And The Pirates Will Prevail...

The young are sailing the Internet Ocean for illegal downloads. From sites like Mininova to applications like LimeWire, Malaysian Today breaks it down for those who download - the sites, the risks and the legal (yes, they exist!) alternatives.

Hamdan*, 22, an ordinary and perpetually broke student, is a huge fan of Heroes. But when the next season of this popular series starts playing on our TV screens, he won't be watching it. He doesn't have to. He has already found the entire collection of seasons from Mininova.org, and it took him only three days to download. He also has the latest seasons of Psych, Reaper, Desperate Housewives, Gossip Girls... all on his hard drive.

Hamdan is a pirate. He doesn't have an eyepatch, but he sure has a treasure trove of sites, tips, and tricks to get what he wants, when he wants it. And why not? asks Hamdan. In this generation of instant gratification, waiting a week before another episode is aired is unheard of. He knows full well it is illegal, but really, he doesn't care.

"Why should I wait till next week to watch an old season of Heroes? And why should I have to sit through countless ads, interruptions and cliffhangers when I can simply watch it on my laptop?" he demands. "I can watch what I want, when I want it, and for absolutely free." And his opinion is very much reflected among young Malaysians today.

From the money factor to the 'I want it now' factor, the reality is: illegal downloading of movies, TV shows, music, software and files is here to stay. The young people are doing it - with limited funds and a whole world in the Internet open to them, they scoff at TV and they sneer at iTunes. There are probably thousands of sites where illegal downloads are available, but there are some which are enormously popular, and have become the go-to sites for the illegal downloader. Here is the cold, hard fact: you need not set up a stall, wear short pants and sell 'one for RM8, five for RM35' to be a pirate, because all you need to do is use one of the sites mentioned below.

The Ultimate Steal

Take Mininova.org., for example. Currently the largest and most popular torrent search site (according to the Alexa ranking), Mininova makes available torrents (little 'pieces' of an entire file, spread throughout the internet to be collected by bit torrent clients, which are applications utilizing the P2P and tracker framework to connect and collect these 'pieces' from a network of computers) of anything under the sun, from anime and movies to games, software and music.

One can easily find movies dating back to the 50's to the latest releases that have yet to hit our shores - take for instance the highly rated 'Coraline', which will not enter our cinemas until the end of this month (it was shown in May in the US), or even the classics which are no longer aired here.

"I downloaded Coraline one month after it was released in the States. It's a clear copy, a DVD rip (meaning its DVD quality) and took me only a few hours," shares Patty*, who is 21, a student, and has no patience to wait. "Mininova has even helped me find re-mastered copies of old Audrey Hepburn classics like My Fair Lady, Breakfast at Tiffany's and Funny Face."

"I go to Mininova.org everyday to find new torrents from popular and trusted uploaders (users online who upload the torrent files for one and all to download) and to find rare music albums too," she admits.

Nonetheless, Mininova has seen some pretty sticky business over the years, being the successor of the then-popular Suprnova, which was shut down due to copyright infringement issues. Copyright infringement happens when creative or intellectual works are distributed or reproduced without permission or payment, which explains why the downloading of torrents and such for free is illegal.

This has not stopped users of Mininova, however. Google rated Mininova as the ninth most-searched and queried word in 2006 and it is estimated that five billion torrents are downloaded from the website every year.

In a list of top ten torrent sites, isoHunt comes next - much like Mininova, isoHunt hunts down torrents and makes it easy to click and pick the files wanted. Also on the list is The Pirate Bay, which has received a lot of flak (no brainer there) for being what the Los Angeles Times call 'the most burgeoning member of pro-piracy to date'. Nonetheless, it still bills itself as the world's largest torrent tracker (servers which help connect torrents to the downloader), and has around three million registered users. It could be more - registration is not a must to download off the site.

The Pirate Bay is followed by TorrentZ.com, BTJunkie.org, TorrentSpy.com, TorrentPortal.com, GamesTorrents.com, TorrentReactor.net and BTMon.com. These sites help search the net for available torrents.

