Torrent : Disadvantages and Controversies

Hi,

In a previous post about Torrent, I have explained working mechanism and origin of BitTorrent protocol and its use. If you missed, you may want to read that post at http://www.pyarb.com/2014/01/introduction-to-torrent.html. We also learnt about the advantages of Torrent and shared some snapshots also.

Now on continuation of that series, lets talk about its dis-advantages.

Disadvantages:

Torrent has many advantages like saving of time, peer to peer distribution, advance download experience for slower connection, it has many disadvantages too. Some of its dis-advantages are as listed below.

1. No one can tell what is inside file until he finish downloading. Suppose creator told that it is Linux distribution with of Ubuntu's latest version and named file as resembling one. But no one can guaranty what is inside file actually until user finished downloading and open file. In case of illegal content or provider did not supplier any hash or MD5 sum over public, it can not predetermined. 
2. For the first time, seeder must be online and seeding until the torrent gets popular. Or he must be always online to serve file and that too with higher internet speed. If he left in between, no one will get the file and users who downloaded some part will stuck at that point.
3. Internet speed and computer performance is used by Bit-torrent protocol. Mostly upload speed of Internet is used to serve file and which may cause other services that depends on Internet to freeze.
4. If the distribution has started once, it is hard to stop. If file gets popular and seeder thinks of stopping the distribution, it is impossible to stop until all users downloading torrent stop. That does not remains the property of creator.
5. Un-authorized distribution has created a very big loss to most Software, Game, Movies and Music vendors. Some of users who paid for it distributed file over Internet using Torrent and that gets popular within minutes. Which caused loss in business. Many copyrighted materials are licked and distributed. Sometimes, the content is hijacked and distributed creating huge financial loss and reputation damage intentionally.
6. The speed can not be stable (in most cases it is slow) and predetermined, depends upon the number of Seeders but that can not guaranty the speed. 
7. File is served in pieces from different servers, so sometime result may be damaged or corrupted file.
8. You can not use Download Managers or Accelerators to increase speed. 
9. Source of media (file) is unrestricted. Illegal content hosting is very cheap and reliable using Torrent. If you own a website and host a copyrighted file, your web host may send you notice and if you do not stop your account may be suspended, but while using Torrent, no one is there is to stop except your ISP (Internet Service Provider).
10. Torrent has great role on increasing Pornographic content over internet.
11. If you are using Static IP to use Internet, there is privacy concern. Everybody downloading that torrent file can see your IP address and know what you are downloading.
12. You must have a good Antivirus program, because sometime the torrent comes with Virus.
13. The original content can not be altered once after serving started. For new versions or modified files you must create another torrent and share this While in case of direct download if the file changes in server, all users will get newer file automatically.

There are many other dis-advantages in case of Bit-Torrent system. You can add your own.

Controversies

Torrent has been always in Controversies since its early age. However it was created with a good motive, but it was being used to distribute copyrighted, paid, legal and sensitive data free of cost. Which caused lots of reputation and business loss to Software giants and specially Multimedia productions like Sony, Warner Bros, Universal and other many. The users uploaded the Paid Blue Ray discs or DVDs of movie and songs to torrent community causing birth to unstoppable piracy.

Some of the countries and authorities have declared Torrent safe and good while some other authorities put restrictions over torrent. Resulting many of the torrent site to legal threats and court cases. The most controversial website related to Torrent is ThePirateBay, TPB in short. TPB was founded by a Swedish group of members who are against copyright matters and want the content over internet to be shared free of cost. Which resulted them Lots of Penalty, many legal cases in different courts over globe, ban of their website on most countries. Instead of stopping their service, they started to display legal mails from Different high profile companies like Microsoft, Apple, Universal Studio and so many in their website publicly. Members who supported TPB including web hosting company and financier are also jailed for some month due to these controversies. Their server was attached multiple time by Internet authorities and other hackers who are against Torrent. But they are still stand and serving contents regularly. 

Other some top website examples are Supernova, TorrentSpy, Demonoid, etc which are on controversies due to serving Torrent file or indexing them.

If you have any suggestions of feedback about the post and our contents, do write us as comment or contact page. Till then keep visiting.

+John Bhatt