Thursday, 4 January 2018

Game of Words: View vs. Counter View 1.60

SHOULD TORRENTS BE BANNED


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VIEW
  • Jason D’Souza


According to me torrent sites are like enemies of gaming companies and movie producers
because all these companies and amp producers incur huge amounts of losses
due to torrent sites.


Many people download games and movies from torrent free of cost instead of buying them.
Due to this even those who cannot afford these games and movies can also get them free of cost.


The main problem is piracy. Many people download movies and games from these sites and
sell them illegally in the market that also creates heavy losses for producers and gaming
companies.


According to me banning torrents sites would at least prevent piracy if not eliminate it.
Apart from major torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, Kickass Torrents there are more than
20-30 alternate torrent sites, which I know already, exist! Even if the government manages
to ban all of them that are highly unlikely, the sites will come up with new URLs.


The users can also access the banned sites via a VPN or Torrent Browser. Torrent piracy
is illegal in the US and few other countries. The websites that are set up more or less
for the purpose of illegal sharing, like Pirate Bay exists outside the legal reach of the US.
This results in an increase in piracy.


Hence, torrenting is not legal; it is used for illegal purposes because it is a form of
downloading. It is not used by many big companies because of its bad reputation because
of websites like Pirate Bay etc., which steals information.


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COUNTERVIEW
  • Kritin J. Paulraj


First of all, I may not be a frequent user of Torrent sites but I do feel that banning torrents
on the pretext of piracy is not right because if torrents causes piracy, then even social
networks like Facebook, Twitter, Whatsapp etc. causes various crimes like stalking,
cyber bullying etc., so why aren’t these sites banned.


In fact Torrents is not a site that supports piracy, but it’s a free sharing portal. In India
not all language films are available for viewership in the theatres. If one had to buy
one online movie or game, he would burn a hole in his pocket because it is very expensive.
I don’t mind going to a theatre or buying games if it is affordable and available to people
like me. For example I’ve been a Game of Thrones fan for a year and I was never aware
of such a T.V. show until now because it was never or hardly aired in India, even if it
was the most popular T.V. show in the world. So when I started to search for an episode
online, I hardly found any and when I found one it was about $67 which is approximately
4449.50 rupees at present. I was like 4.5 grand for just an episode that’s outrageous!


Then I had started watching these episodes in YouTube through reactions videos of
various groups in the states. After GOT had become famous in India which is a
good news to most of the fans, but it was not completely a good news because it
had aired only in certain channels for which viewers had to pay a huge amount,
according to certain laws regarding digital network in India, which led to an
increased use of torrents.


In contrast to Jason’s point, about anyone or poor people can get access to it, I
would like to say that everyone irrespective of their economic background have
the right to access to media and also the point that it leads to losses for companies
and producers.


I would like to say that these companies and producers are already earning
millions of dollars and the losses are really less. Encouraging the ban just for this
region sounds too capitalistic in nature. But, that doesn’t mean I support piracy,
piracy is a crime punishable by law but torrent isn’t the only source of piracy.
Even if you ban it, there are other ways one could sell pirated copies of movies and games.
I feel that arresting anyone who just logs into a torrent site is something ridiculous
and outrageous. If the government still feels it should ban torrents, it could do so
but it should provide a site for such users with appropriate videos.


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