There are many ways for ISPs to manage the increased load BitTorrent traffic places on their network. Some choose to interrupt BitTorrent transfers like Comcast did, but there are more ‘consumer friendly’ alternatives too. An Israeli Internet provider is adding local web-seeds to speed up torrent transfers and reduce the amount of international traffic.
More than thousand people have gathered in the streets of the Swedish capital Stockholm today, to protest against yesterday’s Pirate Bay verdict. The demonstration was organized by the Swedish Pirate Party that is campaigning for the European Parliament elections in June.
After sentencing The Pirate Bay Four the District Court has now asked the police to investigate their own people, as the verdict in the case leaked to the public hours before it was officially announced. Whether or not the leak will have implications for the sentence is unknown.
The Pirate Bay verdict is being criticized by the Swedish public and protests are being planned. Opposition to the decision is widespread, indicated partly by the surge in new memberships to Sweden’s Pirate Party. It has seen its ranks grow by 20% in the handful of hours since the verdict and the number of members is increasing by the minute.
Just minutes ago the verdict in the case of The Pirate Bay Four was announced. All four defendants were accused of ‘assisting in making copyright content available’. Peter Sunde: Guilty. Fredrik Neij: Guilty. Gottfrid Svartholm: Guilty. Carl Lundström: Guilty. The four receive 1 year in jail each and fines totaling $3,620,000.
According to Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde, he has been given information which suggests that the crew have lost their case in Sweden. A “trustworthy source” reportedly leaked the verdict from the court.
When The Pirate Bay was raided by police in 2006 they confiscated the site’s servers. Now one of those servers has been bought by a Swedish museum, which will display the machine as a device that has impacted people’s lives. In another development, damning CAM footage of the upcoming TPB movie has leaked showing the crew calculating their huge earnings.
Support for The Pirate Bay doesn’t stop at the Swedish border, nor it is limited to blogs and forums. Today, a group of Russian Pirate Bay supporters will throw a street party at Pushkin Square in the center of Moscow, with the full approval of the Russian government.
Last week a 22 year-old was sentenced to 6 months jail for running a file-sharing site carrying links to copyright works. On the surface it appeared that court ruled that due to placing advertising on the site, the admin had profited from infringement and therefore committed a crime, but all is not as it seems.
If anti-piracy lobbyists are to be believed, all content creators hate The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites. The truth is obviously more balanced. In fact, some of the most creative minds are BitTorrent users themselves, including best selling author Paulo Coelho, who offered to travel to Sweden to testify in favor of The Pirate Bay.
BitTorrent is already an important tool for millions of people who prefer their television on-demand, but integration with traditional TV-sets is still lacking. This is about to change though, as the Tribler team announces version 5 of its next generation BitTorrent client.
A recent draft of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) surfaced on Wikileaks this weekend. Among other things, the draft aims to strengthen the power and rights of the entertainment industry and other copyright holders, by letting them choose how they want to be compensated for copyright infringements.
It’s normal for BitTorrent users to be a tiny bit paranoid, since their activities aren’t always popular with everyone. But imagine musing via Twitter that your favorite movie isn’t on torrent sites yet and the next thing you know the studio is in direct contact with you, asking you not to pirate the movie – and giving you a free ticket in return.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Fast & Furious 4’ tops the chart this week followed by ‘Taking Chance’.
The MPAA isn’t known for wasting opportunities to obtain information about BitTorrent sites and their users. In 2005 the MPAA paid around $15,000 to a hacker who obtained emails from TorrentSpy and The Pirate Bay. The case was heard in court and won by the MPAA, but this decision will soon be appealed.
In a few days the verdict in the Pirate Bay trial will be announced, a decision that could have far reaching consequences for fellow BitTorrent trackers and file-sharing in general. Through this poll we’d like to hear what the public believe the verdict will be. Generally in favor of The Pirate Bay Four – or against?
Mininova, one of the world’s most visited BitTorrent sites, broke another download record today. Just a few hours ago the download counter displayed a staggering 8,000,000,000 downloads. That’s enough for everyone on planet earth to have one – and then some.
A 22 year old man who ran a site which offered links to copyright works has been fined and sentenced to 6 months jail in Spain. While non-commercial file-sharing sites are legal in Spain, the judge decided that because the site had advertising and therefore profited from copyright infringement, this constituted a criminal offense.
