Ronnie Apteker, a dotcom millionaire, one of the founders of South Africa’s largest corporate ISP, a movie producer, and sometimes a stand up comedian talks about his love for BitTorrent and e-mule. Finally someone from the other side who writes something positive about BitTorrent.
So what is the nature of all this traffic? Think big files… You guessed it: movies. And music files , entire albums in fact, computer games, TV shows, mini-series, you name it. I can go online and download the latest movies playing on circuit in America right now with this technology.
Yes, you need fast internet access and yes, it takes a while to download a one-gig file, for example, even with a fast connection, but it really is an idiot-proof proposition.
I can keep my BitTorrent running in the background while I bang away at the keyboard, and, a few days later, presto, there’s the latest entertainment, in solid digital quality.
He continues talking about legal issues.
Wait a minute. Is any of this legal? Well, er, the software is. And as far as I know I am allowed to write about it. But breaking copyright laws is not cool. I know a bit about intellectual property and about things like movies. Yes, I wouldn’t be happy if some of the film projects I have been involved with suddenly started showing up on BitTorrent. But this is progress, I think. And it is something we can’t escape.
Ronnie concludes
The message here today: share the love. And also shares the files. That way the torrent and the mule will live happily ever after.