might want to check out that link to pickypirate, as it seems to be down, or an imcorrect link.

skilled1

It's clearly promoting the use of bittorrent for downloading legal content *cough*

xxdesmus

@pdok: Community based media sharing.

If you don't have anything nice/useful to say, why comment?

Kloud

What exactly is this promoting, anyway?

pdok

@Glich1138: You can't search bittorrent, you can search the torrent trackers.

skilled1

Let first start out by saying that I LOVE Lifehacker! It has been one of those most resourceful website that I have ever found. It not only helps in techy world, but in the real world as well.

I appreciate this post, because let's be honest, I'm a Pick Pirate! So, thank you LifeHacker!

My only concern, and maybe someone can enlighten me, is all these people putting Lifehacker on blast for posting this. If your read LifeHacker, then you understand how much time and effort they put into there posts. They understand the techy in all of us. :) No one is asking you to go to this website, or to start downloading torrents. They are just passing on information that will help a percentage of there readers. No one is forcing your eyes to read it, or your hand to go to it.

bennyfiggy

@Glitch

I understand your sentiment, but I like the fact that Gina et al show us great content, how-to's, and web sites with the caveat usually in place that what we do is up to our own discretion. I appreciate being given the choice.

Greg.Rowler

This is the internet. There is piracy. We might as well learn to use it efficiently.

taybay

I'm disappointed that Lifehacker is promoting this. This site makes absolutely no apologies that it's about pure piracy. The usual arguments of "bittorrent is used for non-copyrighted material too" doesn't hold.

I thought Lifehacker was about improving your life, not stealing the content of others.

By the way, a search of bittorent revealed the Lifehacker book is available there as a scanned PDF. Does that mean Lifehacker is officially endorsing downloading it for free instead of the purchase link to the left of my post?

glitch1138

I use OpenDNS and this is what is under the site's details:

Nameserver trace for pickypirate.com:

* Looking for who is responsible for root zone and followed c.root-servers.net.
* Looking for who is responsible for com and followed m.gtld-servers.net.
* Looking for who is responsible for pickypirate.com and followed ns1.vpslink.com.

Nameservers for pickypirate.com:

* ns1.vpslink.com returned (SERVFAIL)
* ns2.vpslink.com returned (SERVFAIL)

jason724

@skilled1: Their servers are down right now.

jason724

The Release Log ([www.rlslog.net]) is a pretty good torrent critique site, though the writers could use some editing. Games, movies and music torrents are reviewed linked, with plenty of geekiness.

AlexTNOA

@bennyfiggy:
I think if someone set up a web page on "How to Rob BennyFiggy's House" with explicit directions on how to get there and how to break in you might take issue with it, yes? And I suspect their defense of "Awww, shucks I didn't force anyone's eyes to read it" wouldn't help you feel any better.

Like it or not, piracy is against the law. So, yeah, I do take issues with articles on how to pirate better. What if lifehacker started posting articles on how to shoplift better, how to rob banks, or how to carjack someone? Is that still stuff we should really be promoting, both as lifehacker readers and as a society?

glitch1138

Too many negative comments. This is a good, informative, geeky post, Kev, and I'd love to see more similar ones in the future.

I come here for the cutting edge, for cool stuff, for a nice understand of the internet world I live in. Please keep the high quality posts coming! =)

ronocdh

honestly .. if you don't like or believe in the peer to peer world of sharing, go pound sand.

Ace in the Hole

Why are you guys shitting bricks about this?
This isn't the first time Lifehacker has posted something illegal.

They posted guides on how to rip dvds to your computer (if you notice the FBI warnings, that's 100% illegal).

They've posted NUMEROUS topics about bittorrent.

There was that hackintosh guide (I'm quasi sure that this is illegal, since I don't think Apple had any intent of people being able to put leopard on a PC).

They've posted a few guides on finding free music on the web (some are less shady than others, but inevitably, some of this is illegal).

