Some would have us believe that this snazzy P2P app is for the information age what newsprint was to movable type. And so I decided to see what all the fuss was about.
There are two things you need in order to run BitTorrent: first, the application which you can download for free from its web site; and second, the URL(s) for some trackers like piratebay.org.
Part of the excitement surrounding BitTorrent is that it provides a real-world example of how cooperative behaviour (altruism) outperforms rational self-interest (greed). The problem is: it doesn’t work. The program works. But no matter how much theory you throw at it, none of it sticks.
First, what is BitTorrent and what does it do
BitTorrent is a peer to peer (P2P) application. It facilitates file-sharing. Naturally, the MPAA is looking at it with grave concern. The MPAA has nothing to fear—yet. Most P2P apps work as follows. One machine has a file. Other machines can access the machine directly and download the file from that machine. Once the file has been fully downloaded, other machines can access the second machine and download the file from it as well as from the first machine. However, there are factors which adversely affect the efficiency of P2P protocols:
1. The tasks of downloading a file and of uploading a file are discrete, as are the roles of machines in the transaction. Some machines are hosts or servers where the files are available to be downloaded. And other machines are clients which are the destinations for the files. The same machine can be both a client and a server simultaneously.
2. Downloads are always faster than uploads. ISP’s deliberately choke upload speeds. If they didn’t do this, then anyone with a fast connection could act as an ISP and compete directly with the original ISP.
3. There is an incentive inherent in serving on a P2P network — downloaders will upload items as a fee for the acquired file. Those who download without uploading are called leeches. (Not all servers discourages leeching; there are those who serve for political, social or economic reasons, but they are rare.)
4. A complete file must be uploaded or downloaded, otherwise it is useless.
These factors create perverse incentives. For example, if one server has a file which is desirable, then many clients will attempt to download the file simultaneously. Since the server has limited bandwidth (it is uploading at a finite rate), the more clients the slower each client downloads the file. Another is that a client may disappear as soon as it has acquired the file but before its own file has been uploaded.
BitTorrent skews the server/client relationship in order to counter this perverse incentive. You can read one person’s economic analysis [site no longer exists] of BitTorrent. It reads like the story of John Nash and the blond in the bar. The object is to get laid. If all the boys agree to ignore the blond and hook up with all the other girls around her, their cooperation produces the optimal result. Everybody gets laid (except, maybe, the blond). Game theorists and theologians alike have responded by hailing it as a “scientific” justification for altruistic behaviour.
In a nutshell, here’s what BitTorrent does:
1. All machines must act as servers and clients simultaneously. Leeching is not an option.
2. Files are broken into tiny packets.
3. At least one machine must have all the packets which, when assembled, form the entire file. This machine acts to “seed” the network.
4. There must be a tracker, a server which tracks supply and demand of all the packets.
As other machines acquire packets from the seeding machine, they serve these packets to still other machines. This creates the counter-intuitive result that as more people try to acquire a single desirable file, it becomes more readily available. Second, it regulates the ratio of packets downloaded and uploaded to ensure that all machines are participating on both sides of the transaction. Third, machines can come and go without hindering the process (by abandoning partial uploads).
There is a problem with the picture I have painted: the evils perpetrated by simple P2P networks like Kazaa are not so evil; and the blessings of BitTorrent’s enforced altruism is not so blessed.
Are P2P networks so evil?
There is an incorrect assumption about leeching—that leeches try to get something for nothing. In fact, leeches exist for the same reason P2P networks exist. They seek to undermine the system. For P2P networks, the “system” is the producers of popular culture who provide us with, according to P2P users, overpriced goods. For leeches, the “system” is the P2P network as a hypocritical expression of rebellion (e.g. by demanding that clients adhere to codes of behaviour more stringent than the “system” which the P2P networks denounce). Thus, many leeches are, in fact, counter revolutionaries who critique the critics. And this reveals the P2P culture to be highly (although perversely) moral in its conduct and well-regulated by a system of internal checks and balances.
Is BitTorrent so good?
I must confess that I am underwhelmed by BitTorrent’s performance. I can only explain the gap between theory and practice by suggesting that BitTorrent creates perverse incentives all its own. First, like Nashian game theory, it cannot apply to all real world scenarios (such as acquiring pirated software) because it cannot determine in advance what counts as desirable. What if Nash had been studying theology with a bunch of priests? Even if all the boys wanted to get laid, none (presumably) would have acted on those desires. Similarly, BitTorrent only works if most of its users already agree that a given file is desirable. BitTorrent may work well for objects of popular North American culture (e.g. the latest Hollywood release), but so what? In response, BitTorrent users might say that the criteria for deciding what to desire is a matter of individual taste and is no concern of mine. I answer that speaking of individual taste is silly in a cooperative scheme. More dangerous is the possibility that BitTorrent can be exploited by arbiters of taste to promote a particular version of popular culture: Film A is better than Film B because more people are downloading it, and what’s more, it is more easily downloaded. The perverse result is that, because no one is downloading Film B, it is unavailable for inspection. No one can say for certain that Film A is superior — only that it is available. Culture flies out the window.
My final suspicion:
I think BitTorrent is an MPAA conspiracy aimed at promoting the tripe from Hollywood. The MPAA realizes that it is the champion of an inferior product and that, if left unfettered, the market for its product would collapse. BitTorrent now makes it easier to change the product rather than to change the market. The result is that all of us are impoverished if we adopt a cooperative scheme for the delivery of culture.