During the next few days, maybe hours, Demonoid may go down due to some serious-sounding technical issues. They have already caused some damage to the site so the operators want to limit further damage.

“We are experiencing power outages that have caused some ram and hard drive issues. We might have to shut down everything to fix and prevent further damage,” they say in a statement.

The downtime could be extended, “…days maybe, until we can change the power circuit,” they add.

Several Demonoid users already report connection issues, but the site is still accessible to most people at the time of writing. The blackout won’t mean much to millions of Russian and Ukrainian BitTorrent users though, since they are already blocked from the site.

Over the years Demonoid has had its fair share of downtime. In June 2007 Demonoid was pressured to leave their host in the Netherlands, mainly because of legal threats from the Dutch anti-piracy outfit, BREIN. The site then relocated to Canada, but after threats from the CRIA, it decided to shut down there as well.

In 2008 the site eventually reappeared in full glory after being offline for six months. This time the downtime shouldn’t last that long. Any Demonoid users stuck for ideas on alternatives if the site goes down, can check here. If you’re looking for high speed downloads you could also consider to try Usenet instead (our Usenet guide).

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

GGF’s proposed notice and takedown is in fact not very different from those operated already by sites such as Mininova. What they add is the option for copyright holders to keep their content on the site and get paid for it. Plus, the users have to pay a monthly fee to use the site.

As one of our commenters put it yesterday: “Cool, a paid private tracker without dedicated servers or seed-ratio enforcement, and with arbitrary censorship.”

And the users of the site are not the only ones who are complaining. In response to GGF’s plans, Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN, that acts on behalf of the music, movie and gaming industries, issued a press release today in which they argue that the plans for the new Pirate Bay are not sufficient to please the copyright holders.

“In the proposed system the right holder must detect illegal content on the website and remove it. That is insufficient,” BREIN director Tim Kuik says. “This sort of Notice and Take Down system works in case of incidental infringement but not for the structural infringement that happens at The Pirate Bay.”

“The point is that The Pirate Bay is responsible for what happens on the site. They must keep preventive supervision and take care that no illegal torrents become available on the site. The site provides access to content which to an important and even overwhelming extent is illegal,” Kuik continued.

“So they can not assume that there is permission and leave it up to the right holders to check continuously for infringements. It is their site, their business and so their job to clean it up and keep it clean”, Kuik added, demanding a stricter removal system.

BREIN’s response makes sense from their perspective, since they have a pending court case in which they demand a proactive content removal system from the Dutch-based torrent site Mininova, who already have quite an elaborate content removal system in place.

GGF’s CEO was contacted for a comment on BREIN’s response, and we will add that to the article once it comes in. It is clear though that not all copyright holders are wildly enthusiastic about the plans for the new Pirate Bay.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

They have the fallout from the planned sale to Global Gaming Factory to contend with, a new lawsuit initiated by US movie studios, and yesterday they lost a Dutch court case in their absence. From that action they now face the prospect of huge fines in The Netherlands if they don’t disable that country’s access to their site within 10 days.

Today brings news of yet another upcoming lawsuit against Peter Sunde, Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm, even though they say they disposed of The Pirate Bay a little over 3 years ago.

Italy’s FIMI (Federazione Industria Musicale Italiana) and FPM (Federation against Musical Piracy) say they will be suing the three and seeking damages in excess of 1 million euros.

In August 2008, The Pirate Bay was made inaccessible in Italy after ISPs were ordered to block its domain. However, The Pirate Bay appealed and eventually won the court case. In October the Court of Bergamo ruled that no foreign website can be censored for alleged copyright infringement. The case is now awaiting a decision from the Supreme Court of Appeal.

This new Italian legal action is based on evidence collected during The Pirate Bay proceedings in Bergamo last year – evidence which, incidentally, was supplied by FIMI to the prosecutor in the first instance.

Referring to the planned sale of TPB to GGF and their basis of claim, President of FIMI, Enzo Mazza, said: “The claim is also based on the principle that by selling the site to others, the founders have confirmed that the whole illegal operation of The Pirate Bay was to make a profit and it is therefore unacceptable that someone can take the money and then escape without repairing the damage.”

Peter Sunde’s Italian lawyers, Giovanni Battista Gallus and Francesco Paolo Micozzi, told TorrentFreak that under Italian law, an entity seeking compensation for damages, when there is an ongoing criminal indictment, could either file a civil action outside of the proceedings (i.e, a normal civil action for damages), or bring his claim for damages within the criminal procedure as a damaged party.

