[HPFGU-OTChatter] Re: Torrents

[P. Alexis Nguyen]

Carol:
> Hi, Ali. At least five of the eight episodes are available on torrent
> (or whatever the correct expression is). I'm sure that the other two
> will be available soon. But what I want to know is, *should* I
> "venture to [use] torrents"? Is it safe? I don't want a virus to
> attack my computer, and I don't want to get into trouble for Internet
> piracy. and what about the torrent software itself? Is it free, legal,
> and safe?

Ali:
As far as safe, as long as your anti-virus software is up-to-date,
you're taking no more of a risk than downloading any other files off
the great "interwebz."

Now, as a disclaimer, I haven't had a [US] business law class in about
3 years, so I'm sure I'm behind/not accurate/outright wrong in some
areas.  However, that being said ... you are technically breaking the
law by downloading any copyrighted materials, this includes TV shows.
However, whether you'll get in trouble is a whole different matter.
Torrents, by the very nature, make it harder to track individual users
- the fallacy is in thinking that you're totally safe; you can be
tracked (but you can always be tracked; side-effect of the modern
world, I'm afraid).  Torrents, unto themselves, are also legal (unlike
something like Napster, there are a ton of free-and-legal materials
being distributed across the torrent-highways) - this means that
you're safe in the sense that in order for someone to find you, Carol,
a judge must issue a warrant to the torrent site and a warrant to the
ISP in order to allow the party in question to have enough info to
know who you are.  Granted, either or both the ISP and torrent site
can do this willingly, but let's just say that the likelihood of that
aren't so high for various internal politics/PR reasons.

Wonderland also falls into that grey-ish area whereupon there are no
DVDs, no way to watch short of DirectTV (for now), etc.  This isn't
legally grey so much as whether a judge will force the matter to go to
court - proving lost of profit is damned hard when there is no
possible profit gained (as far as whoever owns the copyright anyway -
DirectTV can make a case for it but they don't own the copyright so
it's unlikely they'd want to go to court to begin with).

The short answer:  if you're truly paranoid, this isn't for you.  If
you're only ever planning on downloading Wonderland as your walk on
the "dark side," go for it.  I won't say that you're not going to get
caught, but I would say that the odds are stacked against that.
(Incidentally, I use torrents a lot and have never had my computer
infected nor had anyone knock on my door.)


> Carol, who highly recommends "Wonderland" for those who can watch it
> legally on DirecTV

Ali:
I keep thinking about switching ... but the "high-speed" internet
keeps me with Comcast.  :(  I hate Comcast, say she who works in a
city basically owned by the company - I work near the shiny new
Comcast Building with it's pretty HD video wall ... and want to throw
a stone at this glass building every time I see it.  I'm a sad and
bitter person ...

~Ali, who wonders if anyone saw Dollhouse (and wonders if anyone can
connect how her brain went from "sad and bitter" to Dollhouse)