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[Smack81]

Hi everyone!

I'm brand new to this site.  I've never heard of a torrent before.  It looks like there is some really good stuff here, but I don't want to do much with torrents until I understand what they are/what they do.

Note - I did look at the threads that deal with picking out your client (I think that's what it was called) and picking out a player.  I'm still not understanding the whole process, so I thought I'd post my questions here.

So, a torrent in itself is not a sound/video file.  It's a path to a file.  To walk that path, you need a client and a player.  I downloaded utorrent and already had Windows Media Player.  

Once you have those things, you can download torrents.  I download one, and utorrent opens, and it starts downloading.  What exactly is "seeding"?

Once you've downloaded a file from this site, and other people come to this site and download it, are they somehow reaching out to my computer in that process?  If so, is my computer at risk for intrusion/viruses?  

After utorrent has finished downloading, are you now the owner of new MP3 files?  That's what I'm hoping is the case.  I make movies using Windows Movie Maker, and I'd love to pick up some new audio files to use as background music.    

Thanks in advance!

Smack81

[dolbyman]

So, a torrent in itself is not a sound/video file.  It's a path to a file.  To walk that path, you need a client and a player.  I downloaded utorrent and already had Windows Media Player.  

Once you have those things, you can download torrents.  I download one, and utorrent opens, and it starts downloading.  What exactly is "seeding"?

this should answer your question
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BitTorrent

Once you've downloaded a file from this site, and other people come to this site and download it, are they somehow reaching out to my computer in that process?  If so, is my computer at risk for intrusion/viruses?  

partly answered form the wiki link as soon as you're downloading a file you start offering the downloaded parts, risk of viruses is very low: only certain members can upload, the files are all checked by the users and admins, and video/audio files can't contain viruses

intrusion risk is not higher than normal when you computer is connected to the internet, just keep your windows and client up to date and use a virus scanner

After utorrent has finished downloading, are you now the owner of new MP3 files?  That's what I'm hoping is the case.  I make movies using Windows Movie Maker, and I'd love to pick up some new audio files to use as background music.  

altough you downloaded the files it won't make you owner of the files (the "copyrights" remain at the owner/publisher of the media (artist/disney/etc) but as long as your videos are private and non commercial it's fine to use them

[Smack81]

Thanks Dolbyman!  That helped.