“In any case, nothing has been notified to us (as lawyers of Peter Sunde) so far,” Gallus told TorrentFreak. “I gather they have announced their intentions before starting the procedure.”

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

GGF said it would acquire the site’s domain names, sites and code (from the current owner, Seychelles-based Reservella) for SEK 60,000,000 ($7.8 million). Of this amount, SEK 30,000,000 would be paid in cash and the rest covered by newly issued shares. Additionally, file-sharing technology company Peerialism would also be acquired by GGF for a total of SEK 100 million, of which at least SEK 50 million is set to be in cash.

For the deal to go through the funding for the purchases has to be in place very soon and GGF shareholders need to approve the move at their Annual General Meeting. Now according to a report, there have been some changes in ownership structure at Global Gaming Factory.

On July 13th, GGF CEO and major shareholder Hans Pandeya received one million company shares which have been reportedly allocated “to a group of investors”. The information appeared on equity marketplace Aktietorget where GGF is listed.

GGF stock has certainly had its ups and downs during the past few weeks. Boosted 200% on the back of the initial news, by July 12th they had settled back to levels experienced before the announcement but since then have fallen further, recovering only marginally during the last couple of days.

But just when things were looking optimistic for GGF and their purchase, events today in a Dutch court painted a rather less optimistic outlook.

Notorious anti-piracy outfit BREIN is today sueing not only The Pirate Bay for copyright infringement, but in a shot from nowhere – have also named Global Gaming Factory in the lawsuit.

BREIN already summoned The Pirate Bay to court via Twitter at the end of June, but as soon as they heard the news that GGF would buy TPB, they added them to the lawsuit. Obviously Peter, TiAMO and Anakata don’t read Twitter, since they didn’t turn up to the hearing.

Casting doubt over the possible purchase, in court GGF lawyer Ricardo Dijkstra said that Global Gaming Factory that it is uncertain whether the sale will go through. The company would only buy The Pirate Bay if it can turn the site into a “legitimate business” and that, he said, depends on whether the assets they buy “can be used in a legal manner.”

Dijkstra said GGF was surprised it had been named in the case since it has shown a pro-copyright stance and has no say in how Old Pirate Bay is run, which will make a hell of a lot of sense to everyone except BREIN and their lawyers.

Confused? You won’t be! After next week’s episode of The Pirate Bay soap…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

BREIN says that FTD operates illegally but the Usenet community and its specialist IT lawyer, Arnoud Engelfriet of Ictrecht law firm vigorously deny this and are now taking legal action the Dutch anti-piracy outfit. The background to the case can be found in our earlier article, and a more detailed report on the action against BREIN here.

Yesterday, while BREIN’s site was still supposedly out of action following an alleged (or Hoaxed) DDoS attack from Pirate Bay fans, it published a further report about FTD, which was hidden on its site away from easy public viewing. Strangely the same page at the time of writing is password protected and the report unavailable, but we have a copy and translation.

Entitled ‘BREIN Demands Closure of FTD’, the anti-piracy outfit went on to say that if FTD does not close it will require a penalty of 50,000 euros ($70,000) per day against the service, in addition to compensation and full reimbursement of costs. BREIN said that FTD “organizes and promotes” Usenet content, most of which is illegal.

BREIN then refers to earlier discussions it had with FTD, noting that it asked FTD to cease its “structural use of illegal content” in early 2009. The two sides had entered discussions to see if they could iron out their difficulties. Following on, FTD pro-actively modified how they operate to ensure that there could be no doubt as to their legality.

“After we made the changes, we got complete radio silence from BREIN. No confirmation, no rejection, nothing,” Arnoud explained. “Only after several days we found out what BREIN thought – but only by reading the online news. That was a huge disappointment.”

The news saw BREIN declare that FTD was a criminal operation in an article titled “You do not pay for it, it’s unlawful” and this led to FTD taking legal action against BREIN to try to clear their name by having their operation declared legal by a court. Now BREIN is counter-claiming against FTD.

Tim Kuik from BREIN now says that it is clear that FTD “continued their abuses unabated” and that the modifications they made were only made to hide the “true nature” of the site.

“It is a wolf in sheep’s clothing,” said Kuik. “FTD earn money with a system that exists by virtue of the huge supply of illegal content to Usenet.” Mirroring the disappointment felt at FTD, Kuik added: “It is disappointing but illustrates that BREIN’s outstretched hand has been cut off.”

