Sort of.

In Sweden.

For now.

Friday saw the long-awaited verdict in the trial of the founders of the Pirate Bay, one of the most famous (or indeed, infamous) sites on the Internet. A Stockholm tingsrätt (district court) had accused the Pirate Bay of aiding copyright infringements of materials such as movies, music and books. The four defendants, Fredrik Neij, Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, Peter Sunde and Carl Lundström, were each sentenced to one year in prison and ordered to pay 30 million kronor (£2.4 million) in damages. The case will now go to appeal and may be overturned, but it does mark a significant point in the battle against Internet piracy.

The Pirate Bay was set up by the four Swedes in 2003 as part of Piratbyrån (The Piracy Bureau), an organisation opposed to the current implementation of intellectual property rights. The Pirate Bay became a stand-alone organisation in 2004 and quickly became one of the most important centres for pirated material. By late 2008 it was servicing over 25 million unique computers, and had more than 3.5 million registered users (and many more unregistered users).

Detached ethernet cable [image © copyright Photos.com]

The Pirate Bay had previously run foul of Swedish authorities; a police raid in 2006 temporarily took the site offline. A series of controversies not directly related to piracy followed. In one case, confidential photographs of a child murder victim were placed on the site and, despite pleas from the police and the family, were not removed; in another, one of the Pirate Bay’s original funders was revealed to have links to the Swedish far-right.

Despite these set-backs, the Pirate Bay has continued to grow until it now sits comfortably amongst the most visited sites on the Internet. It even spawned a new Swedish political party, Piratpartiet, dedicated to reforming intellectual copyright in Sweden. Although Piratpartiet has had little direct effect on Swedish politics, it can probably be credited with changing attitudes towards file sharing inside the mainstream political parties. Pirate Bay’s influence is so undeniable that its existence became something of a political embarrassment for the Swedish government, who were committed to bringing Swedish intellectual property laws into line with the rest of the EU and with the United States. Eventually, prosecutors tasked with reviewing evidence seized during the 2006 police raid filed charges against four named individuals; not for piracy, but for aiding it. Why not charge the four with piracy?

Because, believe it or not, the Pirate Bay doesn’t hold any pirated material.

The key to the Pirate Bay’s success is a method (protocol) of distributing files known as BitTorrent. Perhaps confusingly, BitTorrent is the name of the company founded by its creator, Bram Cohen, as well as the name for the protocol that is used by a large number of other programs. In this discussion we will be concerned with the workings of the general BitTorrent system.

Lady using a computer
[image © copyright Photos.com]

We’re going to need two Internet users, Alice and Bob. If Alice wishes to distribute a file through BitTorrent, she needs to create a seed file, known as a torrent. Alice uses software distributed with her BitTorrent client to break the single, large file into many smaller chunks (ranging from 64kb to 4Mb in size). The same software then uniquely labels each of the chunks, using a mathematical technique known as cryptographic hashing which allows other BitTorrent client programs to correctly recognise them.

Finally, the list of hashes, as well as other information, such as the name of the uploader, the name of the album or movie, the artists and so on, are written to a torrent file, which is itself only a few kilobytes in size and can easily be distributed using email or the Web.  Alice publishes the torrent, (she is said to "seed" it), so it can be picked up by other BitTorrent users.

When Bob wants to download Alice’s file he first obtains a copy of the torrent. This is not difficult to do. There are many sites (of which Pirate Bay is just one) dedicated to holding copies of torrent files; and most search engines will also turn up torrent files in their results. Chances are, if you look for a movie or DVD online, at least one torrent file will be listed in the results.

Man using a laptop
[image © copyright Photos.com]

Once Bob has a copy of the torrent, he loads it into his BitTorrent client program. Bob’s client extracts a complete list of all the unique identifiers for the chunks - it only needs to find the chunks themselves. Bob’s machine does this by contacting another BitTorrent client, known as the tracker. This client holds a record of the Internet addresses of all the clients currently sharing the requested file. If Bob is the first person to download the torrent, then the tracker will be on Alice’s machine along with all of the chunks. If the torrent has spread more widely, Bob’s client will receive several, even hundreds of addresses. Bob’s BitTorrent client then makes direct links to a number of these clients and begins downloading random chunks of the whole file. When it has finished downloading a chunk, Bob’s client makes a request for the addresses of further chunks and so on until it has received all the chunks; at which point it assembles the chunks back into a perfect copy of the original document.

In a BitTorrent system, Bob is not merely a downloader, his client is also uploading chunks to other users. Each time Bob downloads a chunk, his client informs the tracker of the identity of the chunk and Bob’s address and will provide it to other users in the system. As more and more users join a BitTorrent network, the average speed of sharing files increases, making it a very efficient way of sharing files. Popular files are shared more quickly, whilst even unpopular files will exist on enough computers to allow them to spread. BitTorrent is also extremely resilient. In a normal download service, if a computer fails, it can prevent anyone from accessing files. In BitTorrent, hundreds of users can go offline and the files will continue to download, albeit at a slower speed.

