Torrent is a commonly used peer-to-peer file sharing protocol used for distributing large files such as movies, music and lot more. It is said to account for about 35% of the total Internet traffic.

A torrent's life begins when any person decides to make available a file to a network. A torrent file is created which contains the details about the file and its location. This torrent file, located on a server called tracker, is used by torrent clients such as Bit Torrent and Vuze to connect to the file provider. The one who provides the file is called a seed and allows peers to connect and download the file. Each peer who downloads a part of the file also starts distributing it, increasing the availability of the file. After the file is successfully downloaded, many peers continue to make the file available, becoming additional seeds. It is not looked upon as a respectful behaviour to download files using torrents without sharing it with others.

Torrent files reduce the burden on the original file provider by distributing the load between other users who are downloading or have downloaded the file. Its viral nature enable it to provide high download speeds.

Torrents have become a debatable issue over intellectual property rights. Many torrents (actually most of them) make available copyrighted materials such as movies, films and computer applications, infringing the rights of their lawful owners. Recently, torrent site The Pirate Bay has been the centre of a fight between property owners and torrent sites. This site is popular for providing free access to movies, music and other copyrighted material. A Swidish court is to decide this week whether the operators of the site are criminals?

The Pirate Bay had used this cartoon by Dylan Horrocks on their home page to put their point of view to people.




Illustration/Dylan Horrocks

Additional resources:
BitTorrent [Wikipedia]
Brian's BitTorrent FAQ
Legal threats against The Pirate Bay