So what exactly does this claim for 50,000 euros per day mean for FTD? Lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet told TorrentFreak that BREIN did not ask the court for damages. Legally they are barred from asking for damages – article 3:305a of the Dutch Civil Code says that an organization that represents the interests of a certain group can never ask for damages. They asked instead for a penal sum of 50k euros if FTD were ordered by the court to shut down but it refused.

“The idea is that a court can order you to shut down but you can ignore the court,” said Arnoud. “With the penal sum, you risk that the court will then sell your house or seize other assets. In principle that’s legal, but the amount is of course ridiculous.”

“Ridiculous also sums up my view of the BREIN counterclaim. Instead of addressing any of the points we raised, they simply repeat their standard rhetoric. Nowhere is the distinction made between uploading works and telling people that someone has uploaded a work for (legal) download. And downloading illegal uploads is legal in the Netherlands,” notes Arnoud.

“BREIN is not known for its careful handling of the truth,” he added. “They are a propaganda organization after all.”

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

In their advice to the government, a working group consisting of four members of the Dutch parliament looked into the matter. They suggested criminalizing downloading once the entertainment industry has come up with sufficient legal alternatives.

The conclusions of the report were widely debated in the Dutch press. Worryingly, also some of the factual errors about Mininova that the parliamentarians dreamed up were recited in the media, which may hurt the BitTorrent site in the ongoing court case against the local anti-piracy outfit BREIN.

For instance, the report claims that Mininova ignores complaints form copyright holders and refuses to remove torrents from their site. This nonsense of course, since the site has had a copyright policy for years and is known to follow up every complaint.

Another inaccuracy in the report is the claim that Mininova adds “reviews” to the torrents their users have uploaded, something we’ve never heard before. The rumors that they actually host copyrighted content and that they filter porn from their site pro-actively don’t hold up either.

The Mininova staff are not happy with these allegations, especially since they are currently involved in a lawsuit against the entertainment industries that covers the same issues. “We are very displeased with the fact that the working group didn’t contact us prior to releasing this report, or even took a look at mininova.org,” Mininova co-founder Erik Dubbelboer said.

“We demand that the spreading of false information related to Mininova will be stopped. In addition, we demand that the working group removes the name Mininova from the report and places a rectification on the website of the Dutch parliament and in several national newspapers,” Dubbelboer added.

“We take this very seriously,” Erik Dubbelboer said. “If these demands are not met, we’ll consider to take legal steps,” he said to emphasize the seriousness of their demands.

Arda Gerkens, the head of the parliamentary working group pointed to her parliamentary immunity when she was confronted with the news. However, legal experts said that parliamentarians don’t have any immunity when they speak out in public, which she did.

Mininova demands that the rectifications are made before the verdict in their case against BREIN is due, so it wont influence the decision of the judges.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Hinting at The Pirate Bay, BREIN also suggested that Mininova should ban torrents using trackers that are known to track a variety copyright infringing content. However, in an attempt to solve this issue more directly, the anti-piracy outfit is suing the operators of the site, demanding that they block access to Dutch visitors.

Claiming that the founders of the site are untraceable by the Swedish authorities, head of BREIN Tim Kuik hopes to get a hold of them via the Internet. “You can find the defendants on Facebook and Twitter. Internet works for enforcers as well as infringers. Now they know about the court case in The Netherlands,” Kuik said.

BREIN’s methods are a little unusual to say the least. Instead of ordering ISPs to block the site like IFPI did in Denmark and more recently in Norway, they sue the founders of the tracker instead. Not to mention the idea of serving The Pirate Bay team using Twitter and Facebook.

There are no public mentions of the summoning in any of the public profiles of the Pirate Bay Founders so we assume that they did so via direct messages. Meanwhile, BREIN’s official site seems to be suffering from a DDoS attack, but this is of course totally unrelated to the announcement of the anti-piracy outfit.

Developing story…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The results were presented earlier this week and they were quite remarkable. A massive 93% of the surveyed respondents said they download music, movies or games from the Internet, while only 5% of this group of downloaders actually uses a paid service like iTunes.

Downloading copyrighted music or movies for personal use is not prohibited in The Netherlands, but uploading is. In most cases this means that using BitTorrent to download copyrighted music is not the best choice, since it generally requires uploading. However, this is not holding any of the Dutch youngsters back, so it seems.

