The BitTorrent Debate
By Doug Kaye
This story appeared in the March 2005 issue of Web Host Industry Review magazine. Click here to subscribe for free.
March 3, 2005 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — In a previous issue, I wrote about BitTorrent, a technology has quickly appeared on virtually every hosting company’s radar. In a business where the excitement is usually the product of an occasional acquisition or bankruptcy, BitTorrent has created an undeniable stir.
Late in 2004, a Reuters report said more than a third of the Internet’s traffic was based on BitTorrent. There were many skeptics, myself among them. According to an article in The Register, however, a recent academic study found that BitTorrent accounted for 53 percent of all P2P Internet traffic in June of 2004. So if you can accept that P2P traffic accounts for two-thirds of the traffic on the ‘Net, then the numbers jibe. In any case, there’s no denying that BitTorrent has quickly become an important technology, carrying perhaps as much traffic as HTTP carried only a few years ago.
Also late last year, the so-called Copyright Cartelthe music and motion-picture establishmentpicked up on the fact that some Web sites were using BitTorrent to distribute copyrighted material, and started filing lawsuits and sending out “takedown” demand letters. We’ve seen this before with Napster, Kazaa and other services, and many Web hosting companies are wondering what the legal issues surrounding BitTorrent might mean to their own businesses. I checked in with Bram Cohen, the creator and ongoing developer of BitTorrent. He pointed out perhaps the most important issue: that the Copyright Cartel is not going after the technology or the hosting companies. It is targeting Web site owners who have links on their sites to copyrighted material it is illegal for them to offer. According to Wired News, representatives of the MPAA have said that they have no plans to pursue legal action against Bram himself.
Bram points out that BitTorrent is just a transport protocol like HTTP. There’s nothing in the technology that has to do with copyright or digital rights management. It’s about how files are moved around, not about the files themselves. So there’s little risk to a Web hosting vendor who allows or even operates BitTorrent services, at least not from BitTorrent itself. There’s always a risk that a host might get caught in the middle of a battle between its customers and a copyright holder or prosecuting entity. But those risks are not aggravated by the use of BitTorrent, at least not for now. In other words, hosting BitTorrent services should not increase your risk or liability except for the fact that it makes your services more attractive to sites that need to deliver large files such as software, video or audio.
Hosting companies are getting on the BitTorrent bandwagon. Hurricane Electric in Fremont, California recently announced free BitTorrent support for its shared and dedicated hosting customers. I spoke to Benny Ng, Hurricane Electric’s director of marketing, who says the company’s decision wasn’t based on any particular customer demand but was intended as a proactive move to encourage and support customers with large file requirements. Ng says the company is no more concerned about the legal issues and risks than with other technologies. And he shares my skepticism that the protocol carries a third of the Internet’s traffic, but agrees that it certainly appears to be a possibility. It is difficult for a Web hosting company to detect or measure P2P traffic, since it does not pass through the host’s own network. The burden of carrying BitTorrent and other P2P traffic is borne by local, regional and national ISPs.
It would appear, for now, that there is plenty of upside, and relatively little downside, to hosting companies embracing BitTorrent. And I encourage them all to do so, just as I did three months ago.
One issue to which hosts should remain attentive, however, is the development of the INDUCE act in the US. This onerous piece of legislation has the intent to outlaw any technologies that might be used for the purpose of illegal copying. By a definition such as that, just operating or for that matter just routing BitTorrent data, could be illegal. But for that matter, it would seem that TCP/IP itself and the fiber that spans the globe would need to be shut down based on its potential for supporting illegal activities. It may make little or no sense to those of us actively involved in the tech world, but this legislation has strong pockets of support in the US Congress. Although the bill didn’t make it through the last session, it is not dead yet. There’s even a version up for consideration in California, and if we’re not aggressive in expressing our concerns, these bills could well become law.
About the Author:
Doug Kaye is host and producer of the Internet talk-radio channel IT Conversations and an IT strategy author and publisher.
