Bit by bit, technology marches on
Terry Wuerz, Volunteer Staff
Back in the wild and wooly year of 2000, you made the realization that records generally produced one or two really good songs, with the rest of the record being made up with mainly junk, or filler. So you tried downloading music onto your computer using Napster. Sure, all the kids were doing it. Back then, it was almost uncool not to download music, and with CD prices the way they were, who would want to argue?
Now, with the days of Napster behind us, downloaders have moved onward in search of faster and better ways to download music. There have been numerous successors of the original file-sharing behemoth, but none have advanced the business of getting your media for free as much as BitTorrent has.
In the peer-to-peer (or P2P, if you still live with your mom — ahem, I mean, if you are privy to current computer lingo) file-sharing world, if Napster was your first two-wheeler, BitTorrent is the new Kawasaki sportbike you will never be able to afford. Essentially, it is a whole lot faster.
BitTorrent is fast because of the way in which its files are shared. Napster depended on a direct line of connection between the computer wanting the file and the computer that had the file available for download. If the person who had the file suddenly went offline or cancelled the download, the person receiving the file would have to either start again or search for someone new.
This worked well for smaller files, such as single music tracks. Kazaa and Limewire, which are more direct successors of Napster, have made improvements to the process, but the idea behind their applications has remained the same.
Bram Cohen, the inventor of BitTorrent and purported owner of a car with a bumper sticker reading “Destroy Capitalism,” thought of a new way to share files over the Internet. Instead of downloading a file in one piece, files are broken down into much smaller fragments of around 250 KB each. Fragments are transferred independently of one another, not sequentially, as they are with other P2P file distribution systems.
Furthermore, downloads are no longer simply from one person to another. Instead, massive groups of downloaders and uploaders of a single file are grouped together into what has been called a “swarm.” This means that for any one fragment, there may be dozens or even hundreds of uploaders for your BitTorrent client to choose from. To increase the efficiency of the swarm, BitTorrent will actually download the rarest fragments in the swarm first.
All this means that it is now possible to acquire whole albums of music in the time it used to take to download a single hit. Furthermore, with all this new and fast technology, bigger and bigger files are routinely being shared.
I am sure that the majority of readers will already know that it is possible to find whole DVD movies and even TV series for download on the Internet. BitTorrent makes this sort of thing ridiculously easy. Before going to bed, you make a quick search for the latest season of Six Feet Under. When you awake, the antics of Nate, David, Ruth and Claire Fisher are yours to enjoy.
In case you have not yet developed a guilt complex over your downloading habits, allow me to assure you that the majority of young Canadians are in your corner. On the other side of the ring, down but not out, are the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA) and Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), which are championing on behalf of artists and support people involved in making movies and records by using anti-piracy legislation and advertising campaigns. In the past year, the MPAA has filed international lawsuits against dozens of BitTorrent trackers.
Yet, the verdict is unclear as to whether or not it is actually the artists, technicians and other “little guys” involved in the process of creating retail CDs and DVDs who are suffering from this technology. Artists themselves are somewhat torn over the issue. On the one hand, users who may have otherwise coughed up the $15 or so for a CD can now have it for the price of a blank CD, or for nothing at all if they keep it on their computer.
Groups such as Metallica have lashed out publicly against music downloading, resulting in the banning of 300,000 people who illegally downloaded their demo track “I Disappear” from Napster. Others feel that file-sharing on the Internet has generated a larger fan base. The money they may have lost on record sales is often recouped in increased tour coverage, greater merchandise sales, and so on.
Whether or not you will be able to look at yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning for having downloaded illegally is something you will have to come to terms with on your own time. What is certain is that the technology is here and will likely only become faster and more accessible as the years roll on.
Terry Wuerz is a third-year medical student.
