more on Opera integrates BitTorrent in upcoming browser

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-------- Original Message --------
Subject:        Re: [IP] Opera integrates BitTorrent in upcoming browser
Date:   Mon, 06 Feb 2006 10:05:21 -0500
From:   Adam Fields <ip20398470293845 () aquick org>
To:     Dave Farber <dave () farber net>
CC:     ip () v2 listbox com
References:     <43E75D5D.4080408 () farber net>



For IP, if you wish:

On Mon, Feb 06, 2006 at 09:29:49AM -0500, Dave Farber wrote:
> -------- Original Message --------
> Subject:        Opera integrates BitTorrent in upcoming browser
> Date:   Mon, 06 Feb 2006 04:07:38 -0700
> From:   Brett Glass <brett () lariat org>
> To:     dave () farber net, Ip ip <ip () v2 listbox com>
[...]
> The following is a press release from Opera Software. According to 
> the release, the company is integrating BitTorrent into its 
> browser. Unfortunately, this could cause adverse effects; Opera 
> users may experience slow Internet performance because the 
> BitTorrent software will saturate their Internet bandwidth 
> allocations without their knowledge or consent. (The BitTorrent 
> protocol is, as you may know, designed to try to use every scrap of 
> available bandwidth not only to receive content but also to 
> redistribute it.) 

This assertion is patently false. BitTorrent can be throttled to limit
upload bandwidth usage, and because of the way the protocol encourages
sharing, download bandwidth is dependent on (though not equal to)
upload rate.

To my knowledge, there isn't an explicit download saturation setting,
but most people do want to download things pretty much as quickly as
they can, so I think that's less of an issue. Since this project has
the participation of Bram Cohen, I'd think that adding one would be
trivial if it becomes a problem.

Also, most people don't use very much of their upload capacity under
normal conditions.

> Also, because BitTorrent is one of the preferred protocols for
> downloading of pirated movies and similar fare, the software will
> also doubtless turn many Opera users' computers into illicit sources
> of copyrighted material and subject the users to lawsuits from movie
> studios and sanctions from their ISPs.

And yet, BitTorrent continues to exist and has plenty of legitimate uses.

If you're not looking for copyrighted content to download, you won't
have any problems. Having ready access to a BitTorrent client in Opera
isn't additional incentive to do so.

> It will be interesting to see how this pans out, but I fear that the
> move will backfire very badly for Opera.

I fear that too. I hope that it raises the bar on the rationality of
the copyright discussion instead.


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