asking for help on a matter of dubious legality, and a conservative policy such as NBR's would obligate the moderators to shut the thread down.

And these are just the plain-vanilla examples; I've seen a few on NBR that were more or less blatant requests for help in torrenting something that was clearly in violation of copyright (e.g., how do I get a ripped copy of Just-Released-Major-Movie from hackersRus.com).

 

I'm certain you know what Microsoft's views are regarding torrents and their operating systems. If Chris Pirillo and Jake Ludington received Cease and Desist letters when they provided torrents for Vista Beta 2, I'll go ahead and guess that everyone else that's doing it would also get a similar letter from Microsoft.

If it was ok, Microsoft (and every other software provider) would have torrents available.

As for the bypassing of ISP firewalls - unless you get written permission from the ISP (the people who provide your link to the outside world) to bypass their firewall, it really isn't up to you to decide what is legal and what is not.

 

Are Torrents demonized because they make great use of internet by actually using Bandwidth?

i mean its just a great piece of technology ...i dont know even today why its Not actually commercially utilized.

just a lack of Marketing ideas i guess.

 

According to the Wikipedia BitTorrent article, it is being used commercially by some outfits.

 

It's used by a lot of Linux developers for users to download cd/dvd's, too.

But I thing it's used more for illegal activity than good. But know way to get those numbers.

And since networks have gotten faster it's not needed as much any now.

 

Because mod's think there cool enforcing invisible rules.

I got banned like three times for posting "if you need help, pm me"

I didnt know offering for help constituted a breach in the rules...

Lmao.....

 

Going to a torrent site for "legal fun" is like walking into a p0rn shop and just looking for a candy bar by the register.

 

LOL...I understand your logic and comparison; but at the same time, I can honestly say that at one point I thought about using a torrent site like piratebay to upload and share/make any file(s) I wanted, accessible to anyone whom I wished around the world. So while I understand what you mean, it still can be used for good...I guess its legality boils down to what's being shared/pirated by whom and to who. ​

In Ref. to what Shyster was saying in this post.

 

Someone mentioned Linux - Linux is distributed on servers reachable via FTP around the world.
When I wanted a copy os Suse Linux 10 for my old Medion laptop I went to the Linux site where I got several different links.
One was in Karlsruhe (highest German court there too).
So if you get Linux off their official site (overal site) you need FTP not a torrent...

 

Doesn't Blizzard use torrents to distribute their patches for World of Warcraft, and to download games?

 

yeah notebook review mods are insanely conservative, i blame American born again Christians, everything is illegal to them!

the fact of the matter is that torrents are legal it's like banning laptops because you can view child p0rn on it. (man shouldn't of said that, now the mods are going to ban NBR, noooooooooo!!!!), Just because things can be used illegally doesn't mean it should be banned, for example knives, guns, nuclear fission, the internet, cars, etc i could go on forever.

plus i'm pretty sure there have been some precedence in place where bit torrent was found to be legal, therefore any case brought against NBR would be short lived with the suee liable for costs (well maybe in a perfect world)

 

Orcus Dreki - the US is infamous for its lawsuits.
(I personally don't know how companies survive "over there"...)
But putting that aside:

In the UK a burglar sued a houseowner because he (the owner) was rebuilding part of his property and the burglar claimed it wasn't properly secuzred. What the heck was he doing tresspassing in the first place? The burglar also won!!! That was in the UK...

I blame it on the Jury system.

In Germany a skier tried to sue a mother for not constantly watching her child on a sky slope and he either skied into the child or fell avoiding it. Thankfully the judge threw the case out of court - reason: You can't expect parents to watch their children 24/7, how do you "control" them on a sky slope anyway, and one should always take care of oneself and others on a sky slope.

The problem is that the moment you even try something it gets labelled as unsafe or whatever.
I presented a Tesla transformer in class in Germany 3 times, in England I couldn't have done it - health and safety...

It the suing culture that has evolved...
(and I thought Europe stayed sane...)

 

I think a lot of people are missing the whole point here. Threads discussing torrents don't get closed because they contain a discussion of torrents qua torrents; they get closed because they invariably end up veering off into a discussion of activities, and requests for help therewith, that are of dubious legality.

Here's an analogy: Suppose we start an academic discussion over how firearms work, in particular, semiautomatic rifles such as the civilian versions of the AK-47, and suppose the discussion gets pretty detailed on all of the inner mechanisms, including the firing sequence and mechanics.

Then someone comes along and asks, "hey, does anyone here know that you can convert a semi-auto AK-47 to full-auto if you tie back one of the internal components? I'm curious about that and was wondering if anyone could explain the exact steps to me."