They've posted guides on how to get music off of ipods (which isn't 100% illegal, but copying all of the music off your friends ipod will inevitably be possible with that kind of guide).

Don't get me wrong, though, it's not like I don't pirate stuff. I really couldn't care less what kind of morals LH puts on this site.

"What if lifehacker started posting articles on how to shoplift better, how to rob banks, or how to carjack someone?"
Be intelligent. They're a software site, do you honestly think they would post those kinds of articles? If you really think they will, then just stop reading this site.

dkong1026

@glitch1138: I'd just like to mention that torrents are not illegal in all countries and it's not as much of a moral issue as robbing someone's house. This is the internet not an extension of your country. Sure you could argue that this site is hosted in the US and therefore is subject to US law but if the target of the information is international how can it be subject to any one nation's laws? I completely understand where you're coming from, but in this situation I would argue that since it's not really the same as the type of theft where you "break into bob's house and steal his tv" because you're not actually taking anything from the company they had initially (arguing that they're two different kinds of theft), coupled with the fact that on a world scale this is still very much a grey area, LifeHacker has every right to post this without being devoid of morality.

AnthoMacP

Lifehacker is my main source of information and leads on technology related tools and techniques and I very much appreciate the diversity and thoroughness. Additionally while BT is commonly used for some sketchy things it also means that I or anyone can release a film or anything without having a fortune to cover hosting. Keep it coming.

Wikipedia:
BitTorrent is a method of distributing large amounts of data widely without the original distributor incurring the entire costs of hardware, hosting and bandwidth resources. Instead, when data is distributed using the BitTorrent protocol, each recipient supplies pieces of the data to newer recipients, reducing the cost and burden on any given individual source, providing redundancy against system problems, and reducing dependence on the original distributor.

m.c.cookie

ALEXTNOA - thanks for the link!
Sadly the server still seems to be down for this site, as it sounds like a wonderful technology mashup - the whole process is automatic, right? At least thats how it sounds to me... fetch rss of review, crossmatch with rss of releases. Truly, an example of technology mashup at its best.

Here's hoping they come back online soon.

jamesabruce

I had the chance to use Picky Pirate while it was still up (via an early del.icio.us link), and it was a great example of what computers/Interwebs are made for - to save us time schlepping around.

Unfortunately many recently-released films when downloaded reveal themselves to be password-protected by ad-ridden sites trolling for hits. (This is not specific to Picky Pirate.)
I'm sticking with Mininova, as they have huge variety and a feedback system. I'm happy to poke around Metacritic and Rotten Tomatoes for the pleasure of learning.

Anyone know of other mashup search sites like Picky Pirate?

longbourne

Put a sock in it the lot of you.

Tom-LH

Honestly, I really don't think a mention by Lifehacker is going to effect the use, or non-use of torrents one iota. It's almost rhetorical to pursue this.

onewalrus

@Greg.Rowler: exactly, i agree completely.

wuziq

"By the way, a search of bittorent revealed the Lifehacker book is available there as a scanned PDF."

LOL! I'm very glad to hear that.

But as others have said, this site's posted too many articles promoting smarter, more efficient intellectual property theft for me to get particularly animated about it. As long as they're not repeating the truly vile how-to on clogging up Tor with your torrent traffic, I'm relatively content.

But wait, that was only passing on information. That's harmless; just ask Shi Tao.

NineTailedFox

Lifehacker's a great website, but it's really irritating how some preachers can't resist the temptation to try & use it as a soapbox.

Johnjoe0110

Coming next week - how to cheat your ratio ;)

Its a great idea however - It would be great to see something similar purely promoting opensource / freeware downloads. Maybe LH should start a tracker with all the cool tools that get mentioned ;)

2kreative

Also, I guess then we shouldn't link to any download site or myspace or facebook, there's a lot of piracy there too.

@dkong1026: Actually, what makes a MAC is Apple's operating system in a PC.

