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Wil Wheaton Defends BitTorrent, Warns for Anti-Piracy Lobby

Actor Wil Wheaton, known for his roles in Star Trek: The Next Generation, Lost and The Big Bang Theory made a few interesting comments on his blog.

He says that piracy isn’t as evil as Hollywood claims and believes that Internet providers shouldn’t mess with people’s BitTorrent traffic.

“I believe in network neutrality, I don’t believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don’t believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don’t believe in crippling the Internet to protect a business model that desperately needs to change.”

Net Neutrality should be guarded according to Wheaton, who accuses Hollywood lobby groups for wanting to shut is down.

“Some ISPs are blocking all bittorrent traffic, because bittorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws wich would force ISPs to block or degrade bittorrent traffic, too.”

“Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away, which I know is an imperfect comparison, but is the best I can do after a night of not-especially-good sleep.”

Wheaton the goes on to show his readers how to download a Linux distro. And seed it properly.

You can read the rest of Wil’s thoughts on his blog.

This post is from the News Bits section of TorrentFreak where we present stories from around the web in a concise summary format. Full TorrentFreak articles can be found here. If you have a tip please let us know. News Bits have their very own RSS feed
  • http://www.facebook.com/Oyashiro.Chama Jacob Ruble

    A good man.

    • Anonymous

       That’s his career over now.

  • Somewhat clueless today

    Help, been away from everything for a couple of weeks. Where is TPB? I can’t find them anywhere. 

    • Anonymous

       The site seems to be down now when I just tried. It was up yesterday. Let’s hope this another one of their short temporary down times.

    • Anon

       ISP probably blocked it, find a piratebay proxy.

  • Somewhat clueless today

    Anon, thanks already use the workarounds. that’s kinda’ why I was so worried, plus I couldn’t seem to find any “headlines” saying they’d been raided/shutdown again. hopefully they’re just doing some maint. and will be back shortly. thanks for the quick responses.
    somewhat less clueless than before

  • Guest

    It’s sad that we need celebrities so people really pay attention to these issues. We need Lady Gaga supporting Bittorrent.

    • http://www.facebook.com/people/Don-Dilly/1624894683 Don Dilly

       The abuse of celebs by the anti piracy camp has a long history. Sadly many ‘artists’ that have been dumb enough to support the MAFIAA campaign have found their careers in tatters after the backlash from their fan base who turn their back on the artist and stop buying their product.

      The example I always use is the Irish band ‘The Cores’ who had at the time been popular in the UK for a few years and had also enjoyed international success. After they came out on message forthe RIAA they disappeared without trace. Sales dried up overnight.

      They made the misguided move of joining the MAFIAA campaign in the late 90s when as an extension of the home taping is killing music msg the music industry was pushing for additional taxes to be levied on recordable media. it was about the time when they mandated that CD recorders specifically marketed as Audio product should only record on higher priced CDA discs. Electronics companies tried to bluff their way out of the deal with the RIAA, peddling the lie to the public that they were superior discs especially formulated for audio use. The truth was that the discs were identical to their general purpose counterpart other than a single bit set in the disc header to identify the disc as a CDA ‘tax paid’ disc.

      That bit tax and the copy protection stopping  CDA to CDA digital copies ensured the format never took off.

      So in one move the RIAA killed an artists career and killed an electronics product line with the unintended consequence of driving PC sales digging a bigger hole for themselves.

      • orly

        *corrs

  • http://www.francky.me Franck Dernoncourt

    Kudos to Wil! 

  • Wil Wheaton – Hypocrite

    Will Wheaton is a total hypocrite, he says this to gain more fans and the plus side of this is also more respect from with his current sheep following. So long as you do not download/share his content he doesnt appear to have any problems, however if you do ‘pirate’ his stuff he will pull a hissy fit – that is guaranteed.
    http://wilwheaton.typepad.com/wwdnbackup/2009/10/an-open-letter-to-the-guy-who-put-the-just-a-geek-audiobook-on-his-website-for-people-to-steal.html

    • Anyone

      from his blogpost:
      “I particularly don’t believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale. Longtime readers may recall that I did not always believe this, but I’ve, uh … evolved … on the issue.”so he has seen the light

    • http://twitter.com/erikqj Erik Q.J.

