Torrents: you UP as you DOWN, so you break the law?

The RIAA can and do sue p2p client users for sharing files, regardless of the term 'uploading' and it's cloudiness in these instances.

Likewise, people who download and subsequently provide the means for others to download from them are liable, according to those chumps.

What I'm saying is Limewire, etc. give you the option to NOT share.

Torrent clients don't. As you're downloading, if someone jumps on the torrent, you automatically start sharing with them. Right?

You can configure yourself not to share using Torrents. I mean, it's possible to do it. But the D/L time is much slower then..

You mean with your firewall or something or within the actual BitTorrent client?

I think only with the firewall...

I don't suppose you've considered just not being a douche and sharing like you're supposed to? And if you're not willing to do that, don't use sharing networks?

I thought this was a hypothetical question about legality...

Dear Mr. Antichrist,
Didn't we all decide "douche" was a lame insult just a few weeks ago here on ILX. You must've missed the memo, "cockfarmer." Catch a disease.

As far as Oink goes, downloading a torrent from the seeder does not mean that you're simultaneously allowing others to download it from you. If there's only one seeder (the person who initially uploaded the torrent to the site), that seeder is the only source for that particular torrent at that particular time. You yourself would have to seed (i.e. enable downloading) those files you've already downloaded in order for others to download from you. It's not automatic.

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So you're not going to answer my question?

Oh, sure! Didn't realize it wasn't rhetorical. You're not "supposed to" share. You can share if you want to. I don't want to.

cdwill, how do you figure? I have yet to see a torrent network or app that doesn't share with others as you're downloading, even if just from one seed (and even if you can turn the feature off). The idea of bit torrent is that you're not sharing whole files, just bits and pieces in no real order. So if I download piece "X" from the seed, then someone else - currently downloading piece "Y" from the seed - can then get "X" from me, and vice versa.

Right?

Yes, Josh, I think you're right. Oink looks like any other torrent client to me.

Oink isn't a torrent client, it's a website.

And as far as torrents are concerned you are "supposed" to share. That's how they work. Most of the torrent sites that require membership (Oink, Indietorrents, My Spleen, etc.) also require that you keep your share ratio above a certain level or they ban you.

Well, that settles that. On Torrent you are "supposed" to, therefore there is no way NOT to. On Limewire, it's optional. So, for torrents, I'll stick to legal live shows.

Josh, my understanding is that if you need x piece of the torrent, you have to get that piece from someone who's seeding the torrent.

When only one seeder exists at a given time, all downloaders must download the entirety of the torrent from that seeder. Once someone has the entire torrent and can reseed, all other downloaders can now get the pieces they need from two sources: the initial seeder (provided he keeps seeding) and the seeder who once was a downloader. I say this because if no one has completely downloaded a torrent from the single seeder that exists, the download stalls and people begin to ask "where'd the seeder go?" It's only after multiple seeders exist can a downloader get the pieces he needs from those multiple sources.

As far as Oink goes (never used any other site), I'd think that if someone downloading a torrent were simultaneously uploading to others, that person's ratio would reflect an increase in both the amount dowloaded AND the amount uploaded, but as far as I know, it doesn't. If it did, seems like there'd be less concern over keeping one's ratio up.

I may be wrong about this, though, and if someone wants to jump in and correct me, I'd appreciate it.

I don't think that is the case. Certainly on the site I use, the amount you upload while downloading is added to your share ratio.

i just click "remove task" once my download is done. i'm too selfish to keep seeding once i've got what i want.