i think this project is going to encounter a lot of problems with copyright materials.
there is a lot of fuss going on about torrents as it is and copyright. the moment torrent starts to monetize copyrighted materials i think there is going to be a shit-storm of lawsuits.
This is my issue exactly. Most people that need seeders need them for copyrighted material. A ton of people in the U.S. are getting C&D orders as of lately, and that makes this highly risky. It'd be nice if there were at least separations for those that are illegal and those that aren't so some of us can help seed the legal material.
i just want to mention that The four operators of the pirate bay website were convicted by Stockholm district court on 17 April 2009 and sentenced to one year in jail each and a total of approximately US$3.5 million in fines and damages.
complete incident.
not to mention the raids and arrests that have been maid of these companies and servers.
Link.
More Incidentsalso i have heard that you can encounter serious problems with your ISP if you are using torrent services and downloading/sharing copyrighted materials. (i know this from users on /r/torrents and /r/piracy not personal experience)
after all people are still using all of that stuff and going to keep using them ...
In the U.S. it's definitely a big risk. I was downloading (I wasn't even seeding) a 7-year-old TV show that never went to DVD and isn't available for streaming/isn't on TV/etc. Started downloading the show, and 3 days later I got 4 letters from my ISP detailing the exact episodes I was downloading, when they were started, who holds the copyright, etc. and got a warning that if it happened again, I'd be permanently barred from using the ISP again in the future.
I got hit by a second ISP a year later for the same thing (a completely different show -- also not available on DVD or elsewhere), detailing the same stuff.
I quit that altogether. And it sucks because I wasn't downloading them to steal -- I was doing it because when there's not even an alternative available... there's no real choice. I can understand being upset about movies, games, etc. But I don't think that if something isn't even being published anymore, it should still be illegal -- the publishers can't get money off it regardless when they aren't showing it/selling it. This makes it a victim-less crime, as they can't even claim lost revenue.
In any case, being hit by both major ISPs that are local to me made me stop it completely. I'd gladly help seed legal material, though. Even having a flag on the torrents (sort of like how some places put NSFW on some of their posts) would be a great asset.