      Contrary to popular belief, the ability to change your mind in the face of evidence and arguments is a hallmark of intelligence and rationality. To be a hypocrite, he would have to hold two standards at the same time. In order to be a flip-flopper, he would have to change his mind for irrelevant reasons. Document either, and you’ll be a constructive participant in the debate. Don’t, and you’re just another troll.

    • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=1818980075 Terence Hui

      Wheaton is a private publisher of his own material and as such he has the right to be upset when somebody copies his own things. This doesn’t make him a hypocrite. He can be against the policies of the RIAA/MPAA/Etc and at the same time be against someone stealing his intellectual property since he isn’t a huge publisher.

  • John

    its just because he wanted to join the bittorrent slutfest of 150 million users. Once again, why isn’t he saying emule if it wasn’t about numbers?

    • Danny

       Because emule sucks.

  • Pingback: makin257 - Wil Wheaton Defends BitTorrent, Warns for Anti-Piracy Lobby | TorrentFreak

  • Anonymous

    MPAA: WHEEEEATONNNN!!!

  • Asdfasd

    Pretty sure Wil Wheaton was never in Lost. Just saying.

    • http://twitter.com/mordant80 John Taylor

      Yea, he was in an episode of Euraka called Lost.  That’s probably where the confusion came from.

    • ajgdsfgare

      I was just about to say that

  • Anonymous

    Sounds like a plan to me dude. Wow.
    Privacy-Rules.tk

  • :D

    End of career statement right there.

  • Victorsmegma

    Seems to me the film and music industries would be better off uploading content themselves and selling commercial time either during the upload process or attached to the beginning of the content. Seems they would make a hell of a lot more money from that than the $1 they get from the redbox rental. I would download HQ content from a trusted “official” site before I would from some douche I don’t know who could be trying to put malicious code into the file. I would rather have 5 minutes of commercials and have a good quality clean copy. This would create a ton of revenue, thousands of new jobs in a struggling economy, and opportunities for a whole new way to view media. Any show you want to watch available any time you want to watch it. Television as we know it would be obsolete. Its eventually going to happen anyway, why fight it?

  • Sheldon Cooper

    WWWWHHHHHEEEEAAAATTTOOONNN

  • sharingiscaring

    You should check out his TableTop show on the geekandsundry channel on Youtube.

  • Fred S.

    Wil Wheaton is my hero !

  • Anonumerous

    Copyright holders should be targeting Savants because 1 savant could give great detail the works created by the copyright holder, So another Savant would be able to pass on detail of works written or drawn and this can be an exact replica PIRACY in its definition.

    Tracking of the public for this reason is pointless If people were true fans of a piece of work they will purchase it be they savant or a TPB user, Things should be based on the fan-base instead of the pathetic notions created by Publishers and forced media and blanket media dropped in our faces 

    WE SHOULD BE GETTING WHAT WE WANT WHEN WE PAY FOR IT THEY ARE THE REASON PEOPLE ARE DOWNLOADING THESE THINGS

    They are not losing money on what they call piracy, The ISPs are linked with media corps are making money from extortion on subscribers on connections plans etc, This is a bunch of whining execs and publishers thinking that people downloading a copy of waha wha is going to bankrupt them this is not out of control, Theses media companies need to be stopped from creating such lies and hype on products that are terrible and refund is refused because it was an electronic purchase.

    MASS MARKETING JUNK you never get what they advertise
    CALL CENTRES that intrude on your time to waste more of you day because some pathetic scum wanted your details because you brought a bed
    Radio advertisement they drop an add in your ear as you drive
    Bus Stops all over all over Buses 

  • Scandalous Wright

    but is the best I can do after a night of not-especially-good sleep.

    http://www.wedpack.ca/
     

  • Mr. MoneySuit Monacle

    Unfortunately, pointing out the obvious and asking nicely for freedom will not work.
    Nor a petition, nor a vote.
    This world is hopeless.
    Murder/suicide spree anyone? THEY GAVE US NO CHOICE.

  • http://www.gregpadillabailbonds.com/ Mindy Schmitz

    he Internet to protect a business model that desperately needs to change.

  • Anonymous

  • Pingback: Wil Wheaton Defends BitTorrent, Warns for Anti-Piracy Lobby | OccuWorld

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

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