BT Junkie has just shut down

[slippy wicket]

Hard to feel any pity for those who facilitate theft of intellectual property.

[pierrepoint]

You'll never fully know the true immense power of a man like Sean Sherlock.

There's going to be an awful lot of angry sixteen year olds out there!

[Asparagus]

Hard to feel any pity for those who facilitate theft of intellectual property.

Library's facilitate the theft of intellectual property.
as do shops

providing an often free and useful service and being persecuted for the crimes of others is not worth pity?
or have you prejudged the situation?

[Picasso Republic]

It isn't quite like that.

Its more like:

"I only own the shop. The thieves come in and leave notes showing the addresses of premises where stolen goods can be obtained."

That said, I've no problem with torrent sites being shut down.

The only reason torrents exist in the first place is to allow the distribution of large files that people don't want to put on regular systems.

There are no such files other than counterfeit music, movies and software.
People who equate the shutting down of torrent sites with issues of Internet freedom are just fobbing off non-tech users.

The virulence of theft via torrent is evident from the contributions to this thread.

I would have to disagree with your assumption that the only files which fit into this category are copyrighted movies, music and games. In my line of business I operate several virtual teams and regularly used and use file-sharing sites (megaupload and rapidshare) to easily transfer very large files which cannot be emailed. The information is non-comercially sensitive and always deleted following confirmation that all team members have downloaded - but trust me, there are 500MB files which regularly require transfer in an environment where a VPN is not practical.

In summary, there is some genuine business using services which are seen by many as having no legitimate value.

[jman0war]

Hard to feel any pity for those who facilitate theft of intellectual property.

Next time you're in the doctor's office, consider the implications when you casually pickup that magazine or newspaper to have a browse.
It's intellectual property that you didn't pay for.

Now count each person's browsing of those magazines and newspapers as "lost revenue".
This is exactly what media companies are doing regarding online content.

[jman0war]

I would have to disagree with your assumption that the only files which fit into this category are copyrighted movies, music and games. In my line of business I operate several virtual teams and regularly used and use file-sharing sites (megaupload and rapidshare) to easily transfer very large files which cannot be emailed. The information is non-comercially sensitive and always deleted following confirmation that all team members have downloaded - but trust me, there are 500MB files which regularly require transfer in an environment where a VPN is not practical.

In summary, there is some genuine business using services which are seen by many as having no legitimate value.

Exactly.
Evidently the poster doesn't know anything about commercial graphics industry.
File sizes of single images go into Gigabytes.

[Nemesiscorporation]

A sign of things to come?

Message reads

This is the end of the line my friends. The decision does not come easy, but we've decided to voluntarily shut down. We've been fighting for years for your right to communicate, but it's time to move on. It's been an experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!

btjunkie 2005 -> 2012

The madness is spreading.

A lot of sites are being attacked in numerous countries.

After they are finished with the file sharing sites, I do predict that they will go after very small independant blogging news pages and similar first before moving onto small business's supplying news and news video clips. I was told I was mad for saying that some years ago, but those who told me I was crazy, have since read ACTA and now realise the dangers.

This is purely about legally slanting control towards larger corporations against smaller corporations. The file sharing sites are being used as the thin end of the wedge, nothing else.

[Nemesiscorporation]

I would have to disagree with your assumption that the only files which fit into this category are copyrighted movies, music and games. In my line of business I operate several virtual teams and regularly used and use file-sharing sites (megaupload and rapidshare) to easily transfer very large files which cannot be emailed. The information is non-comercially sensitive and always deleted following confirmation that all team members have downloaded - but trust me, there are 500MB files which regularly require transfer in an environment where a VPN is not practical.

In summary, there is some genuine business using services which are seen by many as having no legitimate value.

I worked on a project last year which had a finished file size of 2400gig (8K video). I had to use a torrent file to get them from the people I was doing the work for and back to them. It was enough to fill a 3 terrabyte hard drive.

It is bad enough working on 1080P media files. Some of the stuff I have encountered in the last couple of years has had to be in 4K and one in 8K (4320p). File sizes are jumping up all the time and torrents are proving to be the only sane and cheap way to send them, short of physically sending people a bag of hard drives every couple of days.

The film and game industry needs torrents to actually make them new products as workers are spread all over the planet.

Her is a link to a perfectly legal short film that was made by the people involved in the free 3D computer program Blender. It is called Sintel and showcases Blender in 4K (160gig). http://www.sintel.org/news/sintel-4k-version-available/

That is the film standard that is expected to be in all cinema's in the next couple of years. That is 160 gig for only a few minutes.

Anyone working on a feature film in the future will be downloading and sending files from 1TB and up.