PSA: BT people

[thistlechaser]

Hey, anyone who uses Bit Torrent to get their anime (and why wouldn't you?), you might be interested in this:

http://www.livejournal.com/users/animesuki/

When individual anime websites update with new torrents, they let animesuki know, and animesuki sends out a RSS feed. You can pick it up on LJ (just by friending it), then all the new anime BTs will show up on your own friends page! How keen is that?

And if you're using something like Kazaa, you really should think about switching over to BT. If nothing else, you're less likely to get sued and all that bad stuff. It's not that tricky to set up, if you need help just give a yell. (And for non-anime people, you can get all sorts of things with it. Movies, music, books, applications, any sorts of files.)

Comments

[tersa.livejournal.com]

Piracy at it's finest!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Delivered right to your doorstep! However, since I use it mostly for anime, I should be in the okay (or at least grey) area legally. Most of the stuff I watch isn't licensed in the US, so no one here holds any copyrights on it. Once something becomes licensed, it's really hard (and illegal) to get it here.

Between it being in the grey area, and it being impossible to find here legally, I don't mind doing it. (The only other way to get it would be for some Japanese person to record it off their TV and send me a videotape or something, which I would think would have the same legal issues as moving the file over the net...)

[kirbyk.livejournal.com]

Yeah, that's pretty much how it used to work. In the Dark Times, when non-porn Anime was nearly impossible to find in the US (say, pre-mid-90s), people would tape shows off of TV (or sometimes laserdisk) in Japan, and mail them to rabid fans in the states. Those fans would translate and 'fan-sub' them. (Well, that still happens a lot - where do you think the files in BitTorrent come from?)

And then, the fansubbers would take requests for tapes, and make copies and send them out, typically for a small fee (like $5/tape, to cover the tape and shipping.) Some people acted as distributers, with large catalogs available. Most of these people accepted tapes they didn't have in trade, and thus massive catalogs were built.

They still exist, though now it's all on the web and using PayPal. (In the past, they tended to only accept money orders.) It's nice if you're showing episodes to groups of people, and don't have the technology to easily get a computer on a large screen.

The legal issues were never challenged - it's widely acknowledged that this fansub network created the market in general, and demand for some shows in particular, and convinced people like Pioneer and ADV to start importing more mainstream Anime. Fansubbers have traditionally been extremely careful to remove anything from their list once a press release about it being licensed is issued, and that's been enough for the less-litigious Japanese companies. It's definitely letter-of-the-law illegal, but they realize that these are the fans that did (and still do) a lot of the free grassroots marketing and most of them buy a fair amount of Anime now, so they wisely have let them do their thing.

So, BT distribution is probably the same - except, instead of being run by a small number of extremely loyal and dedicated fans, it's distributed. And not all the members are schooled in the community ethic about commercially available releases. So, I worry a little about the Japanese companies seeing Evangelion and Love Hina and so forth available for download, and going all RIAA on them, which none of us wants, but so far, so good.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

So, I worry a little about the Japanese companies seeing Evangelion and Love Hina and so forth available for download, and going all RIAA on them, which none of us wants, but so far, so good.

Same here, and thanks for all the info!

[morinotokei.livejournal.com]

Or if you're very impatient like me, you can also go here (http://anime.mircx.com/) because I find that they tend to get their torrents up at least minutes, if not hours before animesuki.com does. ^_~ I didn't know that animesuki.com was on LJ though, so thanks for the heads up.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Yep! When checking the sites themselves, I'll go to mircx.com, but since I only do that maybe once a day, but I look at my friends page a number of times a day, for me it works to have the feed come here.

I see they have a RSS link as well. I know that's what you need to make it LJ friends'able... I wonder if there's a way to get it to feed instead...

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Ah ha! I tried to make a new one, but they exist already. anime_bt Woo woo!

[morinotokei.livejournal.com]

Yes! I'm so excited about being able to have this info available on my friends page. ^_^

[ex-milkthist86.livejournal.com]

Erg. I'm still having problems with the whole BT thing. My client is stuck on 'yellow light' (I think I use the same one as you do, the Shadow experimental). I have no idea why this is, since I don't have a proxy server or a firewall. Grr. This makes for very slow downloading, so while I started a whole bunch of downloads days ago, I haven't completed anything. It's probably my fault though, don't mind my whining.

I do have a question you can maybe help me with. What happens when I shut my computer off with an unfinished download? On Kazaa it just automatically reconnects when I restart the computer, but with BT it seems I've got to go to the original website and click on the exact link again. Is that right? Also, if you're downloading a package with more than one ep, is it possible to watch them as they download, or do you have to wait until the entire thing is complete before it'll work?