BitTorrent was by far the preferred file-sharing (download) application according to the survey. More than 45% of the downloaders said they use sites like Mininova and The Pirate Bay to download the latest music and movies. Usenet came in second with a respectable 15%.

Aside from looking into their download behavior, respondents were also asked to predict the outcome of the Mininova trial. Only 15% thought that BREIN will come out the winner, while 45% thought Mininova would strike up a victory. The remaining 39% knew too little about the case to make a useful assessment.

There are of course many flaws in this type of survey. First off, respondents were recruited through online forums and even highly tech oriented communities such as Tweakers. Among these tech savvy and active Internet users the percentage of P2P-users is undoubtedly higher than average. Secondly, the survey was promoted as a “download” survey, this will of course attract the attention of those who actually download more than those who don’t.

Polls and surveys can be very misleading, especially when they are ill constructed. What we can conclude from the Dutch survey, although carefully, is that The Netherlands has quite a few active BitTorrent users and that they are confident that Mininova will beat BREIN in court. Let’s hope that a similar survey among lawyers would reach a similar conclusion.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Not wanting to be bullied for what it considers to be a completely legal operation, FTD took the unusual step of taking BREIN to court, after Tim Kuik, the head of the outfit, said that FTD and its operators were committing a crime. FTD’s owners and lawyers vigorously deny this claim, the details of which can be found in our earlier report.

So what led up to this legal showdown? TorrentFreak spoke with FTD’s specialist IT lawyer, Arnoud Engelfriet, of Ictrecht law firm.

“In January of this year, BREIN announced they were ‘going after Usenet’ and
specifically singled out FTD as their first target,” Arnoud told TorrentFreak.

Naturally this position was of concern to FTD, but instead of burying their heads in the sand they actually contacted BREIN with a view to discovering where their differences lay and sorting them out amicably.

“Shortly after that, FTD engaged in negotiations with BREIN to find out what their objections were and how we could overcome them,” Arnoud told us. The discussions led FTD to pro-actively modify how they operate to ensure that there could be no doubt as to their legality.

“We even voluntarily made some changes to the FTD platform to ensure there could be no doubt we were in the clear,” Arnoud explained. But their attempts to engage and negotiate with BREIN came to nothing.

“After we made the changes, we got complete radio silence from BREIN. No confirmation, no rejection, nothing,” Arnoud explained. “Only after several days we found out what BREIN thought – but only by reading the online news. That was a huge disappointment.”

Indeed, ignoring the outstretched hand and making their intentions against FTD public, BREIN chief Tim Kuik spoke with Dutch publication Volkskrant and the resulting article titled “You do not pay for it, it’s unlawful” labeled FTD’s operations criminal. “Although they [FTD] are not carrying illegal content on their servers, what FTD does is simply criminal,” said Kuik.

Usually at this point a site being bullied by BREIN would either dig in its heels and wait for the lawsuit and injunction against them, or capitulate in fear of being destroyed.

“We could have waited for preliminary injunction proceedings, which is BREIN’s weapon of choice,” Arnoud told us. But that would have taken too much time, and since preliminary injunctions leave little room for a thorough investigation of all relevant facts, the risk was that FTD could be forced to close down for all the wrong reasons.

So FTD did something quite unusual in these cases – it went on the offensive against BREIN instead.

“At that stage, we felt that doing nothing would leave the sword of Damocles over our heads,” Arnoud told TorrentFreak. “BREIN is very fond of making continuous ominous statements in the press, and that could create a FUD environment for FTD. Therefore we decided to go to court and ask for an official declaration that downloading is legal, that it’s also legal to inform people about materials to download and to offer a platform to let people inform each other,” he added.

FTD also wants a public statement from BREIN correcting its assertion that its operations are criminal, and a declaration from the court that FTD’s operations are fully legal.

“We fully expect to win our case. BREIN is big on statements but often short on facts and legal arguments to back them up,” Arnoud told TorrentFreak.

“We have the law and the facts on our side.”

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

On TorrentFreak we’ve also had issues with BREIN after they labeled us a ‘pirate weblog’ and then used material from our site without proper attribution. Our legal counsel had to jump in, in an attempt to stop their libelous writing and harassment of smaller website operators.

As expected, this didn’t have much effect, and BREIN continued their operations claiming a few dozen victories by shutting down smaller torrent communities. They usually operate by sending emails to the site’s admins or hosting providers claiming that their activities are illegal, ordering them to shut down or face legal action.

