BitTorrent has been picked as the delivery method of choice by the Internet Archive, with the site offloading a whole host of media for public consumption.
Although torrenting has been tarred with the piracy brush pretty much since its inception, the Internet Archive has decided to use the P2P protocol as a means to distribute its out-of-copyright and completely legal haul of content.
The reason it has been chosen, according to John Gilmore, founder of the Electronic Frontier Foundation, is because of its speed and efficiency. And it seems it may also be a lesson in using torrenting for good.
Not dodgy
"I supported the original creation of BitTorrent because I believe in building technology to make it easy for communities to share what they have," explained Gilmore.
"The Archive is helping people to understand that BitTorrent isn't just for ephemeral or dodgy items that disappear from view in a short time.
"BitTorrent is a great way to get and share large files that are permanently available from libraries like the Internet Archive."
Interestingly, the Internet Archive is also going to keep a track of statistics for the downloads, which will show what content is being downloaded and how many times. This can be found at: http://bt1.archive.org/hotlist.php.
For those who are still not convinced that BitTorrent is on the straight and narrow, HTTP downloads will also remain – so there's plenty of ways to download Plan 9 From Outer Space and other out-of-copyright oddities.
Via TechSpot
