Sharing

Download and install BitTornado and MakeTorrent.

Dangers of sharing
BitTorrent is the preferred way of sharing right now, but it isn't anonymous. If you use public sites (like the now-defunct Suprnova) for copyrighted movies, you will eventually get a letter from your ISP on behalf of the MPAA. The MPAA employs agents who connect to torrents on public trackers in order to collect IP addresses. Software such as PeerGuardian is not effective in blocking them. The location of the tracker offers you no protection, either. The MPAA may not be able to sue The Pirate Bay, but it can still go after you for connecting to a torrent on that site and uploading even a fraction of a copyrighted movie.

If you are going to share copyrighted movies, find a private filesharing message board through your friends. Obscurity is the best security when it comes to avoiding the MPAA, at least for now. Even if you aren't sharing copyrighted movies, private forums are nice because of the element of quality control.

Copyright
"Copyright" is a term of intellectual property law. Despite what media cartels like the MPAA and RIAA would like you to believe, copyright infringement is not theft. In order for theft to occur, "every part of the property stolen must be removed, however slightly, from its former position; and it must be, at least momentarily, in the complete possession of the thief." Real theft is wrong because the victim loses his or her property--not simply because the thief gains access to something he is not "authorized" to possess.

Copyright infringement does not deprive the rightful owner of the original DVD the use of that DVD. It only potentially deprives the DVD producer of a sale. We do not punish people for potential crimes without clear intent. The act of downloading a copy of an item is not sufficient proof that the downloader would have or could have purchased the original. Neither does the act of uploading a movie file demonstrate clear intent to make money at the expense of the copyright holder. Burning that file to a disc, silk-screening the disc with cover art, putting it in a snap case, printing out and inserting a jacket, then selling it on the street does divert funds from deserving parties. But the vast majority of file sharers are not engaging in such behavior, traditionally known as "piracy".

To read more about about intellectual property as it pertains to the closely related field of computer software, click now.

Create a new folder with the same name as the movie. We'll call this the "sharing folder". Put the .mkv file(s) in the sharing folder.

If you would like to include playback instructions with the movie, right-click here and save
(text file icon) playback_instructions.txt in the sharing folder.

Go to the Start menu and open MakeTorrent.

It will connect to a server to auto-update the public tracker list.

Go to the tab.

Enter the name of your private torrent tracker.

Enter the tracker address.

Enter the website URL.

Click , then click .

MakeTorrent will retain this tracker information for next time.

Go to the tab.

Find the sharing folder in the file tree on the left and click on it.

Click .

Select the private tracker from the tracker menu.

Add a comment if the tracker supports it.

Click .

Navigate to the sharing folder and give the .torrent file a descriptive name:

The example file name is "Amélie (XviD-2xOgg-SRT).mkv [2CDs].torrent". .

Click the "Save" button .

Wait for a few moments as MakeTorrent analyzes the file(s).

When hashing is complete, click .

Close MakeTorrent.

Go to the upload section of the tracker website. Upload the .torrent file and check that it appears on the website's list of torrents.

Double-click the .torrent file in the sharing folder. It will open with (BitTornado icon) BitTornado.

Navigate to the sharing folder and click .

BitTornado will take a few moments to check the file(s).

When checking is complete, select

.

The mode will change to super seed mode.

If you have a cable modem with a maximum upload speed of 48 kB/s or less, select

.

Cable modem users should also set an upload limit 2 or 3 kB/s below their maximum upload speed. (A severe drop in downstream bandwidth may occur if the modem's upstream is saturated.)

If you have a different kind of internet connection, select it from the menu and adjust the upload rate until it's as high as possible.

Check the tracker website to verify that you are listed as a complete possessor of the file, then post a thread at the private message board announcing the movie's availability for download. Don't forget to include a link to the .torrent file!

Here are a few additional things you can include in your post:

Screenshots at playback resolution, to show the picture is properly cropped and sized.
A link to the movie entry at IMDb, Rotten Tomatoes, or All Movie Guide.
A link to the series entry at TV.com.
The video codec and encoder version.
The audio codec and quality level of each stream.
The presence of extras like chapters and subtitles.
The names and sizes of the files included.
Your upload speed.

To take a screenshot, hit the Print Screen key, then open your favorite image-editing program and hit Ctrl+V. If that doesn't work, try turning off your video card's hardware acceleration. (You can also use Media Player Classic's "Save image" option, but it will only capture the original un-resized image--which will be distorted in the case of an anamorphic rip.) Save all screenshots as lossless .PNGs, not .JPGs.

Free hosting for screenshots is available at ImageShack, PaintedOver, 2and2, TinyPic, and ImgSpot.

BitTornado will begin uploading data once other people have downloaded the .torrent file and opened it with their BitTorrent clients. The tracker site might not show your correct upload speed while in Super-Seed mode, so go by the BitTornado display instead.

After a few hours or so (depending on your upload speed) the BitTornado indicator will turn green, meaning at least one person has finished downloading the movie.

When that happens, click , then open the .torrent file again. This time, do not select super-seed mode. Just select an upload speed.

Connections
BitTorrent doesn't require that you have a static IP to seed a file. When you open a .torrent file, it connects you to the tracker site and any other users. If the tracker site itself requires you to register your IP, however, you may need to re-download the .torrent file from the tracker to inform it of your new IP if it is dynamic and has changed.

Ports
Some ISP's block port 6881, the default port for most BitTorrent clients. This means you may need to configure your BitTorrent client to use other ports--usually in the 30000+ range. Also, if you connect to the internet through a router you may need to forward certain ports. (Which ports depends on your BitTorrent client and the requirements of the tracker.) Click now for model-specific router instructions.

Continue to upload as needed. When there are enough seeds, you can close BitTornado.

Links