BitTorrent has proved to be a very controversial technology and has had a profound effect on how the internet is used. A survey, conducted in late 2007, estimated that the BitTorrent protocol consumed the largest share of internet capacity, ranging from 49 per cent of all traffic in the Middle East, to 84 per cent in Eastern Europe; rising to an astounding 95 per cent of all traffic at night! BitTorrent has become by far the most important technique for sharing pirated materials, so much so that many ISPs have started to identify BitTorrent users and to restrict their service, or terminate their connections. However, BitTorrent has many legitimate uses, including:

• software upgrades and bug fixes for online video games;
• Internet storage services that make files available to large numbers of users;
• obtaining legitimate movies and music through Bram Cohen’s BitTorrent Inc.

The Pirate Bay is a giant index of torrent files and trackers. Users only connect to the Pirate Bay to download a copy of the torrent file, or to use one of its trackers. None of the copyrighted material is actually distributed by, or passes through, the Pirate Bay servers.

So has the trial changed anything? It has clarified the law in Sweden to some extent (subject to an inevitable appeal which may drag on for years), but it certainly hasn’t put the Pirate Bay out of business. At the time of writing, the site was still working as normal, and it is unlikely to close any time soon. Following the 2006 raid, the Pirate Bay moved many of its servers away from Sweden to countries with less-stringent intellectual property right laws. But, even if the Pirate Bay were to close, it seems inevitable that other sites will spring up around the world to replace it. Piracy is a huge problem for the media industry and it can’t be resolved by ever more stringent laws, such as those proposed (and rejected) in France which would have struck downloaders off the Internet. The trial has not clarified why people pirate content.

A man's hands touching a laptop
[image © copyright Photos.com]

A few people will pirate anything, no matter how cheap the original item; there's probably nothing short of legal action that can dissuade them. A good number of people pirate material that is no longer available - either because the original has been withdrawn from sale, or was never available in their part of the world. Better distribution and back catalogues would bring these people back into the legitimate realm. Some pirate because they own a version of a title on one format and resent having to buy it again when technologies change or the original wears out. This is a more complex field as it requires governments to change the law so that copying from one form to another is legalised, and it requires media companies to unlock their content to make it possible without specialist skills.

If the media industry is to survive, it must first of all accept there will always be a certain level of piracy that cannot be eliminated; but it must make its own offerings so attractive that most people will be willing to spend money for entertainment. A good example is the Apple iTunes Store. All of the music on that site can surely be found on the Internet, but those illegal copies are of variable quality, hard to find and have a certain stigma attached to them. By making the iTunes site so easy to use, relatively cheap, and unrestricted (so far as most users are concerned), Apple and the music companies have been able to convince users to pay for more than six billion songs in five years. Other online music stores, especially those that sell unrestricted content such as Amazon, are seeing similar growth in sales.

The evidence is clear – make it cheap, make it easy, don’t upset the customer and they’ll buy your product. The music industry seems to be learning - so are the movie industry and the government ready to listen?

On the same theme

Darren Waters, Technology editor for BBC News, speaks to Digital Planet about the Pirate Bay's plans to appeal.

US judge and academic, Richard A. Posner reflects on the ethics of copyright.

About the author

Mike Richards joined the Open University in 1996 to help trial teaching over the Internet. Since then he has taught courses ranging from an introduction to robots to the engineering works of Leonardo da Vinci; but has spent most of his time writing about security - everything from the Enigma machines to e-shopping. He is currently working on a new course exploring the world of ubiquitous computers; imagine a world where computers so small and cheap they can be put in everyday objects - smartphones today, smartclothes tomorrow.

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January 20th 2009 was a momentous day with the inauguration of Barack Obama as the President of the United States of America. Around the world millions of people watched this historic moment, sadly my home was not one of them.

Don't get me wrong, I had finished my work early, switched off the computer and dashed back home for the historical moment. With my cup of tea I entered our front room only to be confronted by every parent’s nightmare, my son was demanding to watch his favourite children’s television programme ‘Big cook, little cook’, whilst my daughter was demanding that she should be allowed to watch for the umpteenth time ‘High School Musical’ on DVD. In the middle of all of this was my mother-in-law, trying to convince everyone that she should watch her daily drama on Zee TV (an Indian language television channel). Faced with a barrage of ‘I never get to see what I want’ from three people, I made a swift exit to the kitchen to console myself with a packet of biscuits.

Children and a dog watching television.
[Image © copyright Photos.com]

If I had been able to see Barack Obama’s inauguration I would have been spoilt for choice on what television channel to watch. Thanks to the magic of cable TV I could have watched it on BBC 1 as well as the BBC news channel, along with many different news and language channels. That’s the joy of cable television; there are channels dedicated to history, drama, cooking, news, music, ethnic minorities, sports, films and so on. Central to this barrage of choice is Rupert Murdoch and News International Corporation, which through Sky television, led the beginning of Britain’s television revolution.

