Love it or hate it, copyright infringement just keeps getting easier and easier:
Earlier this week a new piece of software debuted alongside promises to revolutionize how people use torrents.
Covered in our earlier article, Torrents-Time is a browser plug-in for Windows and Mac that allows people to view torrents embedded in a webpage and without need for an external torrent client.
The Torrents-Time team promised that their technology could transform any website into a simple to use streaming portal. Indeed, the first public application was Popcorntime-Online.io, a browser-based edition of Popcorn Time that for the first time used peer-to-peer transfers rather than resource hungry HTTP.
But just days later and a new and even more powerful partner has emerged.
Last evening The Pirate Bay became the first general torrent index to utilize Torrents-Time technology. The site has now placed Torrents-Time links next to all of its video torrents, meaning that users with the plug-in can watch videos on The Pirate Bay without using a stand-alone torrent client or even leaving the page.
At the moment only Windows and OSX are supported by the plugin and my google-fu is not up to finding any official word on a linux port pre-coffee.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @08:37PM
Don't worry about the missing Linux port... (no need to put it into the kernel)
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @08:59PM
Yeah, doesn't work on Linux. I'd rather use transmission anyway. My 14TBs of hard drives are getting full though.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @09:05PM
(no need to put it into the kernel)
Wait long enough, and it'll be in SystemD!
ba-dum-shishshhhhhhhhhhhhh
I'm here all week; try the veal!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @08:54AM
Wait for systemd, if you wish. There's already a bittorent client for EMACS.
https://github.com/sverrejoh/emacs-torrent/blob/master/etorrent.el [github.com]
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 07 2016, @10:55PM
Pirate Bay was shut down.
Then came back.
It is probably now an NSA honeypot.
I wouldn't stream movies from it...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @01:47AM
All you have to do is install their plug-in. What could possibly go wrong?
People on the green site were reporting that the plug-in was doing something continuously, that it would respawn if shut down, and that it was active even when the browser was closed, by the way.
(Score: 1) by echostorm on Sunday February 07 2016, @11:14PM
streaming torrent technology is fantastic. I predict this will be a game changer for how content gets delivered on webpages in the future. I'd strongly suggest everyone who uses it gets themselves a vpn first though.
(Score: 4, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Sunday February 07 2016, @11:35PM
In Germany at least, watching a stream is a legal light-gray zone and can't (or at least usually won't) be persecuted. Distribution however (as a torrent does) is. This means if my browser opens a stream as a torrent stream instead of simple server2client stream, it puts me legally at high risk.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 3, Informative) by q.kontinuum on Sunday February 07 2016, @11:39PM
Should have mentioned, the legal risk exists only for content from dodgy sources. Free content or content offered that way under a valid license would be ok. But since the article was mentioning pirate bay, I took the dodgy nature of the source for granted.
Registered IRC nick on chat.soylentnews.org: qkontinuum
(Score: 2) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Sunday February 07 2016, @11:46PM
I was running out of space on my hard drive, as I attempted to relive the days of my misspent youth
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2) by darkfeline on Sunday February 07 2016, @11:46PM
Three can keep a secret, if two of them are dead.
-- Benjamin Franklin
Join the SDF Public Access UNIX System today!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 08 2016, @06:18AM
A huge number of new leechers.
Oh, joy!