Welcome to Anti-BT.com, the Anti Piracy Homepage

Online piracy is growing at astronomical rates. The real impact and the real magnitude of the problem is not really known since no-one knows for sure how much property is really “taken” on a daily basis. What we do know is that piracy hurts everyone who uses the internet, whether for information, for entertainment, for work, or for one's livelihood. Estimations of lost revenues reach into the billions of dollars. Hence, many organizations around the world are working to identify the problems, hiring intellectual property lawyers and find solutions to prevent piracy. In addition, they are trying to research modern technologies so that creators and developers of digital media can safely make their material available and still get paid. They must find “legal ways” for the public to download material. As part of our contribution to stamp out online piracy, we have created this website, and we welcome you to Anti-BT.com, the Anti Piracy Homepage.

Piracy is defined in many ways but the basic underlining concept of the term is theft. Regular everyday people steal music, software and movies via various legal online methods, and illegal websites. Incredibly, they justify their actions by saying things like:

• The theaters charge too much for admission tickets, so why I should pay to go the movies, when I get the newest titles free online?
• Software companies make millions of dollars each year upgrading their products, why should I have to pay every time to get something I already own?
• People used to copy music to their own cassette tapes without being jailed, so why can't I listen to music when I want?

All of these assumptions really miss the sole purpose of piracy laws. The fact that they have benefited from someone's hard work and did not pay for that privilege. Most of these same people would not think about walking into a music store and walking out the door with a DVD to watch it on their brand new HDTV. On the contrary, they would stop at the checkout counter, and pay for the DVD. Yet, millions of people do not flinch when committing online piracy. So hopefully, this site can bring about awareness, and help individuals understand the full effects of their actions.

Moreover, today's technology has permitted computer users to find information fast and to expect everything for free. The industry has trained people to bypass convention and get to what they need immediately with as little inconvenience as possible. Peer-to-peer (P2P) communications are an example of convenience. For associates working on the same projects, there needed to be a way to access files quickly so everyone could work on their own computers in an efficient manner. Downloading the files or sending them by email was counterproductive, as it took too long and used too much bandwidth. By using specialty software, project collaborators could access other computers and obtain the required files.

Of course, others found ways to take the technology and use it for illicit reasons, specifically finding and downloading music and movies. One technology that became available was “bittorrent”. Although the application itself is legal, as it was developed for legitimate purposes such as workplace environments, it remains to be seen whether users are just finding ways to skirt piracy laws. Is it being used for the intended purpose, or are people uploading and downloading legally protected material?

Still, others have provided users with websites that host “cracks” or “keys' to unlock software. Thousands of these sites exist. Users do not want to purchase licenses for software and computer applications, so they look for the easy way out. Others have cracked the code and give away the keys to unlock the software and make it fully functional.

As you can see this topic covers a broad area which some say is not completely defined. But our goal is to discuss the facts, the short and long term effect, as well as the consequences and alternatives of online piracy.