The popular BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay just launched bergmanbits.com, a tribute to Ingmar Bergman, the legendary Swedish film director, who passed away yesterday. The site lists all the movies he directed, and .torrent links are available for most of them.
BitLet is a cute web-based Java applet that allows you to download .torrent files on a computer that doesn’t have a BitTorrent client installed. Very useful if you want to share a torrent with your BitTorrent illiterate friends, or if you’re on a computer that doesn’t have a BitTorrent client installed.
The Brits are downloading more free music than ever before and are less concerned about getting caught than they were last year. Why are they going to download even more next year? 91% say: “Because it’s free!”
As The Simpsons Movie hits BitTorrent from a Czech source, it’s being claimed that the Czech Republic’s international reputation has been damaged by the leak. At the same time FOX turns up the rhetoric saying that measures will be taken by the ‘tightening up’ of movie distribution in the country.
The popular BitTorrent tracker The Pirate Bay celebrates the release of the first illegal CAM version of “The Simpsons Movie” with a new logo and t-shirt design. Yet another slap in Hollywood’s face.
BitTorrent Inc launched their rebranded version of uTorrent as BitTorrent 6.0. The good news is that uTorrent and its community will not be replaced. Not now, and not in the future.
In a renewed effort to put a halt to piracy, Spanish Police shut down two BitTorrent sites. Todotorrente.com and trackertdt.com were both taken offline and three administrators were arrested and accused of facilitating “copyright infringement”.
Some people admit to using BitTorrent to obtain the occasional movie. However, it’s very rare for a rock star to confess that they are serial movie and TV show downloader – and then worry that they are going to jail for it. We’re happy to put her mind at rest.
There have been Harry Potter spoilers popping up all over the web since the 7th book was leaked before its release. Some have shown up on websites, others in e-mail signatures. The most unexpected, though, are in a DVDrip of “Evan Almighty”.
Constantly checking private trackers for open signups can be a drawn out task. Some open only briefly and by the time one gets a tipoff, all the places have gone and registrations are closed again. Tracker Checker 2 automatically checks chosen sites for open signups, getting you into those elusive private sites with a minimum of effort.
Several TV shows from the upcoming TV season have leaked to BitTorrent over the past week. Weeds, Chuck, The Sarah Connor Chonicles, Pushing Daisies, Californication, Brotherhood and Dexter, to name a few. It makes you wonder, Is this the work of hardcore pirates or just a new form of promotion by the TV studios?
An independently developed mobile user-interface for uTorrent, appropriately named uTorrent mUI, is going live tomorrow. Located at utorrentmui.com, the interface will allow you to remotely control your torrents from just about any mobile browser, including Opera Mini.
Swiss anti-piracy outfit Logistep has been travelling around Europe, threatening and bullying P2P users in Germany, Britain, France, Italy and anywhere else where the courts will allow them to operate. File-sharers have had enough and now – at long last – so have the courts.
Torrentspy and Isohunt announced that they will give content owners a “carte blanche” to remove torrents from their BitTorrent search engines last month. The perfect solution for content owners and site admins says Torrentspy – a nightmare according to The Pirate Bay.
The Mininova team launched Snotr, their very own video upload service today. The site focuses on funny and interesting video clips that are SFW (safe for work) – meaning no adult content, no extreme violence and no racism.
The cross platform browser Opera has been discovered to contain another critical vulnerability affecting its BitTorrent engine, one which leaves it wide open for a malicious user to run arbitrary code, potentially taking remote control of the host machine.
MPAA CEO Dan Glickman was devastated by the leak of the last Harry Potter book. Ironically, the MPAA has been caught pirating others work more than once. So who’s the real pirate here?
European file-sharers were given a huge legal boost today when the Advocate General to the European Court of Justice declared that EU law does not allow Internet Service Providers to be forced to reveal the personal details of people accused of file sharing.
A group of Harry Potter fans are collectively typing out “Deathly Hallows”, the final episode in the Harry Potter series, from photographs leaked of each page in the book.
Our friend Niek who runs mininova posted a series of hilarious e-mails that he received from Mininova users. A sneak peek into the daily business of a BitTorrent site admin.
The decision to become an administrator of a BitTorrent tracker can be a difficult one. Even if one puts aside the issues surrounding legality in certain countries, to the inexperienced there’s a technical mountain to climb. Thanks to XBTIT team, the mountain has eased to a small incline, bringing tracker ownership within reach of BitTorrent enthusiasts.
The final book in the Harry Potter series has been leaked to BitTorrent. A torrent with photographs of each page of the American edition of “Deathly Hallows” has shown up on multiple torrent sites.
BitTorrent users are facing a new enemy. A BitTorrent client named ZipTorrent, allegedly created by our friends from the anti-piracy organization Media Defender, leeches bandwith and spreads useless data chunks.
The German music industry has obtained a temporary injunction against the operator of an eDonkey server, ordering the site offline while it’s involved – even indirectly – in the unauthorized distribution of copyright music works.
After major Usenet provider Giganews announced that it would increase its data retention to a massive 200 days, the original nzb provider Newzbin invests heavily to maximize its usability.
It’s been a while but Charlie has finally returned. TorrentFreak was podcastless for more than three weeks but the wait has ended. Here’s TorrentPod episode 40, Enjoy!
