I can't believe I'm suggesting this...[bandwidth capping]

[badmartialarts]

Lemme quote myself first.

People actually download videos just for the songs?

"Oh boy, someone put out a 70 mb video with the song I wanted! I'll just wait 3 minutes for it to download on my aDSL line and put it on my 300 gb hard drive so I can just listen to the song."

Wait a second...that's not really that bad.

Damned leechers, back to to the pits of filesharing with ye!

(from this thread.)

I'll begin with a standard confession. I have used filesharing programs. Sometimes it takes 40-50 minutes just to download one song (since I'm usually after fairly rare stuff). With all the issues nowdays with filesharing and the like, a site like this that offers insanely fast download speeds (sometimes I can get a video in less than 5 minutes) might be a tempting target for idiots such as the one from this thread who want their music now, not later. And thus, a tempting target for lawsuit, particularly if such laws as the INDUCE Act pass Congress (haven't checked in on that in a while) which opens the owners of sites/utilities that allow the trading of copyrighted material to civil and criminal penalties. Now, I know all the arguements for fair use, and if I didn't believe them I definitely wouldn't be making any of my videos public (though I might still make them, they're quite entertaining).

Therefore, a modest and perhaps sickening proposal: bandwidth capping. Slow this site down to fall more in line with the filesharing services and the idjit leechers will go back to them instead of jumping in here. I wouldn't know enough to call a good speed: perhaps 150-200 kbps at the most. There would be two benefits to this:

1) Lower operating costs.
May not be that big of an issue. (BTW, my money order is in the mail.) But cheaper is always better.
2) Force the lechers back to their old homes.
Dangit, if they want free music there are plenty of ways to get it, don't come here for it!

Maybe it's not a great idea, but it's an idea. Flames welcome.

[AMVfreak]

Interesting point...
But I'm not sure.
I think it's one of those things that really can't get helped.

I'm sure even with decreased download speeds of 50 kilobytes, leechers will still come to get music. I think the overly huge filesize of an AMV(in ratio to the filesize of the audio alone) somewhat acts as a protection from leechers getting music in the first place.

Downloading 40-100 MB to get a song?
Wouldn't leechers think that using file-sharing utilities are easier anyways?
Going to Yahoo Launch(suggested by downwithpants in BMA's linked thread)?

I'm hoping leechers stay off the org for the above notes.

I don't think decreasing download speeds are fair for the others just for some leechers, although on the other hand, I can completely see where you're coming from...

[bum]

I wouldn't know enough to call a good speed: perhaps 150-200 kbps at the most.

Wait, do you mean Kbps (bits) or KBps (bytes)?

Oh and, yeah its a good idea.

[downwithpants]

i'm against cutting bandwidth (i like my <2 minute downloads) but i see how a dedicated download (even if it's a larger filesize) can be faster and more reliable than p2p programs. nonetheless, the variety in music here isn't that great (10% of local vids are linkin park or evanescence according to super search), and a lot of videos have pretty fugly sound quality. if i wanted to leech a song, i'd still rather go after it in a p2p program than dl an amv here.

perhaps in the future, when (or if) most other means of illegal downloads are brought down, when the org amasses a comprehensive collection of music, and when audio quality becomes reliable in vids, song leechers might flock to the org and draw attention from the RIAA, but until then i'd prefer the site not put constraints on members just because a few use it for leeching free songs.

[Zarxrax]

I fail to see why anyone would want to download a 70mb, usually recompressed, possibly edited song off of this site, when they could just download a high quality copy of it just as fast off bittorrent.

[Otohiko]

And then it requires a certain amount of time and technical knowledge to rip and convert to a more manageable format - I seriously don't think anyone wants to have music at 70megs per song...

It may become a concern, but I'll agree that it's not a concern as yet. I would suggest holding off such measures until there is enough reason to assume that it's a concern.

That may not be far off, but I don't think it's a problem just yet.

[Lyrs]

You're talking about kids here (mostly). First, the music is readily available. Second, there is google. Third, kids aren't logical or rational. Fourth, if there is a will, there is a way. Fifth, they're kids and computer kiddies, able and willing to explore the web without a moral conscience.

The Org has VERY fast download speed. This means, they can just download a 70mb movie and spend little more than 2 minute or two stripping the music.

It's not all that hard (I tested it out). The music has pretty good quality, not the best, but still good enough that the average person wouldn't notice. All you just have to do is use google and look around music and mp3 tools. Naturally, this test was to prove a point. I have deleted the mp3.

Here comes the RIAA?

[Scintilla]

You're talking about kids here (mostly). First, the music is readily available. Second, there is google. Third, <b>kids aren't logical or rational.</b> Fourth, if there is a will, there is a way. Fifth, they're kids and computer kiddies, able and willing to explore the web <b>without a moral conscience</b>.

... <i>please</i> say that was a joke.

[Lyrs]

okay, okay, I'll say it's a joke. I hope you're happy now.

[Arigatomina]

Sure, put a cap on the people with insanely fast dsl connection - make them wish they'd saved their money and stuck with dial-up. That would not affect me whatsoever. I'm already limited to a average 1.0 Kbps max speed for downloading off local, usually slower than that. I can get things *much* faster on p2p sharers (hence why I've been downloading vids from there lately, instead of the local server).

At the most, it would encourage people to put smaller files on the org - lowering some of the perfect-quality-at-90mb files that abound. But it wouldn't be much fun to watch the vids if that happened, even if people were willing to wait the extra hours to get them.

If you're looking to put a hamper on leeches, then put a hamper on leeches. Make a bandwidth limit on an individual basis - going by how big the leech is, and why you think that person is downloading so many videos so quickly. You could even account donation, reviews, participation on the forum into whether or not you cap the ones downloading an insane number of videos.

A mandatory site-wise limit would create more problems than it would solve. Not for me personally, but for general members who like getting high quality videos fast.