Tough anti-piracy laws in Denmark have notably caused some serious problems for The Pirate Bay, as ISPs there were forced to block the world’s largest tracker. The law allows outfits such as IFPI to shut down sites with relative ease but this imbalance towards rights holders will be addressed in a new report due soon.
Today the BBC published the first episode of R&DTV, a Creative Commons licensed show that users are allowed to remix, redistribute and share. The first episode of the monthly technology show features Digg’s Kevin Rose, among others. The BBC hopes to use BitTorrent for the distribution of future episodes.
Last week, the French Parliament passed a new law requiring Internet service providers to cut off Internet access for persistent copyright offenders. Since the parliament voted in favor of the law, everyone – including the most fanatical critics – believed that it would easily pass through Senate and the National Assembly today – but it didn’t.
Despite plenty of protests, the French Parliament passed a controversial new law last week that will see alleged copyright infringers disconnected from the Internet. Now, a new survey reveals that 60% of French Internet users are against the so-called HADOPI law. 69% say they believe it will fail.
At the end of March The Pirate Bay added new functionality to reach out to millions of Facebook users. Just over a week later and the world’s largest social networking site has blocked all links to torrents on the world’s largest and most infamous BitTorrent tracker.
Another brand new episode of TorrentFreak TV. This week’s episode covers the X-Men leak, the French three strikes law, Mininova’s new partnership, Hulu’s advertisement crisis and a whole lot more.
The big brother of the MPAA has Newzbin, the world’s most prominent newsgroup indexer, firmly in its sights. Newzbin, which indexes Usenet and offers its members NZB files, is being sued by the MPA, the global lobby group for the movie industry. The pair are set to fight it out in court, possibly before the end of the year.
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people sharing?
During recent years technology has evolved up to a point where the rebroadcasting of TV-signals in high quality can be done with a few clicks. This poses an increasing threat to broadcasters of live sporting events, who have now joined the ‘war on piracy’ by hiring BayTSP to track down illegal live streams.
The unfinished workprint of ‘X-Men Origins: Wolverine’ that leaked just a few days ago has already made its way to the computers of more than a million BitTorrent users. Unsurprisingly, the film leads our weekly chart of the ten most downloaded movies on BitTorrent.
Earlier this week an unfinished copy of the highly anticipated “X-Men Origins: Wolverine” movie leaked online. Fox is expecting a financial disaster and has called in the FBI to find out where the leak originated. We’re wondering if the leak will actually hurt the film’s success, or might the opposite be true?
During recent months Australia has become a hot source for camcorded movies. Now, an Australian man accused of ‘camming’ movies and supplying the copies to well known ‘Scene’ group PreVail has been found guilty and convicted. However, the MPA is very disappointed as the court let the man go with just a slap on the wrist.
Radiohead, the band that made millions of dollars by giving away their music for free, has very little to complain about when it comes to piracy. On the contrary, in a landmark file-sharing case, Radiohead has responded positively to a request to testify against the RIAA.
Despite public protests the French Parliament has passed a controversial new law that will see alleged copyright infringers disconnected from the Internet. In addition, France’s Minister of Culture Christine Albanel has stated that under the new law, ISPs may be ordered to block The Pirate Bay.
Just two days after Sweden’s new anti-piracy law came into force, two men have been arrested for sharing copyrighted files and administering a rip-box. The arrests were part of an international operation headed by Europol, and the suspects are alleged to be part of an international network.
Following the departure of founders Randy Saaf and Octavio Herrera, the future for MediaDefender looked even more uncertain than it did previously. However, those concerned that their favorite anti-piracy spoofing company might drift away, fear no more. MediaDefender’s parent company just acquired everyone’s favorite anti-piracy tracking company, MediaSentry.
MPAA chairman Dan Glickman is currently searching for another job. The Clinton-era cabinet minister has been head of the MPAA for the last four and a half years, but will be replaced in 18 months time because of his lacking performance. By contrast, Glickman’s predecessor, Jack Valenti held the office for 38 years.
A new law designed to make it easier for copyright holders to go after illicit file-sharers came into force in Sweden yesterday. Interestingly, it looks like the IPRED legislation, which will also increase penalties and ultimately criminalize large scale infringement, has already resulted in a major drop in Internet traffic – for now.
While discussing a softer approach to anti-piracy PSAs in the UK, the president of Universal Pictures noted that campaigning needs to evolve and carry an “appropriate message” for today. Noting that piracy is going out of fashion, he says that ISPs will be held accountable – like those who run brothels and drug houses.