The possibility of file sharing whilst walking down the street is closer than you might think. Carrying a BitTorrent client in your pocket is getting closer, with the release of new high-powered communication tools, such as the much publicized Apple iPhone.
TorrentFreak’s recent articles about Media Defender have been viewed hundreds of thousands of times, surely proving beyond any doubt that they must be an incredibly popular company doing great things for the BitTorrent community. In recognition of our great work, Media Defender has re-directed its p2p.net domain to us, an action which has us bursting with pride.
After months of hard work and nearly half a year after the release of their previous stable release uTorrent 1.7 finally sees the light. uTorrent 1.7 comes with several new features and some essential changes and big fixes.
The infamous anti-piracy organization Media Defender recently bought the P2P.net domain. Currently P2P.net redirects to Google and at this point it is still unclear what their plans are for the domain. However, it is likely that they will use it for one of their pirate traps such a the fake video download service Miivi or the fake BitTorrent trackers they run.
Back in 2006, Opera Software announced that it had teamed up with BitTorrent Inc to include support for the BitTorrent protocol in its popular browser. With their latest build, users can expect greater performance and stability.
The 3rd annual Fair Use Day Is about to start, July 11 to be exact. A day to celebrate and learn about things is not new. There are similar days and even months for everything from “black history” to trees and even talking like a pirate, but it is not common for something that governments are attempting to legislate out of existence.
The BitLord show released a special episode in which they interview with Brokep from The Pirate Bay. Brokep talks about TPB’s contribution to the BitTorrent scene, their secret upcoming project, the new anonymous P2P protocol they are working on and much more.
uTorrent will be available on the Mac very soon and two weeks ago we wrote an early review. Today we read that anonymous statistics show that uTorrent will be twice as fast as Azureus, but is this really the case?
DRM is doomed to fail. Unfortunately, the majority of the movie companies and record labels still think it’s the best way to “protect” their media. By wearing these shirts you can show them it’s not and that it only hinders honest customers.
Mininova is the fist BitTorrent site to enter the list of 100 most visited sites on the Internet, joining sites like Google, Yahoo! and Digg. A great accomplishment proving that BitTorrent’s popularity and Mininova in particular continues to grow.
Spam comes in many shapes and forms and today we have news that anti-piracy company Media Defender has hooked up with telecoms company Sprint and Atlantic Records to give away 16 million free tracks on P2P networks. However, don’t get too excited, its 16 million tracks from one artist.
In a recent speech before the UK record industry, the head of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, pledged to increase copyright terms for music, as well as shift the focus for enforcing copyright onto the ISP, echoing the recent decision by a Belgian court.
Swedish authorities and anti-piracy groups are taking extreme measures to shut down The Pirate Bay. Their latest trick is to use child pornography as a tool in their war on piracy. Ethical? No. Effective? Could be. Meet the people behind The Pirate Bay Conspiracy.
With their ongoing failure to find evidence in The Pirate Bay server seizure fiasco, the Swedish Police now seem to be resorting to any methods they can to disrupt the activities of the popular torrent site. Their latest effort appears to be an attempt to block access to the site, at least by Swedish nationals, through putting the site on a child pornography blocklist
The Russian government has closed down AllofMP3 and those who are trying to access its sister site, MP3Sparks, or another replacement may be disappointed that the site also seems to have disappeared. But never fear, those Russians have plenty of alternatives. We take a look at some of them.
Following the announcement of a fresh anti-piracy drive and new, aggressive legislation, a man has been caught using a camcorder to record the latest ‘Transformers’ movie and is now facing 6 months in jail and a $5,000 fine.
A court in Belgium ruled that ISPs can be forced, and are obliged to, either block or filter copyright infringing content on P2P networks. Freedom of expression and privacy are not important in this regard. How exactly ISPs are supposed to block and filter copyrighted content remains a mystery.
The BitTorrent trackers sitting in the depths of The Pirate Bay are there for the benefit of the people, to help them distribute bandwidth intensive media worldwide at no cost. But when anti-piracy companies like Media Defender of MiiVi infamy abuse that service, it’s time to bring out the plank. They’re not welcome.
Media Defender, a notorious anti piracy gang working for the MPAA, RIAA and several independent media production companies, just launched their very own video upload service called “miivi.com”. The sole purpose of the site is to trap people into uploading copyrighted material, and bust them for doing so.
OiNK.me.uk is no more, the end of a legendary domain name was announced today. Due to “legal” issues with their domain registrar the popular private BitTorrent tracker decided to give up their domain name and move to OiNK.cd.
A Chicago man accused of causing Fox $4m in losses after uploading episodes of the hit show ’24′ to a YouTube style video hosting site, has pleaded guilty and now faces the prospect of 3 years in jail.
AllOfMp3, the popular online music store, has been shut down by the Russian government. Pressure from the United States, and a refusal to enter the World Trade Organisation (WTO) convinced the Kremlin to take the website down for good.
The hugely popular BitTorrent tracker OiNK.me.uk appears to be offline but it is in fact alive and well. OiNK is suffering from some annoying DNS issues, strangely enough their domain registrar decided to suspend the domain. The good news is that with a little tweak, it’s still possible to access the site. Read on.