Bah. Sorry to bug you with inane questions.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

My client is stuck on 'yellow light'

Are you on XP? There's an internal firewall you need to disable if you are. (Let me know if you are, I'll hunt down the instructions for doing it.) Same thing happened to me, I couldn't get over like 2-3 Kb/sec.

What happens when I shut my computer off with an unfinished download? On Kazaa it just automatically reconnects when I restart the computer, but with BT it seems I've got to go to the original website and click on the exact link again. Is that right?

Going back to the original website and starting it again from there is one way, and it was the way I was doing it until I figured a better way out. I made a new folder called Current Downloads, and after I clicked the link and started the real download going, I rightclicked on the same link, picked 'save targer as', and saved it in that Current Downloads. Then, if you disconnect or shut down, you can go to Current Downloads and doubleclick from there -- easier than going to the original site.

Also, if you're downloading a package with more than one ep, is it possible to watch them as they download, or do you have to wait until the entire thing is complete before it'll work?

I think it depends on the download, maybe? I've never tried it before it finished...

Sorry to bug you with inane questions.

They're not bad questions, no worries! They're the same things I ran into when I started.

[ex-milkthist86.livejournal.com]

I rightclicked on the same link, picked 'save targer as'

You're a genius! This is so much eaier than trying to figue out where I found some random link in the first place :D. I do have Windows XP, so instructions to get rid of the firewall would be fantasitc. If you want, you can email me and then we won't be spamming your LJ. And thanks so much, once again, because if not for you I'd probably have given up on the whole thing.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I'll post it here, in case someone else needs it. :) This is what was told to me, and it worked for me:

"If you have WinXP you might have to turn off the Internet Connection Firewall. Go to Control Panel > Network Connections > doubleclick your connection > Properties > click the Advanced tab > uncheck "Protect my computer and network..."

See if that does the trick!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Oh, and you're welcome! :) I'm happy to be able to help out.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Since I was curious about it too, I tried playing something as it was downloading. (Well, it was downloading 18 eps, and it looked like the early ones were finished, so I tried the first one.) I got that Windows "current file is in use" error.

Oh well!

[sileas.livejournal.com]

Erhm. I downloaded BitTorrent from some page and tried installing it. It only redirected me to a page to donate and I got a message that the program was installed. Is that normal?
How do I search for anything? All those seeds and feeds and leeches and 'keep your download window open' seem difficult to me.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

Once you have BT installed, it's easiest to use a client. I use this one:

http://bt.degreez.net/

It seemed like the easiest one to me. Once you have that done, you need to go to a page with BT links. http://www.suprnova.org/ has a ton of them. To start the download, just click on one of the links, and when Windows asks you where to save it pick a folder. That's it! When you reduce the window, it'll turn into a tiny little box in the toolbar's tray.

seeds and feeds and leeches and 'keep your download window open'

A seeder is the person who is offering the file, or anyone with 100% finished who stays connected (which you should do). A leech is anyone currently downloading that file, but not at 100% yet. Keeping your window open is important because the file isn't kept in one central location/server (which is good, as that makes it harder to sue and such), so when you're downloading it, you're pulling it in from everyone who is connected to that download (finished or unfinished).

How BT works is that it splits up a file into tiny little pieces, then you can download it from every single other person who is connected and trying to download. You'll get a bit from Person One and a bit from Person Two, etc. Staying connected once your download is finished is how you keep things going.

Let me know if you run into more trouble!

[sileas.livejournal.com]

Woot! You are excellent at explaining this! Those program dudes should use you as a translator.

I'll try that search client now. Thanks so much!

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

People who have muddled through it themselves tend to be better at explaining things than the people who made something, yeah. Glad it's working out for you!

[sileas.livejournal.com]

*glomps you* It's working splendidly. I'm using something differently than suprenova to get the links. My brother told me MPAA tried to close it down, so I'm a little skittish about downloading from there.

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

I hadn't heard the MPAA thing, but suprnova is a public place, so it's a tad more risky than a private one (but still loads better than Kazaa and things like that).

Happy downloading!

[sileas.livejournal.com]

Well, the information came from my brother - he could be wrong. :-)

My brother tried introducing it to me before, but I don't remember anything about it. I don't listen to him when he speaks.

*g* Thanks for introducing me to Bittorrent. :-)

[thistle-chaser.livejournal.com]

You're welcome!