April 1st is a very tough day to report big, controversial news – if you want to be believed that is. Fact: The new X-Men movie has leaked to BitTorrent and Fox won’t be laughing. The movie is unfinished with many special effects yet to be added. Fingers are already being pointed toward the possible source of the leak and downloads are already more than 75,000.
After years of hostility, lawsuits, police raids and heated invective between the two groups, the Pirate Bay has today announced they have settled their differences with US media conglomerate Warner Bros. The largest BitTorrent tracker has sold out to Hollywood and the two have agreed a deal.
Anyone familiar with BitTorrent will know that this protocol provides some of the best excitement to be found anywhere on the Internet. During the last few hours, up to 100 previously unreleased Michael Jackson songs were leaked and the battle is now on as his representatives try to put the genie back in the bottle.
The credit crunch has impacted the global financial market and many businesses are struggling to survive the economic downturn. Now, a rare academic publication on private BitTorrent trackers suggests that the same is happening in private BitTorrent communities.
In what must appear like a lifetime to his loyal fans, the popular DVD ripper aXXo hasn’t uploaded any torrents for three weeks. As always, rumors surface that claim to explain the hiatus. Has aXXo been arrested, or transferred to one of the MPAA’s covert detention facilities? Did BitTorrent’s favorite uploader fall off a cliff?
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people sharing?
A new application has been created for the iPhone which is designed to not only get all the latest Apple apps free of charge, but to teach a commercial iPhone pirate a lesson by opening his servers to all.
Mininova, one of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, will launch a new feature today that will help artists, labels and other content producers to generate revenue. The Dutch record label ‘Beep! Beep!’ is one of the first to try the new feature, which allows content producers to add ‘shopping links’ to their free torrents.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Yes Man’ tops the chart this week followed by ‘Bedtime Stories’.
This week’s hot topic is the reported collaboration between the RIAA, MPAA and your ISP. The aim of the music and movie industries is to reduce and deter illicit file-sharing by sending out warnings to alleged infringers. The big questions is this: How would you react if you received one of these warnings?
In a bid to conquer the web bit-by-bit, The Pirate Bay has launched a new feature to allow it to penetrate the social networking site Facebook. With only a single click Facebook users can add their favorite torrents to their profile to share them with friends. The IFPI is not pleased with the new feature, while FaceBook declined to comment.
This week several scary stories surfaced about how the MPAA and RIAA are negotiating with ISPs on how to deal with copyright infringers. Even though it was often presented as news, those who look deeper will realize that this is nothing new at all, just the same old threats dressed up in a new jacket.
A police IT forensics specialist has had some of his personal details leak via The Pirate Bay. Jim Keyzer, who led the investigation into the popular tracker, has just discovered that his girlfriend’s email account was compromised by hackers, who obtained several passwords and other personal documents.
The European Parliament has approved a report which goes against the French plan to implement a ’3 strikes’ regime for alleged P2P copyright infringers. The proposals to increase security and ensure freedom on the Internet were accepted, but disconnecting users from the Internet was ruled out.
After suffering humiliation at the hands of a hacker in 2007, the future of anti-piracy company MediaDefender is in serious doubt. The stock price of its parent company has plunged, and the two founders of MediaDefender have now left the sinking ship.
MCM, a writer and artist from Victoria, Canada, has released the first book of his TorrentBoy series. ‘TorrentBoy: Zombie World!’ deals with a kid named Wesley, who’s on a quest to save the world while battling zombies and giant leeches. The book can be downloaded for free.
A few weeks ago we introduced Torrent Droid, an application for Android-based phones that allows users to take a photo of a barcode and lookup torrents for the associated product. While Torrent Droid is still being developed, a similar app is now on the market and available for download.
The term ’3 strikes’ is well known in file-sharing circles – infringe on copyrights and face Internet disconnection. But every coin has two sides, day can eclipse night and evil can be countered by good. Free music service Jamendo continues the theme by shunning ’3 Strikes’ and embracing ’3 Thanks’ for downloaders.
Last year seven Hollywood studios teamed up to sue iiNet, Australia’s third largest ISP. iiNet is accused of authorizing its customers to infringe copyright, but in court today it refused to accept that was the case. iiNet has yet to decide if it will admit that its customers engaged in copyright infringement using BitTorrent.