Cidinho

@Binks: Not to mention cool legal stuff that can be downloaded by bittorrent, and the number of products that are released firstly in bittorrent (linux compilations)

Cidinho

"The law"... singular... how quaint! Glitch1138 thinks that all countries, everywhere, have the same laws.

I'm a bit tardy to the party, but as seems to come up every time someone takes something Lifehacker posts as a personal affront - Lifehacker's on the internet, a GLOBAL network that nearly everyone can access. Just because you, in your jurisdiction, cannot legally take advantage of a particular service doesn't mean that Lifehacker did a naughty thing by posting it.

I didn't throw a hissy when Lifehacker went Thanksgiving crazy last week - That's just the way stuff goes. I had Thanksgiving in October. Not every Lifehacker post is useful to everyone; that's the nature of the game.

Binks

yay for the dillinger escape plan getting a plug in that post's picture! album of the year!

tubby

@GLITCH1138: Unbunch your crinolines. Don't you have to go teach a Sunday school class or something?

jcabraham

Awesome idea. I'm just missing digital distractions and my cooking shows. There are some Canadian shows that just aren't available in the US, even on DVD.

mathmonkey

While it is possible to use bittorrent to download things legally, such as free operating system ISOs (linux, bsd, etc), the majority of torrent usage is to illegally download music, movies and software.

This post puts Lifehacker on my 'watch list' for removal from my RSS feeds. Crap like the "omg 10 best firefox extensions evar!!!" posts we see every few weeks, and posts that condone piracy are putting lifehacker lower on my list of quality sites.

jtimberman

@glitch1138: Who says "stealing" (I'm sure you mean copyright infringement) other people's work can't improve your life? It sure does mine.

Now if there was a way to sue people for "stealing" my kill or "stealing" my sale by lowering their price....

cde

@RogueDevlin:
I agree, but it's actually against the law to even link to piracy sites in the US/UK.

minus19

Erm, are you not actually breaking the law by linking and promoting a site that condones piracy etc.

Yep you are....

minus19

I must say I'm astonished by all the negative comments regarding this post.
I think many people that read this need to chill out.
I wonder why some people bothered on reading about torrents if they condone them so much. If you're not interested, then why bother? There's content from lifehacker that I don't read if I'm not interested, e.g. mac related. Fact is, even is torrents are used to downlaod illegal software or movies or music or whatever, we have the option to do right or wrong. Pretending that many of us, lifehackers readers, don't use torrents would be very naive.

RogueDevlin

Awesome, thanks again LH! I will definitely check it out once the sites up. Kinda looks like doing top 100 categories @ thePB.org, maybe?

dfg34

@Glitch1138

I think you miss the point of why a vast amount of people use bittorrent, and probably most of the bittorrent users on this site.

It's not about stealing content(although most media is way overpriced), it's about convenience of delivery. I can set my favorite TV shows to download automatically and watch them on media portal whenever I like, I can get a new album DRM free in a few minuets, I can get a movie in a few hours.

Personally I only download stuff that I have bought (excluding TV shows), its much easier to download a movie than rip it onto the hard disk and convert it.

Once the Music/Move/Tv companies get their acts together and learn about the amazing technology that bittorrent is we may finally be able to use it legally. But at the moment it is their own fault.

ringsting

@glitch1138: Glitch, don't be ignorant.

"Piracy" indicates that someone is taking something from someone else. It is a propaganda term used by the RIAA to make a bigger deal about this issue than it really is.

I truly believe that torrents actually do a better job at promoting media. Think of it in terms of test driving a car. If I dl an avi of a movie and enjoy it, then I'll buy it. If I like a song, then I'll go to a concert and get a shirt, if I like a game then I'll buy it to play it online.

Torrents serve an important function for giving people the chance to test the waters. Will there be leechers? Sure. But that doesn't mean it isn't important. Don't stereotype us all and don't believe everything the RIAA wants you to.

jackospade

The server is overloaded or dead currently.

