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Comment by possibilistic | Hacker News Reader

> I can be watching a movie 60 seconds after thinking of it.

Is that at all legal? Unless you mean films that have fallen into the public domain or that remain unlicensed in your nation or jurisdiction, I'm pretty sure this is unlawful. If there aren't laws on the books yet concerning a 3rd party service downloading or hosting pirated content on one's behalf yet, I would still consider this to be unethical behavior.

Does put.io intend to share the business tactics of MegaUpload? (ie. looking the other way concerning how many users will make use of the service?)

I don't mean to sound belligerent. I feel this is an angle that would be good to discuss.

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I have to agree. the service clearly targets people who want to access consumer video torrents, and much of that content is pirated.

they avoid some problems by requiring everyone to pay directly. Megaupload really got into trouble for their affiliate programs, which essentially paid people to upload pirated content. Those programs drove a whole industry in Vietnam.

They clearly keep track of unique torrents across users because they provide the instant download feature. Thus they should be able to respond to DMCA requests quickly. By the same token, they may come under legal pressure to disclose user information about accounts that accessed successfully DMCA'd files.

There are legitimate uses for Bit torrent though, and this service seems like it would benefit the health of ecosystem as a whole. They'll probably seed a lot of data, maybe especially rare data. That would be helpful for things like big scientific datasets that often end up hosted on some .edu FTP site.

Are they seeding too? or just leaching?

Very good question. I have a feeling it's the latter, because what's in it for them?

They seed automatically. Based on what subscription you have, they'll maintain a specific ratio. Minimum is 2.0 ratio but better accounts have a 20.0. https://put.io/plans?select=1.1

Only for private trackers. What about public & dht?

Considering it probably wouldn't be any more legal the slower way, I can't see how that question is salient.

Because instead of an annonymous user, there is now a company to sue. I don't see them lasting unless they create copyright controls that will make most people not want to use them.

They exists for over 4-5 years now (I don't remember exactly the first time I discovered this service, but it was around that time).

I believe the are located in an area where legislations are less strict and they can do this without having any problems.

That would explain it. Thank you.

Depends where you are in the world. In my country(Poland) downloading any material for your own use is 100% legal.

Though BitTorrent always includes uploading, too. That's the really risky part.

wow, I didn't know that, thanks for pointing out!

Some countries allow you to access any content you have a license for. Especially so for old content that you may personally lack the ability to transfer onto new media formats.

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