That's the point when the discussion has to end, at least on a public thread, because it's no longer just an academic/engineering discussion, it's now veered into a discussion about how to do something that is illegal in many countries, and in a situation where no-one in that discussion has any idea whether the person asking the question (a) is just academically curious, (b) wants to do the mod, but would never, in a million years, point the gun at anything other than a practice target with a proper backstop, or (c) an out-of-control teen who's got a black trenchcoat hanging in the closet and a deathwish.

Now, in some countries, owning a full-auto assault rifle is not only legal, it's recommended; but in most countries, it's illegal. Furthermore, while there are certainly some fun legal things one can do with a fully automatic assault rifle, like trying to cut a tree down from 10 metres away, there are many, many more illegal things that can be done with such a weapon, and I think that all here would agree that helping someone to make an illegal modification to a weapon, thereby enhancing its destructive potential, would be a reckless, possibly criminal thing to do, unless we knew the person in question well enough that we could say with substantial certainty that s/he wasn't going to go out with that modded weapon and shoot up a school or two.

A little radical? Yes, for obvious purposes - to make a point. An academic discussion of torrents and of clearly, explicitly stated, legal uses is completely innocuous, and I do not believe for a second that any mod here would shut such an academic discussion down. However, torrents also make it very, very easy to steal intellectual property - to literally steal food from the mouths of the creator's family - and thus, given the predilection to confuse intellectual property with air, such discussions almost inevitably veer off into the thickets of dubious, or outright illegal uses. At that point, the discussion simply has to be shut down, for exactly the same moral and ethical reasons why my hypothetical discussion of an AK-47 would have to be shut down once someone asks about making a modification that would render the weapon illegal, and substantially increase its utility for illegal purposes.

I suppose, if the mods were all independently wealthy, and wanted nothing more in this world than to sit around all day reading the collective drivel that comes from 99.9% of us - myself most assuredly included - that it would be reasonable to expect the mods to simply excise the dubious or illegal posts and leave the thread to continue on its merry, academic way; however, this is life, not a novel written by Voltaire, and this is most certainly not the best of all possible worlds.

As a result, given that the mods are unpaid and heavily overworked, and certainly have lives beyond reading NBR posts, the realistic, pragmatic result is that they will simply close a thread once it's veered off in the direction of discussing dubious or illegal activities, instead of trying to fight a constant battle to weed out the bad posts and excise those and only those.

As an aside, I would note two things:
(1) this thread hasn't been shut down so far, even though it does contain substantive discussion of torrents, so the original charge against the mods must fail, and

(2) yes, it is possible to modify an AK-47 to convert it from semi-auto to full-auto, but no, I'm not going to say how, or provide any links, for precisely the reasons I stated above.

 

Guys, please let's just end this discussion here...so I don't have to see another long post from Shyster! *sigh*

 

Short enough?

 

Besides, there are better alternatives to bittorrent.

Newzbin and Newsrazor

 

People need to stop comparing Torrents to lawsuits and weapons.

Seriously,that's the dumbest comparaison there is avaible.

There are some illegal copyrighted materials on torrents but there are legit ones too.

The person who downloads decides, not the mods.

 

Eh, there are some illegal uses of firearms but there are legit ones too.

The person who pulls the trigger decides, not ... oh, wait, I forgot, we live in Nanny-land, where you can't own a firearm, because the leftists have decided, already.

That being said, NBR is entitled to decide how carefully it wants to avoid the possibility of being sued because someone posted something connected, in some way, to wrongful activity, and to impose restrictions on use accordingly. If that's too much of a hassle for the "freethinkers" here, I suppose they could always start their own fora, couldn't they.

 

I think Shyster is completely right here.

- it'll annoy some people, but then, if you have got a question an believe you have been unfairly treated, you can always open a thread with your question, expanding on why you want to know, and why it doesn't break forum rules/could be potentially damaging to Notebookreview.

Lets say I lost the password for my Router.
(In fact I did change it and had problems getting back in, LAN or Wi-Fi took ages to authenticate... changed the settings, all is fine now)
If you just ask how to circumwent the passowrd people will complain.

If you ask how you can get around it on your home router people may tell you how to restore your router to the factory settings (although I think there is a button for it on the machine) something you could only do if you own the router.

That is another problem of forums - you don't know the circumstances, you don't know the people. You don't know if they intend harm or if they just sepculate.
Thus anything that goes beyond the freedom of expresison has to be sometimes a bit overcautious.