Fandom Forums - View Single Post - Funimation Sues 1,337 BitTorrent Users Over One Piece

stubborn_d0nkey · 02-02-2011, 05:17 AM

How torrents work:

What you need to know:

Parts/pieces: Torrents are divided into parts/pieces. These do not coincide with different files in the torrent.

The swarm (sometimes called peers): All currently active seeders and leechers/peers

Seeder: Somebody who has finished downloading (or the person who started the torrent) and is only sharing with leechers.

Peers/leechers: People who haven't finished downloading. They are downloading from seeders as well as from other leechers, as well as sharing with other leechers.

Torrent file: Torrent files contain information about their respective torrents (what is in it and how to connect to the swarm)

You start up a torrent by opening a torrent file with a torrent client. After you started you then become a part of the swarm. After becoming part of the swarm you are then connected to leechers/seeders. Those leechers/seeders then start sending you parts of what you are downloading. Of you have downloaded a certain amount you start sharing the parts you have downloaded with other leechers who you connected to. This continues until you have downloaded everything, or enough parts for the (file(s)) you wanted. When you finish downloading what you have wanted you then become a seeder. If you close the torrent client (just closing the window usually doesn't close the client) then you disconnect from the swarm and aren't a seeder and you are not sharing with others.

Sharing almost always occurs if you want to download a torrent. Technically it is possible not to share at all, but that practically only happens if there are no active leechers. Also if the number of active seeder is many times greater than the number of leechers (which is extremely rare) and you have the "luck" of not connecting to any leechers.

Simplified representation of how torrents function:
You have person A who starts a torrent that has 3 parts and can share 3 parts at a time, and B C and D who are leechers and want to download the torrent and can share 1 part at a time and get 2.

First you have:

A 1 2 3
B
C
D

Then A shares with B C D
A->B 1
A->C 2
A->D 3

A 1 2 3
B 1
C 2
D 3

Lets say E F and G (they can also share 1 part at a time and get 2 ) now connect and A starts sharing with them and stops sharing with B C and D, while B C D start sharing with each other.
A->E 1
A->F 2
A->G 3
B->D 1
C->B 2
D->C 3

A 1 2 3
B 1 2
C 2 3
D 3 1
E 1
F 2
G 3

Same as last time but now E F and G share with each other:
A->E 3
A->F 1
A->G 2
B->D 2
C->B 3
D->C 1
E->G 1
F->E 2
G->F 3

A 1 2 3
B 1 2 3
C 2 3 1
D 3 1 2
E 1 3 2
F 2 1 3
G 3 2 1

A has altogether shared 9 parts, which would be 3 full downloads, while 6 people fully downloaded. If this was from a direct download A would have used double the bandwidth. This is the founding advantage of torrents.