Anticipated Closure of BitTorrent Sites Spurs Panic Downloads In China 114
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."
Re:So, Essentially (Score:5, Interesting)
The difference here is not the medium: the difference is OUR content versus THEIR content. They have no problem letting their citizens pirate OUR content, even resell it, but when it's THEIR music in which some CHINESE company holds IP interest, well... that's a whole other story!
Re:China? (Score:1, Interesting)
There are a bunch of public, open trackers now that are not associated with any source of .torrent files.
http://openbittorrent.com/
http://publicbt.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent_tracker#Open_trackers
Re:China? (Score:2, Interesting)
I remember back in the day where anonymous FTP sites only rumored for containing pornography would be swarmed by downloaders trying to mget the whole site if their location was divulged on Usenet. It was enough that they were hammered for access that they would shut themselves down and purge themselves of their content.
Yes, back in the day when pornography was rare on the Internet, and even rare on Usenet. You young whackersnackers don't know how good you have it today.
Re:China? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:So, Essentially (Score:4, Interesting)
Go to any shop and ask for "huang de DVD" (yellow DVDs - Chinese term for it, think "blue movies"). They have them behind the counter. Usually seem to be Hong Kong girls but the Chinese mafia gets busted for making pornos so there must be mainland girls somewhere. Chinese people get really angry when they see their women debasing themselves in porn (kappa girl). Anyone think their view of Western women is warped due to all the white girls they see doing crazy shit in pornos? Think about all the dumb stereotypes of Chinese people we all got from watching Hollywood movies. Oh, and one more thing...heh, heh...it's funny the guys are supposed to be pornstars but they are not particularly well-endowed.
Extremely poor country? People aren't starving to death, and incomes are rising across the board. The police are neither undermanned nor ill-funded. A country where manpower is cheap and government is absolute? The cops in my town all have new police cars. Cameras are going up everywhere to monitor the whole city - imported products that they paid top dollar for (the guy I know who works on the system said the domestic systems were simply not up to snuff.)
Re:So, Essentially (Score:1, Interesting)
Isn't Japan more populated? I am from China and I always wondered why we still haven't solved the transportation problems.
Re:China? (Score:2, Interesting)
Build the Chinese market (Score:3, Interesting)
The government does this once in a while. The point is to cut off Chinese people from the outside world's contaminating influence as well as stimulate Chinese domestic producers to fill the vacuum of demand. They'd rather have content producers they control promoting socialist morality [china-consulate.org] instead of foreigners with silly ideas like voting (universal sufferage/if you can breathe you can vote...not like wise Confucian sages ruling because they're the smartest and therefore obviously the best [at least in the eyes of the Confucian sages]). Other corrosive Hollywood ideas include: pervasive contempt for authority figures like police, glorification of criminals and violent mafia, scenes of excessive violence designed to stimulate the dark parts of the human soul, and so on. Be disciplined and law-abiding, not chaotic and lawless; Live plainly, work hard, do not wallow in luxuries and pleasures...what would Hollywood look like if they had to follow government-mandated guidelines like these when making films?
And people can just get it elsewhere? Sure, but remember the Great Wall was only a wall. I mean, you could climb over it if you wanted...it just made your job harder, that's all. Same with the Great Firewall (actually named Golden Shield because it's meant to defend from attacks from outside while keeping China's domestic internet safe) and other barriers. They're not omnipotent, they are but mere cumbersome obstacles.
The site was closed because it didn't have an "Information Network Broadcast Audio Visual Programming Permission Certificate" from...you guessed it...SARFT! AKA The State Administration of Radio Film and Television, AKA the Comics Code Authority [lambiek.net], AKA the Thought Police. This wasn't a commercial or copyright dispute, otherwise it would be handled by a different government agency. This was purely cultural in nature.
The funny part is, with all these people on bitorrent at once, download speeds have never been higher! ;)
Re:So what now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:So, Essentially (Score:1, Interesting)
How that became insightful is beyond me. 30 years was enough time to focus on building a modern society. With too high of a birth rate they were putting all their resources into training for the future. Generation after generation. When that finally stopped and a much higher percentage of their resources could go to building a good society for the current generation instead of building an opportunity for the next generation to do so.
Now China has an emerging crisis as they may have done it too quickly and they will now get old before they get rich.
Re:Blocking porn? Noooo! (Score:1, Interesting)
The same reason why the Church is against the gays.
Because they reduce the birthrate?
Because someone besides them might start fucking their altar boys.