What Is BitTorrent In Plain English?

[rhondassongs]

I found an article on Digital Music News '7 Reasons why artist should avoid Bit Torrent' and made Bit Torrent sound pretty bad, but the replies in the comments section were so fiercely pro-bit-torrent... It made me curious. I've never heard of this place, only found out a few minutes ago this is something that millions of people seem to be using everyday. I got here, on the home page, and couldn't find anything that explained what it is.

Then I tried reading up on it on Wikipedia but my eyes glazed over after the first 2 paragraphs.

I'm a musician and film maker, not the slightest bit techie, but I'm interested in understanding what this is and how it works so I can decide for myself if it's something we should be involved with... if they even deal with independent people like me and my friends. Lots of doors are only open to major labels.

So, if you can just say in everyday language what this is and where I might find more information, I'd appreciate it.

thx

Rhonda

@RhondasSongs

[Harold Feit]

The short version is that BitTorrent, from a content producer's side, allows their downloaders to contribute to other downloaders getting the content.

The technical aspects are a lot more complicated, but it allows you to have increased distribution speed to your target audience at reduced cost.

Blizzard uses a customized BitTorrent client for their updaters for Starcraft 2, World of Warcraft and Diablo III, giving their users far more speed than could be offered with just the server farm.

Our main page has a "BitTorrent Explained" video that you may want to watch as well.

Also, in the digital music news article, it has a VERY heavy lean towards mimicking the propaganda of the RIAA from the past decade. Point 4 is actually outright false.

[rhondassongs]

Thank you. I looked at the youtube videos explaining BitTorrent. You share bytes so people can process big files. (I think)

The short version is that BitTorrent, from a content producer's side, allows their downloaders to contribute to other downloaders getting the content.

When I saw the RIAA doesn't like BitTorrent, I immediately liked you.

My friend Chris would probably understand the techie implications better than me. But if you guys are all about sharing content, as long as we get paid from somewhere, I'm all for simplifying and streamling the process of actually working with creative, non-techie, not-very-business-minded people... like myself.

I just want to make music and movies with my friends and find new fans.

This could bypass some of the traditional distribution routes.

I'll have a very good look around your sites. But there's definitely mixed messages out there.

Some people think you lot are extremely dodgy.

I'd love to read any links or advice on how it works in a practical sense for people working-class musicians and film makers.

x

[Harold Feit]

From a content creator point of view, I'm personally all about cutting as many middlemen out of the equation as possible.

BitTorrent helps me do that with reduced costs by allowing me to serve my content basically directly to my consumers without having to pay for entire server farms at the cost of having the users also provide upload at least while they're downloading.

[rhondassongs]

Okay, so how do I test this with my own content?

I didn't just write a movie. I partnered with a Swiss tech company. The CEO's a fan of my music, after some intense chats, his team spent a few months creating a working prototype of software that tracks and pays automatically on collaborated works.

I'm looking to complete the ecosystem for utterly independent content creators. Vimeo, MTV, GooglePlay all have stores for indies without a requirement to find a middleman. I've been amalgamating these sorts of places on my pinterest page and making a list on Twitter. Fraxion is testing the software on us and a couple other groups. It means that a garage band can record an album, write down on a piece of paper who gets paid what, upload the album to Fraxion and then promote/sell/stream anywhere with anybody as long as the money goes to their Fraxion account, it's automatically paid as the content creators agreed. We've just bypassed the opaque and confusing 'rights' system in place today.

It's already happening. I'm trying to understand how BitTorrent might fit into the loop.

Where and how do you enter content to the BitTorrent system?

[rhondassongs]

Let me be clear.

I think the current distribution system is unfair and opaque.

I'm interested in streamlining the process of connecting with fans and potential fans

I'm interested in collaborating with my music and film making friends without any of us being personally responsible for collecting revenue on things we create together. Our digital projects belong to the group, not to any single individual.

The copyrights are separate, I'm talking about what was actually created by the group

Can you share some links to your content on here? I'd be very interested.

[Harold Feit]

Most of my content is a set of videos I made for youtube that I offer torrents of as well. They didn't get anything in the line of traffic so I stopped seeding them.

BitTorrent works similar to the older download managers, except BitTorrent downloaders are also partial mirrors. When a downloader completes, they become a full mirror.

You can contact sales@bittorrent.com or bizdev@bittorrent.com if you want direct help from the staff at getting set up.

[rhondassongs]

Oh! Thank you

I'll try that right now.

You've been really really helpful