The end of bittorrent?

[cornsail]

Originally Posted by Bikewer

I have seen studies indicating that people that download music also tend to buy more music than folks that don't.

I never buy music anymore. I haven't for like 7 years. Except for a direct donation to Negativland and I think a small donation for Radiohead's "In Rainbows". And I've paid for some live gigs.

The results of the study may be due to the fact that music enthusiasts tend to both download and buy music, thus someone who does one may be more likely to do the other without any causal relationship.

[Chris L]

Originally Posted by gnome

I think media files are safe from unwanted executables for now unless someone posts actual evidence to the contrary.

But don't worry, I'm sure Microsoft will make it possible soon enough. Once upon a time we laughed at people who claimed they got a virus just from opening an email to read it.

By letting their media player interact with the OS on the level it does, they already do.

[OnlyTellsTruths]

Originally Posted by gnome

I think media files are safe from unwanted executables for now unless someone posts actual evidence to the contrary.

But don't worry, I'm sure Microsoft will make it possible soon enough. Once upon a time we laughed at people who claimed they got a virus just from opening an email to read it.

I think maybe they are talking about people who still have file extensions hidden. That is the only way it would make sense to me. But then it wouldn't really be an .mp3 or an .avi after all....

[KDLarsen]

Alas, if only it was actually possible to pay for the stuff I use Bittorrent for: Various BBC productions (of which only QI shows up on BBC Entertainment, which is the only BBC channel we get overhere; the DVDs usually show up a few months after a season has finished), Special events coverage (I have way too many Olympic torrents running), and live bootlegs by my favourite band (and even then I went and bought every officially released live CD they've done, including some obscure Japanese imports).

[Nosi]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Nosi
Yes it can. I've found trojans in just about every filetype you can imagine. Viruses can be written on text documents that are inclosed with the media files as well. That is the nature of a trojan, a file hidden within another file. When you press play to watch a movie/listen to music, you are executing a file. That sets the file within said trojan off.

Originally Posted by TheL8Elvis

I'm not even sure I know what the hilited is supposed to mean.

In some cases it's possible to create a malformed media file (mp3, avi, whatever) that may take advantage of a flaw in a certain player ( quicktime, vlc, etc. ) and possibly run code, but that is completely different than what you appear to be describing.

It's also possible to disguise an executable file as different type of file like an mp3, but again, that is completely different than what you appear to be describing.

Could you link to some examples of what you are talking about ?

This guy thinks the problem is honey trapped .avi's, but I personally think this could be people getting their LULz and making zombies out of other people's computers.

Note this answer: a .avi file is really just a package with the video file stored inside in its normal format so they just inject the virus code into the start of the file or at the end

Zach Moore

I hope I answered your question, I'll try to clarify if I didn't.

[Nosi]

Originally Posted by Bikewer

I have seen studies indicating that people that download music also tend to buy more music than folks that don't.
Don't know the extent to which that's true; but with games, one might consider a pirate version to be a really complete demo. One can see if one actually likes the game and whether it has serious issues with one's system or internal problems that make it difficult.

If you then actually buy the game you can get the subsequent patches and updates and such that tend to be problematic with pirated versions.

Another area of this copyright thing that's becoming more widespread is demands that music sites that feature "tabs" cease and desist.
A "tab" is short for tablature, or a written-out version of a song's notes, chords, and such in non-musical notation. (tablature actually precedes standard music notation)
These are not pirated; they are user-created. Some musician figures out how to play a tune, and then painfully writes out the tab for it using notation software and puts it up on the web.
I can download this and then use it as an aid to learning the song.

The lawyers for the music publlishers consider this the same as pirating sheet music.

However, almost no one who uses tabs would ever buy the sheet music. Sheet music is almost always transcribed for piano, and tablature is instrument-specific. Translating a piece of standard sheet to the guitar is painful at best and certainly doesn't give you the flavor of how so-and-so actually plays the piece.
If you have great ears, you can always sit down and figure the tune out yourself, but this gets hard for folks wanting complex arrangements and/or difficult tunes.

In some cases, musicians do release actual tabs for sale, and I suppose that this would be a sort-of infringement, but it's not like these are being "stolen", rather the tabs up on sites like Ultimate Guitar are all user-created.

This man told a truth. Pirates go to more concerts too, which are money makers for the artists. Pirates buy T shirts and other paraphernalia that artists sell as well. There are artists that are beginning to make it with out labels at all, or beginning to rebel against their labels.

Label free artists are small in number but growing, giving the RIAA nightmares.

[TheL8Elvis]

Originally Posted by Nosi

This guy thinks the problem is honey trapped .avi's, but I personally think this could be people getting their LULz and making zombies out of other people's computers.

Note this answer: a .avi file is really just a package with the video file stored inside in its normal format so they just inject the virus code into the start of the file or at the end

Zach Moore

I hope I answered your question, I'll try to clarify if I didn't.

Yes, most media files are container files that tell the OS what kind of audio/video they contain. Something still has to execute the 'virus code'

I didn't study the entire thread you linked to above, but the gist seemed to be in line with my point about the flaw being in the player, or it not being a legit container.

A few quotes:

How do they put viruses in a video?
Two ways:
Exploiting a buffer overflow vulnerability in a program or using other means of exploitation
Movie.avi.exe

The gist is that the infected file(s) turned out to be .wmv not .avi
As is (i believe) permitted by the MS ASF (wmv) format, these files contained URL references, that WMP (not certain it was used by the OP but i think so) responded to and passed to the default web browser (again not certain but probably IE)

[Damien Evans]

Originally Posted by Nosi

This man told a truth. Pirates go to more concerts too, which are money makers for the artists. Pirates buy T shirts and other paraphernalia that artists sell as well. There are artists that are beginning to make it with out labels at all, or beginning to rebel against their labels.

Label free artists are small in number but growing, giving the RIAA nightmares.

One notable example even requested in song her record label drop her:

YouTube Video This video is not hosted by the JREF. The JREF can not be held responsible for the suitability or legality of this material. By clicking the link below you agree to view content from an external website.

I AGREE

[John Albert]

Bittorrent ain't going nowhere.