Besides torrent sites, BREIN is also targeting Usenet indexers, claiming that they assist in copyright infringement. The NZB files found on many of these sites can be considered as Usenet’s answer to .torrent files as they point to content hosted elsewhere. They also make the otherwise-complicated Usenet downloading process relatively easy to master. BREIN does not like the fact that NZBs bring Usenet to the mainstream and considers sites hosting those files to have the same function as torrent sites and is targeting them in much the same way.

One of the NZB sites threatened by BREIN is BNI-online. The site received an ultimatum, with BREIN ordering them to stop their ‘illegal’ activities within 48 hours or be taken to court. The site has responded to this request and ceased its operations.

Splendid, the site’s founder explains that BREIN’s threats are one of the reasons for closing down the site. At this point we can not confirm that any other sites have closed after similar threats, but it wouldn’t be a surprise. Every torrent or NZB site hosted in The Netherlands will be approached by the anti-piracy outfit sooner or later.

This week, BREIN will be in court with another Dutch based site, Mininova, and TorrentFreak will of course keep you updated on the outcome and progress in this trial.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The individuals were charged with copyright infringement and sentenced to fines and community service, rather than custodial sentences the prosecution had been pushing for.

Steven Diprose was sentenced to 180 hours community service, and ordered to pay £378 in Court costs. Michael Myers was told to pay a £500 fine. Mark Tugwell has to undertake 100 hours community service and pay £378 Court costs. The fourth uploader, James Garner was sentenced to 50 hours community service and also has to pay £378 Court costs.

What remains are the cases against one other uploader and Alan Ellis, the administrator of OiNK. Unlike other file-sharing related cases, the charges against Ellis are not related to copyright offenses. Instead, he has been charged with “conspiracy to defraud”.

Ellis’ case was scheduled to be heard today at the Teesside Crown Court, but the session didn’t last long as the trial was postponed till January 2010. Due to the press blackout, TorrentFreak was unable to find out whether a reason has been given for the delay.

The OiNK shutdown was an international operation. Codenamed “Operation Ark Royal”, it involved co-ordinated action by both British and Dutch police forces. IFPI and the BPI, two well known anti-piracy organizations, allegedly assisted in gathering the ‘evidence’ that led to the arrests.

The tracker – which served some 180,000 users including NiN frontman Trent Reznor – was shut down but several replacements took over including Waffles.fm and What.cd. The latter developed a community of nearly 100,000 members and recently celebrated the upload of the 500,000th torrent.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Founded in 2001, FTD is the largest Usenet community in The Netherlands with a massive 450,000 members. The site and its software allows FTD’s users to report the location of material they find on Usenet, which could include the usual movies, music and TV shows. Of course, once other members know where to find the material, the downloading can begin. Since much of the material downloaded is copyrighted, BREIN went on to claim the site is illegal, but the picture in The Netherlands is not necessarily how BREIN paints it.

Downloading movies, TV shows and music from the Internet for your own personal use is completely legal in Holland. Making copies of original material you own for your own use is also completely legal. Even making copies of pirated material you don’t own is legal, provided it is exclusively for your own use. Although certain torrent sites can exist in a murky semi-gray area, FTD doesn’t even link to copyright works hosted by someone else – there is no so-called “structural infringement” which BREIN claims some BitTorrent sites demonstrate.

Considering the above, FTD are pretty annoyed that Tim Kuik of BREIN called them criminals, since his claims have no basis in law. Unlike many sites threatened by copyright groups, FTD aren’t sitting back and taking this, they are fighting back.

“FTD is a perfectly legal activity,” said FTD director Ronald Sievers, a point on which his legal team agrees.

“BREIN’s claims are built on legal quicksand,” says FTD lawyer Arnoud Engelfriet. “They speak of ‘facilitation’ and the structural use of the availability of unauthorized downloads, as if it were a foregone conclusion that this is prohibited. Nothing could be further from the truth. Furthermore, FTD only facilitates communication between people who quite legally download from Usenet. FTD does not facilitate or carry out any upload and therefore can not be held liable.”

So, supported by two Dutch copyright lawyers and IT experts, FTD have filed a lawsuit against BREIN in which they request the court clarifies these points;

1. That downloading is legal in the Netherlands, even if the uploader committed copyright infringement when he uploaded the material.
2. That directing users to content on Usenet via FTD is legal, even if the material was put there without permission of the copyright holders.
3. That FTD is acting within the law, considering the above.
4. That there is no need for FTD to filter any of the reports its users create which refer to the location of content on the Internet
5. That FTD does not have to remove any of these reports, unless BREIN makes a correct and formal complaint.

