Anticipated Closure of BitTorrent Sites Spurs Panic Downloads In China 114
Posted
by
timothy
from the quickly-now dept.
from the quickly-now dept.
hackingbear writes "Beijing Internet users are scrabbling for downloads from BitTorrent websites following speculation that authorities will shut them down as early as this week. Internet experts told China Daily the failure might be caused by an overload of users seeking last-minute free downloads. As the largest BT download website in China with 5 million downloads each year, VeryCD has been on the verge of closure after the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) shut hundreds of similar peer-to-peer file sharing sites, including the 50 million-user BTChina, during the last 10 days in its latest attempt to fight pornography and piracy online."
China? (Score:2, Insightful)
So what? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:I'm confused (Score:2, Insightful)
That's alright (Score:5, Insightful)
Once the bittorrent trackers in China are down, I'm sure the professional counterfeiters will appreciate the boost in business as everyone heads to the streets for their warez. For the first time, the pirates and the **AA both benefit from the same political action!
Re:So, Essentially (Score:1, Insightful)
this is an extremely poor country with tons of problems and the undermanned underpaid police has much more important stuff to deal with than people copying DVds
Then shouldn't they also have more important stuff to do besides cracking down on fucking internet porn?
Re:So, Essentially (Score:3, Insightful)
I think they're doing it right.
Starting at the latest technologies (P2P Sharing) and working their way backwards. If you can cut off Piracy from the internet, then you can focus on physical media afterwards knowing that very little of it is going to be reproduced - since it can't be file shared as easily.
Stop the net and you stop alot of DVD-R's. If you force Pirates to Film by video cam, the quality of pirated films goes way down and eventually people won't want that pirated version.
How many of those Pirated DVD's in China-town do you think were hand-recorded by the owner of the shop? They were quite obviously fileshared.
Re:So what? (Score:3, Insightful)
Ten years ago, people though China would never be able to censor the net. They were wrong. What makes you so certain this time around?
And where China goes, the West follows. If China succeeds in shutting down bittorrent, your swarms won't be far behind.
Re:So, Essentially (Score:4, Insightful)
1980s: Damnit people, stop fucking. We have too many damn people!
2009: Damnit people, stop whacking off. We need more people!
Make up your damn mind, China.
So what now? (Score:4, Insightful)
Living in China myself, I can access a few BT trackers in English, so that's fine for me. But of course the native Chinese use their own sites, just like they use their own search engine (Bai Du) and their own IM client (QQ). The government here can easily block out the biggest BT sites, just like they block out Facebook, YouTube, Blogger, MySpace, and many other popular western sites. Tor is slower than molasses, sometimes taking up to a minute to display a page here, so that really isn't a replacement, and anonymous web proxies aren't a long-term solution.
Amanda Seyfried/Julianne Moore love scene? Check! (Score:2, Insightful)
So China is, as probably prompted by the US, shutting down file sharing.
Yet that is also a backup distribution method for information in this near-totalitarian society.
I'm glad we have our priorities straight in pressuring them for reform.
Re:So, Essentially (Score:5, Insightful)
Stand in the main hall of the Shanghai train station at 9 PM at night before the last trains are leaving (or really any time). The first thing that will pop in to the minds of most westerners, "why is the police not controlling this riot"?
That is just how China is with that many people. It is rather amazing given the population of China there are not more brutal crack downs in China.
I am not apologizing for the crimes of the Chinese government party, but the western media and politicians often fail to distinguish what it takes to keep order in a country that large and that poor on the one had, and real political and human rights oppression on the other. No country on Earth has ever had to face the problems that China is facing, because no country on Earth has ever been that populated.
Luckily the Chinese government does seem to be getting more sophisticated about it (e.g. cutting off porn sites vs. executing someone for looking at porn), and also seems to be (little by little) starting to realize not everything regarding personal freedom is a direct threat to the state or public order. In fact, the shear white noise of free speech can be a very effective way of drowning out descent. Just look at the United States. It is the tower of digital babel.
Re:So what? (Score:4, Insightful)
Huh? Where'd you get that one, buddy? China has been in a vigorous "learn from the West" campaign ever since the Deng Xiaoping took the Chinese Communist Party down the capitalist road.
Re:China? (Score:4, Insightful)
New movies and new music I can live without, and I imagine that others can, too.
E-books and audio books, not so much.
I could not even conceive of having to go the library for books anymore.
Re:So, Essentially (Score:2, Insightful)
No country on Earth has ever had to face the problems that China is facing, because no country on Earth has ever been that populated.
There are countries with far higher population density than China. But I don't see the Netherlands, for example, shooting dissenters.
Re:Actually (Score:3, Insightful)
Yep. ^^^ What he said. You're suffering from an Americanized delusion of the rest of the world; that's why you didn't know.
Re:So, Essentially (Score:3, Insightful)
Another is the rate of infanticide of female children. One child per family made people do some really messed up stuff.