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Just maybe one of the funniest things ever....

So for those of you familiar with peer-to-peer file sharing, you'll know that torrents are the most popular form of file sharing on the internet.

People access torrents via torrent search sites. They visit these sites, search for the files they are looking for, download the torrent (which is just a very small file) and then drag the torrent file in to a download program like utorrent. Then a few minutes or hours later they have the file on their computer.

So I visited isohunt tonight, one of the more popular torrent search sites (not to download anything of course, just out of curiosity, wink wink) and I busted out laughing at the job description they had listed on their homepage. It read:


isoHunt is the most comprehensive BitTorrent search engine on the interwebs. It comes as no surprise that losers online share links of copyleft and copyright materials which isoHunt indexes, both in indiscriminate amounts. Each possible infringement from such links are worth tens of thousands of dollars in statutory damage. With 166.2 million files indexed within torrent links on isoHunt, the amount of potential claim is worth TRILLIONS of dollars.

However, the conundrum isoHunt faces is determining who owns copyright over what files are described within torrent files that isoHunt indexes, and what are the wishes of these copyright holders. Is a file's copyright owned by hippies such as Richard Stallman and similar Free Software gang with these ridiculous beards? Or socialist commies such as these filmmakers posting free films and shows at Vodo, (absurd, I know) and similarly free music at Jamendo, and any other sites hosting such so-called copyleft non-sense? Or such copyright holders, whoever they are, hang on to their copyright as they rightfully should and intend on suing any who infringes on their copyright? Afterall, victories in court or settlements are worth more than customers. These copyright holders are our friends and isoHunt seek your expertise in bringing copyright thieves to justice. And profit.

Candidates for a position as Senior Architect and Programmer for Anti-Piracy has the following requirements:

* Semantically determine from names of file listings within close to 7 million .torrents isoHunt indexes, the following: copyright holder of such files, and metadata on the copyright status of such files
* isoHunt do not host or have access to such files (isoHunt can't be a hypocrite and download these files like all the pirates do), so your job it is to determine the above by solely file names
* No master database referencing copyright ownership and status with files shared on P2P networks currently exist, so your job it is to build such a database
* Desired, but not required: to determine names and addresses of pirates participating in the piracy of copyrighted works, for law enforcement purposes (not those owned by copyleft hippies, after having determined copyright status of files). Note that IP addresses does not suffice, even a child can copy out IP addresses of fellow pirates in his BitTorrent client.
* 30+ years experience in C++, Java, Python, Perl, TCP/IP, BitTorrent protocols, and strong magic are required for this job.

Should you qualify, please reply ASAP. Trillions of dollars of profit await, and your compensation will be almost as impressive.

So if you know someone with 30 years experience and 'strong magic' who wants to search through seven million torrent files and build out a database of copyright material tell them to apply.

Too damn funny and a great way to illustrate the absurdity of trying to control p2p sites.

Comments

  1. DaveMay 30, 2011 at 5:09 AM

    Thanks for the post Rob! A great illustration of the madness!

    ReplyDelete

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