Xaser

I have to laugh at all the people who are commenting that you can use bittorrent to download content legally. Yes, that is very much true. I have used BT to get Ubuntu cd images in the past. Having said that, do I ACTUALLY FRICKIN BELIEVE that MOST people use it to download legal stuff? How naive do you think that I am? Puhleez, don't be ridiculous, you insult my intelligence. For those who argue that in their backwater country, copyright infringement is not illegal, then I say to you, if for the sake of argument, in my country stealing crap from YOUR house was not illegal, then would that make it OK for me to come do so? I would wager that you would have a problem with that, as would any sensible person. (If you don't like my analogy, then imagine that I hacked your home computer from the comfort of my home, in my "nothing is illegal" country, and then I took all the pictures that you took of your girlfriend and I sold them to a porn site or something, after I edited them with my pirate copy of Photoshop.)

If you have a problem with the price of a product, i.e. a DVD Movie, a TV Show, a Music CD, etc. then you have the choice not to buy it. If enough people were to make that same choice, then I guarantee the price would change to reflect demand.

That being said, yes, I do have a problem with how much stuff costs, especially when those costs change based upon quality and not content (ala HD-DVD, BlueRay, SD-DVD, cassette tapes, CD's, 8-track tapes, etc) If I am really paying for the artistic value of and the cost to produce something, why do I have to pay more for it in a different format, and why can't I just pay to replace the media if my copy gets damaged?

Don't get me wrong. I am not going to tell you that I've never ripped a DVD movie, or gotten a TV show off of USENET, or grabbed an E-Book off of BT. That is my point exactly, I am not gonna tell you that I didn't or that most people don't, because you wouldn't believe me if I did. I am not judging people because they DO or DON'T use peer-to-peer for illegal purposes, just don't blow smoke about it here and elsewhere, claiming that people MOSTLY use it for legal content, because nobody believes that BS anyway. You're just wasting bandwidth that I could be using to get the latest episode of Heroes.

chrishad95

How many years into intellectual property now? and still people make in-apt analogies to physical objects. Makes you wonder why we went to all the trouble of constructing a legal framework to handle non-physical property.

numbersix

@chrishad95: You're completely missing the point. When you break into a private citizen's house and steal something they've payed money for they're at a direct loss. When I go on bittorrent and download Heroes on monday nights because I prefer to be able to pause it i am 1. not "stealing" because the company has not lost 1 copy of "Heroes Episode whatever" because I downloaded it and 2. The company is not then unable to sell it's cable channel to someone else. 3. Your second analogy is faulty, you just compared a violation of privacy with copyright infringement, the two are not even equatable. Your logic is faulty and thus so is your argument. Violating copyrights is completely different from theft of physical property because one has a direct effect on an individual and the other is a theoretical loss in a single sale assuming the individual was planning on purchasing that item in the first place. Also, calling any country that doesn't have quite the same laws as your own "backwards" is incredibly juvenile and frankly demonstrates how uninformed and how blindly you will follow anything put infront of you by your government.

AnthoMacP

@AnthoMacP: I forgot to mention that I believe my previous analogies to be appropriate. In both of them I was try to address, perhaps inadequately, the "that's not illegal in my country" issue.

chrishad95

@AnthoMacP: I am sorry sir, but I think that YOU missed MY point. My point was and is, don't try to tell me that MOST people are not using bittorrent to download stuff that the producer of said stuff would consider the downloading of it stealing money out of their pocket. I just don't believe that. If you go to PIRATEBAY DOT ORG and look at their top 100 overall you will see that most of the items in that list are movies and games, which if not for the beautiful technology of peer to peer, most people would have to fork some amount of cash over to get their hands on.

I apologize for my off hand "backwater" comment, however it would be interesting to see a list of countries that do consider it stealing to download a cam rip of Resident Evil: Extinction from peer-to-peer, and which countries have not addressed that. Once again, while it may not be illegal in your country (it probably is) it doesn't make it right. I don't believe that everyone who downloads SuperBad using bittorrent would have paid for it if they couldn't download it. That argument is about as lame as the "most people use bittorrent for non-copyright stuff" argument. However, I do believe that some product sales don't get made because when some people see something in the store or wherever that they want, they think, "Nah, I'll just download that later."

