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Esperanto Materials Torrent'ed?

kelle poolt FreeXenon, 18. november 2008

Postitused: 28

Keel: English

FreeXenon (Näita profiili) 18. november 2008 19:42.04

I am curious as to why much of the Esperanto materials that are available have not been Torrent'ed. I searched on Torrent sites for Esperanto material and I found none.

Torrent'ing seems like the perfect medium to distribute Esperanto stuff like CD's, books, podcasts, and so on.

Just a thought.

FreeXenon (Näita profiili) 18. november 2008 19:58.06

So very true. Those very things annoy me as well, but it is part of the Torrent deal. It can be a great place to find stuff.

Esperanto materials can be Torrent'ed up and left for people to find. It would one more level of exposure that people would have to Esperanto. Music and movies are popular and they would fit right in.

Think of it more as an free advertising venue, if you like.

Ironchef (Näita profiili) 18. november 2008 20:03.17

FreeXenon:I am curious as to why much of the Esperanto materials that are available have not been Torrent'ed. I searched on Torrent sites for Esperanto material and I found none.
I would imagine that most people who have learned Esperanto since the early 1990s have done so because the Internet has made communication with the outside world easier and has made the spread of learning materials possible. However, most of the material concerning Esperanto is contained in text files or web pages which do not really need to be downloaded en masse. Many people who learn Esperanto do so through schools, clubs, finding old books, libraries etc. Not all Esperantists are "geeky" enough to understand how BitTorrent or other P2P systems work and to be honest, in my experience of trying to use P2P legally; it's not easy. There's just too much aĉo out there in torrentland.
Torrent'ing seems like the perfect medium to distribute Esperanto stuff like CD's, books, podcasts, and so on.
You are correct but please remember that even Esperanto materials, CDs, podcasts, books etc may be copyrighted. Just because the language is "open source" anything written in it, is not automatically "free". You have to be as careful about what you share online in Esperanto as you would in English or any other language.

Also, there just is not as much Esp. material out there which has been collected in such a way. I am sure there is a plethora of early material out there, but it's either locked away in dusty libraries or has not yet been digitized.

FreeXenon (Näita profiili) 18. november 2008 20:24.14

Iron Chef: Very valid points.

When I first started looking into Esperanto... oh, say a few months ago... Torrent sites, strangely enough, are one of the first place I checked for materials, and then the internet.

There is a lot of materials scattered around the internet. "Need to be Torrent'ed" is not so much the issue, as it is an unused place to put Esperanto materials out and to spread the word. My only real outlet is via the internet. I would have loved a massive collection of Esperanto materials so I did not have to comb the internet to find stuff.

We can collect as much of the materials as we can (while providing links back to the original source perhaps via a readme.html) and, if necessary get the rights or permission to distribute materials via a Torrent file, or ask the copyright holders to make their materials available via Torrent.

In todays world especially with kids and IT workers as computer literate as they are, this would make a perfect venue to expose them to Esperanto. Lernu has a CD of this site, I think. Perhaps that could be Torrent'ed up and put it out there....

I'd be happy to try to seed some stuff.... I have never done it before, but I would be willing to do so.

Ironchef (Näita profiili) 18. november 2008 20:53.53

FreeXenon:When I first started looking into Esperanto... oh, say a few months ago... Torrent sites, strangely enough, are one of the first place I checked for materials, and then the internet.
Well, bitTorrent is part of the Internet too, but I understand what you mean. I did much the same. When I first went "online" about 13 years ago, I made use of FTP sites for all kinds of materials about many subjects.
I would have loved a massive collection of Esperanto materials so I did not have to comb the internet to find stuff.
You want your own library of info locally on your computer? The only problem with this is that it's set in stone; never updated and often way out of date. Also, if we all kept private collections, we'd be back to that dusty library problem I mentioned before.
I'd be happy to try to seed some stuff.... I have never done it before, but I would be willing to do so.
The problem with Torrents is that while they are hot they are hot, but unless other people are online sharing the files, they are useless. You need a passive method of promulgating material not an active one. "This week's podcast" is certainly something you can torrent and people do; but a document written 12 years ago is hardly something that's going to be active 24/7/365 and the way bitTorrent works, if seeders and sharers aren't online; the pipe goes empty.

