Why do people seed torrents?

But personally i don't share anything and i wouldn't seed, because the dangers of being prosecuted are higher than if you just download.

This is false.

This has been bothering me for a while, I don't understand why people seed torrents?

Sure, if you have something you want to share with the world then create and seed a torrent, but why do people seed torrents after they have downloaded the whole thing? Obviously reasons of etiquette must come into it, but is there any other reason?

Personally I have just been downloading to 100 and removing the torrent.

So...why should I not do this?

I know lol
But really, you hear torrent, you think piracy first

Or you should

because sometimes, private trackers have a rule saying what your seed:size of file ratio has to be, like some are 2:1, which is why they are PRIVATE, and hep you to download

Why do you need 20 hours of time shifting?!?!?!

Why the bloody hell NOT?



Too dumb for words!!! Some people work? Have kids? Have got a social life? These things don't wait, but the DVD player does ....

explain? All the cases of prosecution due to piracy that i have heard of were because of sharing files, not downloading.

Yeah right. You mean keep a video library of pirated shows off the TV. If you really need twenty hours to time shift then something is wrong with your life. Either you're not coping with your children, you're badly organised, or you're a sad loser whose life is only employment. You know, the type of people who refuse to stop working after retirement age because they claim they will have nothing better to do with themselves. I've worked fifty hour weeks consistently before and haven't needed to resort to mass time shifting of this scale. So cut the crap out please.

Having looked at your post in the context of VHS tapes, well, back when they were more common, people would often record things off the TV to keep, in particular movies, or maybe a whole television series. The same applies now, but with downloading instead of recording.
Also, let's say there is a television series, 20 1 hour length episodes, equating to 20 hours overall. This series is shown on Saturday 8pm. I want to watch it, but I work from 1-9 every Saturday. There is no bad organisation of my life, it is simply unlucky that it is shown 1 day of the week, when I am working. (For purposes of this example, there are no repeats on the terrestrial channel it is being shown, only other channels which I don't have)

yes, but when youre DLing a torrent its also uploading too.
Besides, if you go to any Torrent forum and say something along the lines of 'I love downloading but dont see the point in uploading so dont do it and my current ratio is 0.05' you're asking for a flamewar. Seriously, those guys hate leeches with a vengeance

Then you watch it as soon as you have free time. I don't know if there is, or was, a supposed limit on what constitutes time shifting. I mean I have some footage on VHS that I haven't seen for years now. All I am saying is that, and you will know this anyway, that piracy has not suddenly become a new phenomenon as people make out with torrents and the such with the Internet, although it has got easier with software and hardware developments, but it has always existed. The same goes with extremely large hard drives and massive cake boxes of DVD-Rs.

The good thing I felt with VHSs at the time was that I could record footage that will never be commercially available, such as episodes of Call My Bluff and Gladiators. Strictly speaking it's piracy but I'm not sure whether the big wigs behind the programmes really care.

Some sharing websites require it. I know one of the private torrent sites I'm on requires you keep at least a 1 : 1 ratio or you're gone, so obviously you're going to want to upload as much as you can if you download a lot. Took me a while to get into this particular torrent site, so I certainly keep my ratio as high as I can!

As for getting caught by sharing, the only way you'll get caught is if you're caught doing it on public trackers (which is why I never use a public tracker to download anything through torrents - although I don't use torrents too much these days (rapidshare/megaupload)).

Ah I realise I completely ignored your point about piracy, whilst at the same time making the same point myself. My bad. Still, it is possible for someone to need 20 hours, maybe for a tv show marathon...(yeh, I'm just trying to redeem myself).
I think there were a few attempts at law suits against people recording TV shows to VHS, but they clearly had no impact (and even if they did, it wouldn't have lasted, with the advances in technology as you mentioned).

But what's to stop people signing up to private trackers to catch you? Most just require signing up with a valid email address, maybe an invitation, which isn't that difficult to get, this is the internet after all. And those where you have to upload before you download in order to keep a high ratio, they can always upload legal material in order to gain full access and track everyone else. There is no way to be 100% safe and anonymous on the internet, no matter what you do.

But what's to stop people signing up to private trackers to catch you? Most just require signing up with a valid email address, maybe an invitation, which isn't that difficult to get, this is the internet after all. And those where you have to upload before you download in order to keep a high ratio, they can always upload legal material in order to gain full access and track everyone else. There is no way to be 100% safe and anonymous on the internet, no matter what you do.