Of course, FTD also want a retraction of BREIN’s statement that FTD is illegal. “FTD require a public statement correcting this and wants a declaration from the court that they were simply acting legally,” it said in a statement.

Additionally, Kuik also quipped that “what FTD do clearly constitutes a crime,” to which Arnoud Engelfriet, one of FTD’s lawyers responded, “A correction of this should be published on BREIN’s homepage too.”

A copy of the subpoena can be found here. (pdf)

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The service is mostly used by independent artists, but record labels are also interested. Today, the Dutch record label Beep! Beep! announced a partnership with Mininova, which will see the site distribute the label’s complete discography for free under a Creative Commons license.

BitTorrent has proven to be an ideal marketing tool for musicians, writers and other creative minds who want to promote their work and engage fans. Up until now, though, there was no easy solution to monetize their releases. A new feature from Mininova changes that, as it allows content publishers to offer their newly born fans the option to buy related products.

In just a few clicks, users of Mininova’s content distribution platform can now add links to CDs, concert tickets, merchandising or other products they want to sell alongside their torrent release. The new feature integrates a link to products in the artist’s myshopify.com store, as the record label Beep! Beep! has done with one of their latest releases.

The label even gives Mininova users a 20% discount for helping out with seeding. According to the label, the reason why they have decided to give all their albums away for free is simple. “Because it’s only fair not to pay for something you haven’t heard yet,” they say.

“In our opinion torrents are an excellent way to present you with our music. That’s why Beep! Beep! and Mininova have teamed up. We like the fact that you’re taking the effort to get to know new music. In fact, we’d like to thank you for downloading and seeding our music by giving you a discount on our hardcopies,” the label announced.

Mininova co-founder Niek told TorrentFreak that the shop links will go live for users of the content distribution system some time later today. It’s good to see that Mininova not only helps to distribute content, but also help artists to pitch their gear to interested fans.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Site administrator Alan Ellis was arrested immediately and eventually charged with conspiracy to defraud. Five others, who were arrested months later, were accused of uploading music to others via the site.

Four of the uploaders plead guilty at Teesside Crown Court last December, where they were all charged with copyright infringement offenses. The four have now been sentenced.

Steven Diprose was sentenced to 180 hours community service, and has to pay £378 in Court costs. Michael Myers was ordered to pay a £500 fine. Mark Tugwell has to undertake 100 hours community service and has to pay £378 Court costs. The fourth uploader, James Garner was sentenced to 50 hours community service and also has to pay £378 Court costs.

For one other uploader and OiNK admin Allan Ellis the wait continues. Their cases have been adjourned and they will appear before court in March.

A source close to one of the convicted uploaders told TorrentFreak in a response: “[The Judge] swallowed the prosecution line completely that initial seeders were causing major damage to the copyright holders, and particularly uploaders who uploaded before the official release date. The fact that all the early uploads were only 1 or 2 days early and that 3 out 4 of the uploaders bought their CDs online did not sway him. All the retailers, quite naturally, denied this.”

We were further told that, if the defendants had not had such good references and strong legal representation, the Judge would have seriously considered a custodial sentence. This ruling, the first of its kind in the UK, will most certainly be used as a precedent for future cases.

Developing story, more info will be added later.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Most of the users of the service have reported great results. BitTorrent has proven to be an ideal marketing tool for musicians, writers and other creative minds who want to promote their work and engage fans. In fact, the Dutch Band ‘Silence is Sexy’ won the Interactive Award 2009 for releasing their album for free on Mininova.

Erik, co-founder of Mininova said in a response to the new milestone: “Content Distribution enables producers and artists to bring their work to the attention of the public, free of charge. It’s the perfect solution for bands that don’t have the means to bring out a record yet.”

“Through content distribution, we have already had about 5,800 uploads and 15 million downloads,” Erik commented. “That means some 40,000 downloads a day. The amount of data that has been downloaded equals a pile of CDs of about 30 kilometers high.”

Aside from the marketing aspect, sharing files on BitTorrent is also a great cost saver. Terabytes of data can be transferred without having to invest thousands of dollars in server capacity. If only Microsoft had used BitTorrent for its Windows 7 Beta release, they would not have been forced to delay the release and annoy thousands of eager early adopters, and could have even saved thousands of dollars at the same time.