Exactly a year ago one of the largest torrent sites shut down for good, and a month later the owner was ordered to pay a 110 million dollar fine. We catch up with TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnell, who’s still in court fighting the MPAA, to see how he views the developments of the past year.
In the eyes of many artists and record labels, being heavily pirated is just about the worse thing that could happen. But what if there was a worse fate, one where people don’t feel the desire to pirate your music at all? What if you make your music available for free – but still no one is interested? Come back pirates, all is forgiven.
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
Another brand new episode of TorrentFreak TV. This week’s episode covers Mininova’s earnings, aXXo torrents, isoHunt’s court case and a whole lot more.
As the online battle against file-sharers heats up with governments and ISPs forced into the arena, those opposed to being monitored are investigating counter-measures. Soon the Pirate Bay team will introduce IPREDATOR, a service that promises to make global Internet users more anonymous than with existing VPN services.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Marley and Me’ tops the chart this week followed by ‘Inkheart’.
Vuze, the popular BitTorrent client formerly known as Azureus, has received a major update which allows users to automatically convert and play downloaded videos on the iPhone, iPod, Xbox 360 and the PS3. “Now playing, on all your screens” is Vuze’s new tagline.
Following a mountain of bad publicity and strong objections from just about everyone except the entertainment industries, New Zealand’s proposed ‘guilty upon accusation’ Section 92A anti-piracy law has been scrapped.
BitTorrent users are often referred to as pirates, even though there are plenty of legal uses for the most used file sharing protocol. Even for those who use BitTorrent to download copyrighted content, the motivation to do so varies. Through this poll we would like to discover why you use BitTorrent.
The entertainment industry managed to convince the French government to draft a law that will make it possible to disconnect people from the Internet, if they receive more than two copyright infringement warnings. Sadly, most of the politicians who plan to sign the law into action have no clue what they’re dealing with.
Today a brand new movie has premiered but this is not the usual Hollywood-style launch. ‘Blank’, described as an intense psycho-thriller by director Rick L. Winters, will debut on DVD but you can get it for free on BitTorrent too – with the blessing of the entire cast and crew.
Nine Inch Nails released their new tour sampler NIN/JA on their website a few hours ago. While the regular quality MP3s can be downloaded straight from their server, the band has set up their own BitTorrent tracker for the higher quality ‘lossless’ downloads.
The Pirate Bay has rolled out a new feature which allows users to bookmark torrents and download them remotely, simply by adding their personal RSS feed URL to their BitTorrent client. Why wait, when you can start your torrent downloads on the go?
The movie industry leaves no stone unturned in its quest to eliminate movie piracy, particularly illegal camcording in theaters. Unfortunately, it’s the public that has to deal with the negative consequences. In some parts of the world, it means that you’ll have to wait a few extra weeks or months before a movie premieres.
There are claims today that the Australian government’s top-secret blacklist of banned websites has been leaked onto the Internet. There are a number of strange entries on the list that leaked to Wikileaks, including a couple of torrent sites. However, Australian Minister Stephen Conroy claims the list is not the country’s official blacklist.
It’s been two weeks since the Pirate Bay trial came to an end – at least for now. While the judge reviews the arguments presented by both sides, TorrentFreak caught up with Peter Sunde to look forward to the decision and review the tumultuous events of the past weeks.
The controversial ‘Section 92a’ law is looking increasingly uncertain in New Zealand. Following a breakdown in talks it’s been revealed that one ISP has already implemented a version of it, and may have already threatened innocent customers after allegations from copyright holders.
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
A woman who went to the cinema to watch a movie says she was “treated like a criminal.” First of all cinema staff searched her looking for camming equipment, but found candy instead which they demanded she turn over. She refused and wouldn’t leave the building when told to either, despite the security guards.
A new law designed to make it easier for copyright holders to go after illicit file-sharers will come into force April 1st in Sweden. The IPRED legislation will also increase penalties and ultimately criminalize large scale infringement but according to a new poll, the majority of Swedes are against it.
This year is an important one for the three largest BitTorrent sites. In common with The Pirate Bay and isoHunt, Mininova is also heading to court in a dispute with the entertainment industry. This May, the court will decide if the BitTorrent indexer has to actively filter content from the site.
Most BitTorrent sites operate in the shadows, with operators who rarely speak in public and guard their identities closely. Mininova is not one of those sites and in a new interview, company directors Erik Dubbelboer and Niek van der Maas reveal a little more about running one of the world’s biggest BitTorrent sites.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Twilight’ tops the chart for the second week in a row. ‘Quantum of Solace’ and ‘Bolt’ are in second and third place respectively.
