At the core, the concept of file sharing is pretty innocent. You have a file, like a photo, video, or a piece of work, that you want to share with a friend or co-worker. However because the file shared can pretty much be anything, we suppose it doesn’t really come as a surprise that eventually people figured out that files such as copyrighted movies, songs, books, software, video games, and the likes can also be shared.
This has resulted in digital piracy in which video game publishers, movie studios, record labels, and authors are all trying to fight. That being said whether you are for or against the argument that BitTorrents are legal/illegal, US internet service provider Cox Communications has recently come out and defended the protocol.
As it stands, Cox is currently being sued by BMG and Round Hill Music who claims that the ISP failed to terminate the accounts that were used to pirate content. Recently the ISP had submitted a motion to the court, asking them to ban statements and evidence in which it would basically equate BitTorrent to piracy.
According to Cox, “Plaintiffs are free to try to prove that specific BitTorrent users on Cox’s network actually infringed Plaintiffs’ copyrights, but the Court should preclude Plaintiffs from relying on mere innuendo that BitTorrent inherently allows individuals to infringe Plaintiffs’ copyrights.” They then add, “Cox disputes Plaintiffs’ characterization of BitTorrent — it is demonstrably not true that there are no legitimate uses for BitTorrent.”
While it is true that many have come to associate the use of the BitTorrent protocol for piracy, it does have legitimate use. For example Blizzard uses BitTorrent to push out updates and game downloads for its users, plus Netflix themselves earlier this year appeared to be considering using the protocol to possibly improve upon its streaming speeds.
It is unclear as to how this will turn out and whether the court will acception Cox’s motion, but where do you guys stand on this?