Slowly, more established companies are realizing that BitTorrent is indeed a great way to reach out to a wide audience, for a fraction of the costs usually incurred. Last year, Canada’s public television broadcaster CBC used Mininova’s services to distribute one of its TV-shows, after they ran into distribution problems.

With BitTorrent’s ever growing popularity, Mininova is predicting a boom in the number of premium users in the coming year, as well as a steep growth in regular users. It might be a good idea for the entertainment industry to embrace these sites, rather than attempting to take them out.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The report, which was commissioned by the government, estimates the positive effect on the Dutch economy to be around 100 million euros a year. While it is recognized that the entertainment industry suffers some losses, these don’t outweigh the positive effects of file-sharing.

File-sharing gives people access to a wide range of cultural goods and is often used to sample content that is bought later, the report concluded. Most file-sharers would have never bought the content they downloaded, but having access to such a large media library increases the welfare of Dutch citizens, the researchers note.

The researchers further found that people who download music and movies are not buying less than people who don’t. In fact, downloaders are reported to be more frequent visitors of concerts, and game downloaders actually bought more games than those who didn’t. In the music industry, lesser-know bands profit most from file-sharing, the researchers report.

The report goes on to discuss the legal situation in the Netherlands. Downloading music and movies for personal use is currently legal under Dutch law while uploading is illegal, although most file-sharers are uncertain as to what is allowed and what is not. Although anti-piracy outfits are lobbying for harsher copyright laws, this will have little effect.

The researchers think that stricter copyright laws will not have much of an effect on the income of the entertainment industry. Most reported losses can be attributed to things other than piracy, they say. One of the main reasons for the loss in sales for the music industry, is competition with other forms of entertainment.

BREIN, the anti-piracy voice of the Netherlands hasn’t commented on the conclusions of the report yet, but we’re looking forward to hearing from them.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Gottfrid, aka Anakata of The Pirate Bay offered to become Mininova’s temporary host, with the site moving again later on to be hosted by Gary Fung of isoHunt. As the site continued to develop, Mininova needed their own servers and in the years to follow its growth has been nothing short of spectacular.

From a standing start in 2005, by mid-2007 Mininova had entered the list of Top 100 most popular sites on the entire Internet with 2 million daily visitors, an amazing achievement.

Then, at the tender age of just three years old, Mininova was breaking more records. By January 2008, the site was serving 3 million daily visitors who were downloading almost 10 million .torrent files every day. In February the site introduced torrent streaming and by the end of that month had served over 4 billion .torrents.

The innovations didn’t stop there. In March last year, Mininova began its Beta testing of BitTorrent powered video streaming. The new streaming feature allowed users to watch videos instantly, streamed from .torrent files. The Open Source “Swarmplayer” was developed in collaboration with the Tribler team from the Technical University Delft and Free University Amsterdam.

In April 2008, the BitTorrent community realized just how big Mininova had become, after technical problems took down the site, resulting in massive traffic surges on other indexers. Although the site quickly returned, May was disappointing, as anti-piracy outfit BREIN flexed its muscles and threatened the site – filter, or else. However, by the end of the month it became clear that Mininova’s popularity was far from on the wane, as it served up its 5 billionth torrent.

Niek, CEO of Mininova, told Torrentfreak: “The growth rate is above every expectation. Mininova’s download numbers almost doubled this year – and the number of visitors grew almost just as hard. We are excited about the coming year and its challenges: stay tuned for some important announcements in the coming months.”

Just a few days ago, Mininova announced it had delivered its 7 billionth torrent, which left everyone wondering where it was all going to end. Today, the BitTorrent behemoth reached its 4th birthday and like someone else with a birthday today, the dream appears to have turned into reality.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Entitled “Using Torrents As A Successful Marketing Tool” their concept describes how BitTorrent can help bands to get noticed and build a fanbase. “The music industry keeps fighting new ways to distribute music. Silence is Sexy decided to do things differently and bring their music to the place where people like to get their music these days: torrent sites,” it reads.

So last fall they did, publishing their latest album “This Ain’t Hollywood” on Mininova. And they are not alone. Many artists are embracing BitTorrent, and releasing music for free has become commonplace these days. In fact, Georgia Wonder, one of the other contenders for the award, also used Mininova to distribute its music and of course, no-one needs reminding of the success enjoyed by NiN.

