In this post I hope to come to some kind of conclusion as to the viability of BitTorrent as a method of online music distribution. I’ll start with a brief explanation of BitTorrent…
“BitTorrent is a protocol designed for transferring files. It is peer-to-peer in nature, as users connect to each other directly to send and receive portions of the file. However, there is a central server (called a tracker) which coordinates the action of all such peers. The tracker only manages connections, it does not have any knowledge of the contents of the files being distributed, and therefore a large number of users can be supported with relatively limited tracker bandwidth. The key philosophy of BitTorrent is that users should upload (transmit outbound) at the same time they are downloading (receiving inbound.) In this manner, network bandwidth is utilized as efficiently as possible.” (from Dessent)
Of course, to actually obtain a torrent file, one needs to visit a torrent website such as The Pirate Bay or ISO Hunt.
The main advantage of BitTorrent lies in the fact that there is no need for a central server on which to store the files, hence removing the cost of hardware, bandwidth and hosting.
BitTorrent has caused much controversy since its rise in popularity in the early 2000s as it was most often used for the illegal distribution of music, movies and software. The fact that files were not stored on a central server meant that there was no great cost in this method of distribution.
With regards to music industry uses of BitTorrent; it is not the most popular method of distribution by a long way. SubPop distribute their online releases via BitTorrent.com. I can fully understand why this distribution technique has not risen in popularity as users have to be fairly cyber-savvy to download a torrent. First, one has to choose and install one of the many torrent clients on offer and then learn how to use it. However, the decision of whether or not to use this method is entirely up to the record company; this is truly a swings and roundabouts kind of affair. During the time of a single or album release, demands on bandwidth are great, so the company would have to invest in a reliable and wide-bandwidth hosting solution. With the BitTorrent technology, the responsibility is shared between the people who wish to download the file.
An interesting case of torrent-style distribution was that of the Libertines/Pete Doherty demos. These demos appeared on various popular torrent sites, but initially appeared on Andrew Kendall’s photography site. Kendall is one of the leading rock photographers in Britain, and a supporter of the Libertines conquest. It was not made clear who initially uploaded these demos, but it gave the fans what they wanted and further strengthened their support. This distribution, like the majority of other torrent activity was free. Users have related torrents with ‘free stuff’, and so it would defy this ideal on some level if they were asked to pay for it. In my opinion, it would be much more sensible to use the existing FTP method of distribution as it is widely perceived to be the superior.
Update!
That lovely site, ‘Oink‘ that I used to babble on about… It was shut down on Tuesday 23rd of October. RIP. Read more about it on Jack Schofield’s Guardian blog. And watch the narrow-minded and rather inaccurate BBC news report.
October 24, 2007 at 7:46 pm
Hi Adam, great post on BitTorrent. I myself don’t use the service much, mainly because it’s being blocked by my ISP, but also because I find that it can be hard to complete downloads that aren’t very popular. I’m changing ISP in a weeks time and hopefully that will solve the problem.
BitTorrent is a very interesting way of distribution, and I don’t think we have seen all of what it’s capable of. As you probably know it can be combined with RSS which makes it very powerful, it can then be compared to podcasting, but with the possibility of sharing bigger files, and files of any nature (rar, zip, mp3, mp4, pdf, doc etc).
As I mentioned I don’t use Bittorrent much and haven’t used it together with RSS yet. I’m certainly interested in trying it out, especially when trying to catch up with my favorite tv shows, I wouldn’t have to keep checking for new episodes, they would just come to me automatically.