Anyone who knows me personally knows that I've always said that the companies that produce this stuff should embrace the technology of peer-to-peer instead of fighting it, because resistance is futile. For every guy that "the man" hires to beat p2p and other technologies, there are a bunch of guys figuring out how to beat the countermeasures, and they aren't getting paid a penny.

There are two things regarding this topic that are true and always will be:

1. Companies will charge as much for a product as people will pay for the product.

2. People will always find a way to steal what they want, when they don't want to pay for it.

So there you go. If you have the time on your hands, take this post tear it apart and tell me that I'm wrong. Just remember, I'm not saying that people should stop using bittorrent. I don't really care. Just don't feed me bs and false arguments. We're all smarter than that.

chrishad95

@minus19: Quit blindly babbling and cite the laws you speak of. It means nothing to say it, everything to prove it...

5h17h34d

I must have missed the post from whoever tried to say that "most people are not downloading illegal stuff".

Using torrents isn't illegal by itself. It's not the first time this topic has been addressed on lifehacker. Therefore, I, for one, wouldn't like to see this being the last post regarding torrents just because of the heated reactions of some readers.

RogueDevlin

jeez. just shutup.

low_dirt

If you aren't making any money off of it (selling it) and you aren't inhibiting others from using it (stealing it) then how is this "piracy" in any way? You're simply vomiting words the RIAA has put into your mouths.

'Linking to a site is illegal' makes no sense.

"If linking is illegal, we might as well shut down the Internet, because there is no practical way anybody can guarantee the legality of what's on the end of any link. Even if you could guarantee it at the time of linking, there's no guarantee it would still be legal less than a second later, or for the rest of time."

jackospade

And FFS, its called PickyPirate, hmm..

minus19

Jackospade, you're an obtuse prick. If you actually knew anything about the law or indeed reality you would realize that PROMOTING COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT IS ILLEGAl, you cunt.

minus19

Let me ask you guys:
What if the labor commission suddenly made coffee illegal because an overwhelming amount of the market uses slave labor to grow the coffee beans and the labor commission uses propaganda to sway people that all coffee is grown by slaves and contains a drug called caffeine that can kill. And this propaganda became solisified in law. Would you still drink coffee? I know most of you do drink coffee as do I, that is why i use it as a point. That point is this is exactly what the RIAA has been doing for many, many years now. It has conditioned many people to believe piracy is wrong, this is simply not true.
Let me ask you some more questions:

What is music? Answer - An art form that is enjoyed together in cultures.

If music is really an art form, whom does is really belong to? The artist? The record company's?

What is the point of a record company? Answer - To promote music.

FACT - They are not doing this, instead they are capitilising on a select few songs and using law to maximize profits. Hence a capitilising industry.

What is the point of a company or an industry? Answer - To make money.

FACT - The major record company's (which by the way are ALL owned by sony in some way) only distribute about 5% of all the worlds music.

I ask you this - can you put a price on culture? This is what the entertainment industry has always done.

Can you regulate culture? Should you regulate culture? Or should culture regulate an industry?

Art is not, and should never be about money but is and always will be about culture.
The law is wrong - Music belongs to the masses.

FACT - Tens of millions of people download music both copyrighted and un-copyrighted around the world.

You tell me does music belong to the people or an industry?

Sorry for my rant but you people really need to educate YOURSELFS. This dispute is not about music, torrents, movies, law or anything you can download but is about money, plain and simple.

You have the best thing to find the truth and that is the internet so dig through the bullsh*t and find it before you post anymore cr*p.

Educate yourself - go forth and find the truth for yourself because nobody will give it to you, at least not in a world where people empowered by greed and act in their own interests.

I want to thank the life hacker team for this article.....I'm just sorry such good information ends in pointless disputes.

toxi