A few hours ago, certain sections of The Pirate Bay were flagged by Google as containing malware and were subsequently blocked. Similar warnings are being shown by Firefox, which states that the world’s largest tracker is an “attack site”. The Pirate Bay team are working on the problem now.
The Internet and file-sharing networks like BitTorrent have shifted music promotion from the labels to the people. Increasingly, record labels are losing control over what music the masses are listening to, and according to some musicians this is is actually a good thing.
Uploading fakes to BitTorrent is a growing phenomenon, as unscrupulous individuals try to abuse the networks for their own ends. Just lately, some people have even been offering users money to post suspect torrents and this morning, a flood of hundreds of fake aXXo torrents were uploaded to Mininova.
While the entertainment industries push for harsher copyright laws, public opinion steers in the opposite direction. Two recent studies from Canada and Spain found that half of the Internet users use p2p networks to download music, software and films. Less than 5% of the respondents believe that people who download copyrighted content are engaging in criminal behavior.
The South by Southwest (SXSW) music festival is one of the largest and most popular in the United States. For the fifth year in a row, SXSW has released a DRM-free, RIAA-safe collection of songs totaling 6 GB, which can all be downloaded for free, thanks to BitTorrent.
MusicTank has released a report entitled “Let’s Sell Recorded Music”, based on a series of events held last autumn and the responses to the BERR report. The report is focused mainly on the music industry’s online shortcomings. However, it fails to even mention several major points, and glosses over others with barely a mention.
A new version of the P2P plug-in Littleshoot makes it possible to download torrents right from within your browser. The software runs on Macs and Windows PCs and works with IE, Firefox, Chrome and Safari. It even offers Gnutella and Youtube integration as an added bonus.
Just a week after the Pirate Bay trial ended, another site finds itself up against the music industry. IsoHunt, one of the leading BitTorrent sites, is fighting out a dispute with the CRIA in court today. Of course, everything can be followed through Twitter.
For years music industry lobbyists, headed by the RIAA, have gone after illegal file-sharers – supposedly in the best interests of the artists. Unexpectedly, a group of top musicians has started its very own lobby group to avoid being exploited by these very same record labels, who tend to abuse copyrights for their own sake.
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
You are standing in a store looking for a new DVD to buy. Rather than buying it, you photograph the barcode with your phone and press a couple of buttons. By the time you make it home, the movie is waiting for you in your torrent client. You can with Torrent Droid.
The name Discordia Ltd is connected to the neutering, hijacking, faking and commercialization of several P2P clients including iMesh, Bearshare and Shareaza.com. Following initial reports that the company had hijacked the Lphant client, it now seems that the business simply sold out to the music industry.
Two economists from Washington University have looked at current copyright and patent laws and concluded that they’re not good. The pair see current Intellectual property laws as similar to ‘medieval trade monopolies’ which were bad for the economy as a whole, and are calling for the system to be reformed.
The Pirate Party has gathered a huge following in Sweden. More than half of all men under 30 are considering voting for the party in the upcoming European Parliament elections. However, being affiliated with the party is not without risks – even in a democracy.
The 14 year old daughter of a city counselor in Spain is the source of a small political crisis in the city of Getafe. The girl used her mother’s work 3G modem to download some episodes of the popular TV-show ‘Lost’, resulting in a massive $40,000 bill.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Twilight’ tops the chart this week. ‘Role Models’ and ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ are in second and third place respectively.
The proposed anti-filesharing legislation in New Zealand has got more than its fair share of press recently but unfortunately for the music industry, most of it has been bad. However, the head of New Zealand’s answer to the RIAA says everyone has it wrong, insisting Section 92A is a “reasonable” response.
The government-owned Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) has set up its very own BitTorrent tracker to distribute their TV-shows. After a successful test last year they plan to release more DRM-free TV-shows via BitTorrent, using the same tracker software currently in use at The Pirate Bay.
After a two month break, TorrentFreak TV returns with a brand new episode and a new host. This week’s episode includes a recap of of the Pirate Bay trial, Vuze’s secret and some BitTorrent speed tips.
Mininova, one of the leading BitTorrent sites, has been suffering from a massive DDoS attack over the past few days. Originating from a botnet spanning three continents, the attacks vary in strength and are causing the site to be completely inaccessible at times. The Mininova team is working on a solution.
