What is seeding in torrent?

hi all! Please let me know what the term seeding means in the torrent world? and why do you set an upload rate while downloading a file? is it something related to seeding? pleae help i am new torrent user Thanks

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While there may be legitimate uses and legitimate users of torrent and other peer-to-peer file sharing schemes, a huge portion of such activity is known to relate to the distribution of content in a way that may violate the intellectual property rights of the original author/publisher. Additionally, participants in file sharing schemes often include individuals who modify original content in ways to include scripting that serves a purpose other than intended by the original author/publisher. For the above two reasons, peer-to-peer file sharing often falls into a zone of activity that can be harmful and may be illegal in various states and countries. More importantly, peer-to-peer file sharing is known to be a major source of distribution of spyware, adware, trojan, virus content that infects the machines of those who download and exchange content via torrents/peer-to-peer methods. WTT is a strong presence in the internet community, respected for its volunteer services to help "remove" malicious content that serves the nefarious purposes of criminals and cripples the machines of owner/users. Further WTT is a prominent training resource which helps interested and responsible volunteers to learn how to help others, whose machines have become infected, to remove those infections and prevent the spread of malicious content damage to others. As a result WTT takes the position of not supporting, not allowing the use, and not directly assisting in the use of torrent and peer-to-peer file sharing, because such activity may be illegal and so often works directly against the responsible purposes of WTT virus, spyware, trojan removal services. When a member joins a torrent, or installs various software to enable sharing file content amongst peers, the member's machine is asked to participate not only in downloading content, but also in providing a source for uploading content to other participants in the peer-to-peer scheme. A principle advantage of peer-to-peer file sharing is speed of transmission over the internet. While downloading from one source may be limited by the speed of internet access available to that single source and the amount of traffic presently using the single sources resources, adding additional sources (seeds) in a network of file sharing may increase the rate at which content can be communicated/downloaded by participants. Unfortunately, it is difficult to monitor and control the activity of anonymous participants in file sharing schemes, such that by joining, the user may expose their own machine to malicious script, and by participating as a seed (allowing the owner's machine to upload portions of content to others in the sharing scheme) the owner may in fact be facilitating the spread of content in violation of copyright or worse with the inclusion of malicious content. I write this response, not to open the flood gates of discussion about peer-to-peer file sharing, nor to invite further comment about the specific use of particular peer-to-peer software. Just don't go there. WTT does not support peer-to-peer software use. If you have a comment about my own comments above, you are welcome to post a reply. If you post information specifically about the use or facilitation of the use of torrent/peer-to-peer software, your post may be deleted and your membership and ability to post may be restricted. Therefore, please be very thoughtful if you decide to reply. Best Regards

oh let me make give some clarifications. I never KNEW it is ILLEGAL. but now when i know i will be careful thanks to forum. i am getting aware to many things day after day

Doug didn't say it WAS illegal, using the software directly is perfectly legal, and there are many legitimate downloads available by it, such as Asus drivers and Linux distro's to name a couple of big ones, BUT, it is also used for illegal file sharing, so has the possibility of misuse, and the problem a site such as this has is it has no way of knowing what a person may be doing with it, or how others just reading the topic can find out information on how to do certain things, and as it is impossible to police such an area, the site has a simple blanket "ban" so to speak, so any info given on such an area is very reserved due to the possibility of misuse, that is all.