And, depending on the seed (computers in the network that already have the complete file) and peer (those who want to download the pieces of the file) ratio, downloading a movie of around 800MB can be as fast as two hours or as slow as two days.

These sites, however, need what is called a torrent client, and top of that list right now is uTorrent, or also known as microTorrent. This incredibly small application enables illegal downloaders to download their chosen torrents and to open up connections between seeds, peers and trackers. uTorrent gained a huge following for being tiny (under 300Kb in size, when fully installed) and for being practically unnoticeable when running in the background. It is also user-friendly and has a simple user interface.

uTorrent is in fact Hamdan's choice for a torrent client, as well as the choice of 28 million unique, registered (monthly) users - the number is non-definitive, since registration is not required for usage.

Hot on the heels of uTorrent is BitComet and LimeWire. BitComet is a torrent client similar to uTorrent, but is much larger, and consumes more memory (meaning it takes a bigger chunk of your computer's processes). Other torrent clients are ABC, Azureus, BitTornado and XBT.

In turn, LimeWire, which was released in 2000, is one of the older peer-to-peer (P2P) software that emerged after the closing of Napster (which pioneered the P2P networks but was heavily sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and has since then closed off all illegal backdoors and gone legal). However, LimeWire is not used for large file downloads such as movies, it is more commonly used for songs and videos due to it using a Gnutella P2P network (which is slower, older).

"The thing about this software is that it is free and easy to install and use. Just type in what you want and voila! It will be found," says Wong,* 18. "I myself have over five gigabytes worth of music in my laptop, of which none I paid for. I get them off LimeWire or off my friends. It's not that I am proud of it, but I simply can't make myself buy a CD. I am too used to getting it for free."

She is not alone. "When a new song is being talked about, or an artist releases a new album, one simply has to visit the torrent sites over a few days to find a pirated copy of it up for download," shares Raj, 23, who primarily downloads movies and songs. He streams them sometimes, but he loses patience with the buffering and the poor quality. "If it has yet to be available from the torrent sites, then I turn to VDownloader, especially if I find the song I want on YouTube."

VDownloader is an application that enables downloads of videos on a streaming site (most commonly, YouTube) and the conversion of these videos into audio (.mp3, .wma) or to download it as video itself in .avi or .mpeg formats. It doesn't work with every website, however, but it is incredibly easy to use - simply paste the link of the website and it automatically retrieves the video information.

Similar to VDownloader is Graboid, which is an application that gives users access to thousands of videos and the option to stream or download full-length videos. It isn't free but one can try it for 30 days on trial.

There are a whole host of other sites and software that brings out the 'yar' in you, some more popular than others. And before we forget, some are safer than others, too.

The Risks

So we've heard from Hamdan the Heroes fan, and how he will not be watching it on the telly. What he would rather not mention, however, are the risks he took.

"I know that by downloading such a popular series, there are a lot of 'fake' torrents out there. I could totally download 'Heroes', but when I open the file, it could be a crappy pornographic film or even a nasty virus," he winces. "But I have been lucky so far - the worst I've got is a few trojans which my anti-virus weeded out pretty quickly."

Jason, 22, however, was not so lucky. He once downloaded a virus which froze his computer. He's even had adwares which popped-up endlessly and bugged him, worms which burrowed into his hard drive and refused to be exterminated, and a whole host of other problems which resulted in a complete formatting of his hard drive. "I was foolish, but you know what? I will continue to download. I really will. I just need to be more careful, that's all."

He is not alone. May*, 20, once accidentally downloaded a nasty virus which came along with a very rare and old movie - a movie which she found a few months later at an old video rental store. It corrupted all her important files and rendered her computer useless. But, like Jason, she still downloads. Except that she checks and runs scans before anything else.

"There are 'safety' tips in downloading," she shares. "First of all, you have to know how trustworthy the website is: Mininova, isoHunt, The Pirate Bay are all pretty safe. Mininova disallows the uploading of pornographic material too." She also says that the uploader and comments on the torrent are equally as important.

"Each torrent comes with comments - read them! Also, if the number of downloads are numerous, and seeds and peers are still available, it is more likely to be genuine." Common sense also tells you that running a scan of the file is also a good tip.