Last month the Legendas fansub site was taken down by anti-piracy action, only to return a short time later. Now, another prominent subbing community has closed its doors – and has launched a campaign to show the movie industry that they are not thieves, but avid consumers.
Swedish police have busted a server belonging to one of the largest topsites in the country. It was part of a ring of servers totaling 65 terabytes of pirated material data. Several well known ‘scene’ groups used the site. The Swedish anti-piracy bureau assisted in the investigation and says that their war on piracy will continue.
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
It’s been nearly nine years since Lars Ulrich became one of the most vocal opponents of Napster and the generation of file-sharers it spawned. Not one to speak about something he has no experience of, Ulrich has just admitted downloading his own album, Death Magnetic, and it was “bizarre”.
Camcording pirates pose a serious threat to the profits of Hollywood, according to the MPAA at least. In order to stop the cammers in their tracks, theater owners have been equipped with night-vision goggles. That’s not all though, the latest Hollywood blockbusters may soon come with watermarked audio that can pinpoint a pirate’s seat number.
A new study by the RAND corporation has attempted to put the focus on ‘movie piracy’ squarely on the shoulders of terrorist groups and criminal gangs. The report, which claims to have been ‘peer reviewed’, seems to show that no matter which gang, thug, or terrorist – they all pirate movies.
After two weeks of live broadcasted hearings on the Internet, the ‘Spectrial’ is coming to an end. This week both parties presented their closing statements to the court. Time for us to weigh up developments so far and look forward to the verdict.
Today, The Pirate Bay trial will probably come to an end, but not before the defendants’ lawyers have their final say. All four lawyers call for their clients to be acquitted on various grounds, while offering caution to the court to ignore the politic aspects of the trial.
Two weeks ago the music industry, headed by the IFPI, gave Norway’s largest Internet provider ‘Telenor’ an ultimatum; block access to The Pirate Bay within 14 days or we will take you to court. The ISP has now announced that it wont give in to IFPI’s demands, lawsuit or not.
With eight Oscars, including Best Motion Picture, Slumdog Millionaire was the absolute winner of last week’s Academy Awards show. As was to be expected, Hollywood’s praise bumped up the download numbers of the film on BitTorrent. Hundreds and thousands of people have downloaded the film this week.
A few hours ago The Pirate Bay website started to slow down, and eventually it became completely unresponsive. With the trial going on at the moment, the downtime instantly led to all kinds of rumors. However, there is nothing to worry about, the downtime is not related to the trial and people are on their way to bring the site back up.
As we enter the final days of The Pirate Bay trial, today the prosecution has been giving the court its closing arguments. Håkan Roswall, Peter Danowsky, Henrik Pontén and Monique Wadsted all appeared, with Roswall calling on the judge to jail all four of the defendants.
Once thought to be operating well under the radar, recent months have seen fresh efforts to silence sites that provide fan-created translations of movies and TV shows for their home countries. The latest targets for shutdown – Israel and France.
It’s been a rough week for the RIAA as massive layoffs are about to cost many employees their job. On top of that, the anti-piracy outfit is being sued for abusing the legal system for its war on piracy, civil conspiracy, deceptive trade practices, trespassing and computer fraud.
In the past we’ve given plenty of examples of how DRM hurts paying customers instead of the people it is meant for. Still, many software companies prefer to see their customers as potential ‘thieves’ but what they don’t realize, however, is that they are actually breeding pirates instead of stopping them.
Two vulnerabilities have been discovered in the web interface plugin for the KDE BitTorrent client, KTorrent. A malicious attacker sending specially crafted parameters to the interface could enable both remote code execution and arbitrary torrent uploads.
When Professor and media researcher Roger Wallis left the stand yesterday, the court asked whether he wanted to be reimbursed for his appearance. “You are welcome to send some flowers to my wife,” he responded. In the hours that followed, many Pirate Bay supporters took this suggestion to hand.
During The Pirate Bay trial, the music industry placed the blame for the decline in their revenues squarely on the shoulders of file-sharers. Their logic is clearly flawed, but it could sway the verdict if no alternative explanation is presented. So, if piracy isn’t to blame, then what is *actually* killing the music industry?
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
Yesterday several entertainment industry insiders explained how piracy was responsible for the downfall of their industries. Today, Kristoffer Schollin from Gothenburg University explains that BitTorrent is not evil, while media professor Roger Wallis informs the court that the file-sharing is actually beneficial to the entertainment industry.
