Download Unlimited free of Cost? Why Torrent? Is it unethical to use it?

Torrent, almost everyone using the internet might have heard of it. Almost 1% of the internet users are advanced Torrent Users, 20% of people using the internet are active users and another 20% know about it or have used it occasionally. More than 50% of the internet users do not know about it or have never used it. So what is Torrent? Is it as bad as some copyright protectors say? Or is it as good as thousands of pro-piracy advocates claim? Or is it just controversial? Lets find the answer. This is not a web page, but a blog and therefore comments and discussions are most welcome. It will benefit us all.

Torrent is actually a peer-to-peer(P2P) sharing tool to share huge amounts of data among peers through the internet. The unique features of Torrent are:-
1. It is free.
2. It is for the people and by the people.
3. It requires a good internet connection.
4. It is really easy to use.

Now lets go back to our initial question, why is Torrent controversial? My answer is that because it screws up the profits of big software giants, movie and music production houses, game production companies and virtually any digital product in the world. Torrent is a tool which helps people to share movies, music, software, games, photos etc. through the internet. The idea of building Torrent was not to promote piracy but to help people to share data with their online peers across geographical barriers. Over time Torrent has evolved as a tool wherein people have started sharing pirated digital products with the entire world.

If Torrent had been illegal, The Pirate Bay which is one of the largest Torrent Websites would not have survived the Legal Proceedings against it. After some production houses of Hollywood filed a copyright infringement case against The Pirate Bay, the servers and all equipments of the owners of Pirate Bay were confiscated following a subsequent raid on their premises. But it was only a matter of 3 days and Pirate Bay was back on Track again. This sparked huge pro-piracy protests against the government and the Hollywood and finally Pirate Bay got a huge fan following. Their logo at that time depicted a pirate ship firing canons at the HOLLYWOOD.

So we know that Torrent is not illegal, but what about the morality and ethics. What about the huge losses which people suffer due to Torrent. Yes I agree that it is immoral and unethical to share pirated versions of software through Torrent and we should refrain from it as far as possible. Only opensource software should be shared through Torrent. Only software, games, movies and music whose shelf life is over should be shared over Torrent.
Unfortunately some people use Torrent to share the latest movies, music and cracked versions of software and games. Movies and Music get shared almost on the day of release on Torrent. Software and games get shared as soon as some hacker finds the crack to it. But this is not good and people with good ethics should not download these. Even if you download a new movie from Torrent and like it, do consider paying a visit to a theatre so that the Theatre owner and the movie producer also gets his due.

The best way to use Torrent is to share your wedding video with the world, share your new music video shot in your college with all your online peers across the world or to share the new piece of Java Application you have developed with your Techie Friends.

Stay Tuned, I will soon write a post on how to Use Torrent and also about my best Torrent Sites and Clients so that you can get going - Coming up within a week.