Rupert Murdoch, however, does not believe the revolution in British television is over. A regular critic of the BBC, which he argues is a subsidised, state funded monolith, he calls for the BBC to be forced to compete as a commercial organisation.

This would mean an end to state funding and potentially the inclusion of advertisements on BBC television channels. Compounding the BBC’s problems has been the growth of differing television channels and the continued growth of DVD sales (High School Music included). What then is the future for British television?

Those fearing an invasion of American television programmes and the demise of home grown television shows need not panic. After a decade or so of questionable television programmes, the future of British television can be encapsulated in one show: Dr Who. When it was launched five years ago it was BBC Wales, a regional outpost of the BBC, which undertook what it described as the biggest gamble in its history.

Derided in the 1980s as old fashioned, Dr Who had been off British televisions for nearly twenty years. The result? Four series later, Dr Who regularly pulls in audiences of 10 million viewers and often accounts for over 70% of British television viewers when aired. The moral of this story? People will continue to watch and want high quality television that offers family appeal. To parody Barack Obama (who parodied Bob the Builder) can quality British television survive? Yes it can!

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Andrew Lindridge is a senior lecturer in marketing at The Open University Business School. He writes for a range of management and marketing courses and his research focuses on the examination of the tensions arising from acculturation, culture, ethnicity and consumption.

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Among all of the changes in the publishing industry at the moment, one of the most salient for me as an academic writer and a teacher is the notion of e-books. It seems like the next logical step for technology, and it’s been on the horizon for well over a decade now. Interestingly, the longer we go without a viable e-book technology, it seems like an odd sort of confirmation that it’s beyond our capabilities to produce such a beast.

“Don’t worry,” some of my colleagues confidently tell me. “We’ll never give up our books.” And yet while e-books aren’t quite the everyday piece of technology that our mobile phones and laptops have become, they’re slowly starting to filter into the edges of the consumer landscape.

Old books.
[Image © copyright Photos.com]

In the US, for example, Amazon released its popular Kindle electronic book almost two years ago (and it’s still only available there). It’s been so popular that it’s been backordered ever since. Perhaps most importantly, the company was able to garner endorsements from die-hard book traditionalists: Pulitzer Prize and Nobel Prize-winning author Toni Morrison, for example. Though the company won’t report details about its sales, various estimates peg the number of Kindles sold at around a quarter of a million. The fact that Amazon offers over 200,000 book titles for the device and free wireless access to its site over a proprietary mobile data network may have something to do with its initial success. Just this week, in fact, Amazon has announced a new version of the device. As is often the case with new iterations of technology gadgets, it is thinner, lighter, faster, and has a better screen and longer battery life than its predecessor.

The promise of the e-book is so tempting: it can hold several hundred titles in a package that, at 300 grams, is lighter and more convenient to carry than the average paperback title. Imagine an entire library in your briefcase or rucksack, and the ability to quickly and easily download a new title whenever you want it. What about for students? The notion of putting all the reading materials that a student might need for a course onto a single device is tempting for me as a teacher.

No worries about further expensive books, or problems with distribution of materials. And for a student, it could be a single easy-to-carry volume with all the study materials they might need. Finally, the economics of an electronic book are hard to dispute: they’re cheaper to produce and distribute, and they use far fewer resources to put the content into users’ hands.

But the Kindle, and other e-book technologies like the iLiad, which is growing in popularity in Continental Europe as a platform for newspaper subscriptions, have yet to match the tactile and visual joy of a traditional book. I never have to charge a book, or worry about its files getting corrupted. Even when I rest a cup of tea on the pages of a book, the resulting brown rings end up making it comforting and familiar, rather than the cause for a trip to the helpdesk.

the economics of an electronic book are hard to dispute: they’re cheaper to produce and distribute

And as the ever growing world of digital media struggles with rights issues, e-book devices have to take care of those rights too. Rights notwithstanding, I get a tremendous amount of joy from loaning a well-read book to a friend to enjoy. How can I do that with an e-book? What about libraries? Can we have e-book libraries? If not, how can we imagine life without that fantastic system of the collective acquisition of books for sharing knowledge with our communities?

Unlike some of my colleagues, I’m fairly certain that these issues will be negotiated and that e-books will come into the mainstream relatively soon. In a generation, I expect that e-books will become the norm, especially in education. But books, that 400-year-old technology that we have grown to love, and that often have pride of place in our homes, will not become redundant relics of years gone by. On the contrary: like many other technologies have shown, books will co-exist with their e-counterparts, and we will have the best of both worlds!

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Gabriel Reedy is a lecturer in learning and teaching innovation in The Open University Business School. His research focuses on the social and cultural impacts of teaching and learning technologies, and he studies how technology can support professional learning.

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