If you want to be the next Library of Aleksandrio, then please do so, you are right that we need it; but it would have to be something like an FTP site so that people could get what they want, when they want it, without worrying about seeding, viruses, and false .torrent files.

Better still, what you might consider is hosting an Index Site of all the remote locations of the information. You could establish an upto date "index card" where people could then link to other places online; rather than trying to put the material under one roof, just set up a place where everyone can find what's out there. Sort of what Jahuo and Guglo have been doing on more general terms ridulo.gif

hiyayaywhopee (Näita profiili) 18. november 2008 22:10.08

The rock band Persone allows two of their albums to be downloaded via torrent; you can find them at the Pirate Bay.

erinja (Näita profiili) 19. november 2008 21:15.15

The main benefit to torrents is distribution of large files. Most texts are not that big; it is easier to get them from one of the many Esperanto-language virtual libraries than from a torrent. As far as movies and music, there simply aren't that many in Esperanto that are not copyrighted. As far as torrents go, there are some old Russian films, copyright expired, that have been subtitled in Esperanto and are available by torrent. I suggest downloading some of those. I really enjoyed the cartoon "La skarlata floro", a sort of Russian "Beauty and the beast". Seemed a bit like soviet Disney.

Damir (Näita profiili) 22. november 2008 20:43.35

I know how you feel. I've actually found a few torrents and the like through extensive searching and serendipity. Same with sites, blogs, tools... It's sad that there isn't a central place for the most of that. I'd like to set up a site that is a comprehensive, easily navigated, and often updated portal to Esperanto media (torrents), sites, news, and groups--especially the local groups, so that they can better communicate with eachother, which is something I find rather sadly lacking in Esperantujo today. Can you guys think of a place that this sort of function could be integrated into, or would it be better to try and create this freshly?

ceigered (Näita profiili) 2. detsember 2008 5:53.27

Maybe, just a suggestion, someone should start an Esperanto file library/torrent site. Of course, it may result in copyright infringements if it was in the form of something like The Pirate Bay or Mininova, but in the form of a moderated file library, you could find all sorts of stuff. Maybe an Esperanto version of a blog site, youtube, a file library and forum combined? Unfortunately, while lernu has most of this, there are some things they don't have, and it wouldn't hurt to have two great Esperanto resources. On that note, I'll be going because I need to practice my Esperanto.

erinja (Näita profiili) 2. detsember 2008 10:30.06

ceigered:Maybe, just a suggestion, someone should start an Esperanto file library/torrent site.
I don't really see a benefit to this. An Esperanto version of youtube already exists. It's called Farbskatol'

There are lots of Esperanto forums online already. There are lots of Esperanto libraries online already, for literature texts. And Esperanto music can't really be distributed, for the most part, because it is copyrighted. There is already an Esperanto "facebook" type thing, Amikumu. I don't see much point in a one-stop shop for all of this. And furthermore, even if it existed, it wouldn't be very useful to beginners, because it would be all in Esperanto and hard to navigate for a beginner.

But in the New England Esperanto Association, there was an old joke about the new pronoun "ŭi" that we hear so much in Esperanto. "Ŭi" should do this, or "ŭi" should do that. The joke was that "ŭi" means "ni, sen mi" ("we, without me").

My point is this - the Esperanto world is run by volunteers. There's no point in saying "someone should....". If you want it, you create it. If you think it would be great to have a huge torrent full of everything someone ever wanted from Esperanto - then fine, create it and host it on one of the well-known torrent sites. If you want some big complex website, then create it.

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