But despite all this, there really is no guarantee to anything when it comes to illegal downloading. The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) stated on their website that viruses and malware are only the tip of the iceberg. There is identity theft, and then there is the risk of getting slapped with hefty fines.

Two years ago, the Domestic Trade and Consumer Affairs Ministry issued a warning to Malaysians that a fine of up to RM500,000 will be imposed upon those who download illegally. However, until now, there is no word of any confirmed cases where someone has been fined here, though there have been many reports of successful cases won against those who share files or download illegally in the US and even in the UK.

Over one thousand students in the US have been fined up to US$5,000 since 2003, and more recently, a landmark case was won in the UK against two people who were caught swapping files online - they were fined a heavy 1.9 million pounds each. Not only that, you also expose your college, university or office network if you download illegally while on the computers - there have been reports of sensitive information such as employee/student records and details being stolen through backdoor spyware.

 Alexander Gostev, Senior Virus Analyst at Kaspersky Labs Global Headquarter,  warns illegal downloaders that not only are they running the risk of criminal prosecution, users who illegally download copyrighted content risk infecting their computer with malicious programs.

"File exchange networks are a principle medium through which malware propagates. Pirated software and downloadable files are often used by cybercriminals as carriers of malicious programs," he explains. "A new threat is posed by cybercriminals using music and films to deliver malware to users' computers."

 "For example, there are several dozen malicious programs that appear to be video clips, but are in fact Trojans installing other malicious programs to the victims' machines. A file virus that infected MP3 files once even made it into our monthly Top 20 most widespread malware.

What's so dangerous about malware, really? you may ask. Gostev has the answer: malware of each specific type is designed to carry out specific tasks, such as stealing Internet banking data, online gaming passwords, e-mail accounts, and so forth.

"But the most serious danger is posed by malicious programs that can make the victim's computer part of a zombie network," he says. "Zombie networks may consist of tens of thousands of computers and fulfill any tasks set by the control center, such as sending spam, attacking websites or servers."

In conclusion, says Gostev, If you download illegal copies of software, movies or music, you are not only cheating the manufacturer but harming yourself, because you risk infecting your computer and falling victim to cybercrime.

Legal vs Illegal

There are legal means available; there are sites where full episodes and movies can be streamed for free, and sites where a subscription fee can allow you access to millions of songs, all for downloading and all for free. Some examples are Hulu.com, Fancast.com, and the latest sensation, Spotify.com. They're just not available here, that's all.

At least not yet. Hulu.com has full length movies and series episodes online for free, but is only limited in the US for now. Spotify also makes tonnes of songs available for free, though with terms and conditions... but also only in the States.

Not all is lost however, as DiGi has launched their DiGi Music portal - for RM 5 a month, a registered user can download an unlimited number of songs to their computers or handphones. And with the talk of plans to increase the dismal broadband speeds (we didn't say it, an Oxford study ranked Malaysia 48th in a list of 66 countries) here, we could very well have options to stream videos legally at a faster rate than ever.

Still, the young may never stop downloading.

"I have gotten too used to getting them for free. Better broadband just means faster downloads," shrugs May. "I don't think my friends will stop either."

Darren Choy, 44, who was Managing Director for EMI Malaysia up to 2004, is of the same opinion. Having had extensive experience in the recording industry, he believes that with the accessibility and the progress of the Internet, it will only encourage the continuity of illegal dowloading.

"Illegal downloading does affect the livelihoods of the singers, record labels and producers," he says. "And because of that, education takes a front seat in preventing illegal downloading - the young need to be educated on the importance of purchasing content legally. There are legal means - iTunes has shown that. It's just not accessible here yet."

"As for Internet television taking over conventional television; it boils down to content. Content providers must create content that meets the needs of the target audience and keep it interesting. It's not a matter of medium, its a matter of content."

However,  Choy is sure that the entertainment industry will never die out - piracy or not.

"There will always be a demand for entertainment. The only thing is in which medium will they consume it."

So, whether for the money, or for the fact that we take our (right now) relatively lax and unenforced Internet piracy laws for granted, we will have to wait and see - but for now, the pirates go 'yo, ho, ho.'