The free music experiment was a great success for Silence is Sexy. With over 15,000 downloads on Mininova and several positive responses from the press and (new) fans, BitTorrent has proven to be a great marketing tool. Thanks to their upload, one of their songs was included in the popular Indie/Rock Playlist of November, which gave them some additional exposure.

True to the name of the award, the public now has the chance to decide which of the 5 nominees wins the award. The winner will receive 5000 euros and 2 days of recording time in a Dutch studio. You can give 5 stars to Silence is Sexy on the award site if you think that BitTorrent can actually help artists and bands. The winner will be announced January 15th.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The list is based on traffic rank reports from Compete and Alexa, backed up by visitor reports from some of the site admins. If you’re looking for high speed downloads, a free Usenet trial might be a good alternative.

1. The Pirate Bay

It has been a good year for The Pirate Bay. The number of visitors spiked, despite efforts in Denmark and Italy to block access the site. Last month, The site celebrated its 5th anniversary, just after it broke the 25 million peers mark. At any given point in time, more than 25 million peers actively trade files thought the Pirate Bay tracker.

2. Mininova

Mininova has seen a steady rise in visitors in 2008, and more than 3 billion torrents were downloaded from the site in the past 12 months. In addition to user uploaded content, the Mininova team has started to focus more on premium publishers with their content distribution platform.

3. IsoHunt

Despite being ensnared in legal proceedings with the MPAA and CRIA, isoHunt is continuing to grow. This year they partnered with the Creative Commons music distribution site Jamendo, and just like The Pirate Bay, isoHunt added SSL encryption to the site, making it impossible for your ISP or the authorities to monitor users’ activities.

4. Torrentz

Torrentz.com, one of the oldest torrent sites around, celebrated its 5th anniversary in July. The site added a “verified torrents” feature this year, and inspired many other meta-search engines to do the same. Last month a “hacker” caused some problems after it took over the torrentz domain, but luckily this issue was resolved in a few hours.

5. TorrentReactor

TorrentReactor redesigned and optimized the site throughout 2008, which resulted in a significant increase in visitors. In addition, the TorrentReactor launched TorrentPrivacy, a service that allows BitTorrent users to download torrents anonymously.

6. Demonoid

After being forced to go offline following threats from the CRIA, Demonoid returned this April after 6 months of downtime. Since then it is business as usual, and most of the members returned quickly.

7. BTjunkie

In December 2007 BTjunkie was forced to leave their ISP following a takedown notice from the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. This year there were no troubles, and the site continues to go strong.

8. SumoTorrent

In 2007, SumoTorrent quickly settled itself among the top torrent sites, and traffic continued to increase this year. The pop-ups and redirects are new though, and don’t make it one of the most convenient sites to browse.

9. BTmon

BitTorrentMonster, BTmon for short, debuted in 10th place last year, and managed to climb a spot. Other than that, there is not much news surrounding the site.

10. TorrentPortal

Not much news about TorrentPortal this year either, but for BitTorrent sites that is usually a good thing. Traffic seems to be stable, although the site is not growing as fast as the other BitTorrent sites in this list.

Honorable mention: TorrentSpy

In 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site, but this changed quickly in August 2007, when a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data. The judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities, and hand these over to the MPAA.

In a response to this decision – and to ensure the privacy of their users – TorrentSpy decided that it was best to block access to all users from the US. This led to a huge decrease in traffic, but still, it managed to make out top 10 list last year. March 2008 TorrentSpy owner Justin decided to shut down completely, and in May his company was ordered to pay a $110 million fine, which it will appeal.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Site administrator Alan Ellis, 25, was arrested immediately and eventually charged with conspiracy to defraud.

Five others, who were arrested months later, were accused of uploading music to others via the site. They were charged with copyright infringement offenses.

Yesterday, all six appeared at Teesside Crown Court in the UK. Ellis faced a charge of conspiracy to defraud, while the others – Steven Diprose, 21, from Staines, London, James Garner, 19, from Winsford, Cheshire, Michael Myers, 34, of Brough in North Humberside, Mark Tugwell, 19, from Caister near Great Yarmouth, Norfolk and Matthew Wyatt, 19, a student in London but originally from Stamford, Lincolnshire – all faced charges of copyright infringement.

Ellis did not enter a plea, and his case has been adjourned until 23 March 2009. The five uploaders entered pleas, and their hearing will continue at a later stage. All five uploaders were accused of making music albums available on OiNK, and according to insider information, at least four of them pleaded guilty.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.