The Pirate Bay has just released their manifesto in English. The book, titled ‘POwr, Broccoli and Kopimi’ is filled with 100 inspiring principles for everyone who aims to live the Kopimi lifestyle. “The Internet is right,” is the ultimate wisdom.
It’s Day 8 of The Pirate Bay trial and several entertainment industry CEOs take the stand. IFPI’s CEO John Kennedy said that TPB was an extremely damaging force on the global music industry and what the site offers is just too tempting for people to resist. He also admitted to not understanding how TPB or even uTorrent works.
Latvia continues its clamp down on BitTorrent trackers, as two more sites have been pulled offline by the local police. Whether the attempts will prove effective is doubtful. File.lv, Latvia’s largest BitTorrent tracker was taken down last summer but has since returned, despite an ongoing lawsuit.
After a long weekend break, both sides have returned to the Stockholm court room. Day 6 of the trial was a rest day, so we skip to Day 7 where the IFPI’s evidence collector relies only on screenshots and admits he’s not a BitTorrent expert. Furthermore, the Prosecution don’t know where policeman Jim Keyzer is.
In a desperate move to amp up her case against The Pirate Bay, prosecuting lawyer Monique Wadsted has asked authors for quotes and support in preparation for her closing arguments next Monday. Unfortunately for her, the friendly request backfired as a befriended author turned out to be a fanatical Pirate Bay supporter.
On Day 4 of The Pirate Bay trial, the Prosecutor referred to legal action taken against the admins of another BitTorrent tracker, Finreactor, who together received huge fines and currently have their case before the Supreme Court. Since Sweden and Finland’s laws are similar, what does the Finreactor case mean for the TPB defendants?
Throughout Europe, music industry lobbyists have tried to convince ISPs to block file-sharing sites, and not without success. The Irish ISP Eircom is the first to cave in to the pressure of the music industry, and without any argument will block all file-sharing related websites – starting with The Pirate Bay.
There has been plenty of comment around the net about the ‘guilty-on-accusation’ law in New Zealand. Now after a week of online protests that got some ‘Quite Interesting’ support, the law has been delayed for another month.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, ‘Role models’ tops the chart this week. ‘Punisher War Zone’ is the first BluRay rip to make it into our weekly download list.
The trial of The Pirate Bay has not gone by unnoticed in Sweden’s neighbor country, Norway. The IFPI has ordered the largest ISP in the country to block the site, while on the other hand Norway’s Minister of Education is critical of the music industry, and wants to legalize (illegal) file-sharing
As the first week of the trial came to an end, hundreds of supporters gathered Friday evening for a Spectrial Kopimi Party at a night club in central Stockholm. The party was thrown by the Swedish Pirate Bureau and saw live performances by several artists, a DJ set from Brokep and video art made from the movies featured in the trial.
The FBI has tracked down two individuals who uploaded Oscar screeners to BitTorrent trackers. The pair are accused of uploading screeners of Australia, Benjamin Button and Slumdog Millionaire to The Pirate Bay, Demonoid and Movie Hogs. They face harsh punishment of three years in jail.
The Pirate Bay trial has opened a whole new world for the Stockholm Court. When Pirate Bay co-founder Gottfrid Svartholm (Anakata) was questioned about the upload habits of the site’s users, the prosecution was baffled to hear that “The Scene” doesn’t like The Pirate Bay either, and that they are actually on their side.
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
It’s Day 5 at The Pirate Bay trial. Will colorful site spokesman Peter Sunde stand up to the pressure? There seems little doubt of that, but the Prosecution are trying to make it as difficult as possible by introducing yet more uncleared evidence. Peter demands of the Prosecution, “Is this a political trial?”
Mininova, one of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet has relocated to a new office in Utrecht, The Netherlands. Besides the new office Mininova has also made some changes to the site itself, while adding two more servers to cope with the growing demand from its visitors.
Day 4 of The Pirate Bay trial has seen the focus on Fredrik who was questioned at length. When it was movie industry lawyer Monique Wadsted’s turn, she wasted no time in unexpectedly introducing new evidence. Both the defense and the court complained at this point, with Wadsted choosing to shout down the judge.
Indicating support for The Pirate Bay team, hackers have attacked several of the IFPI’s websites, defacing one of them with a message for the trial prosecution. However, Peter Sunde feels the attack is misguided and says such actions don’t help their cause. He is pleading with the hackers to stop.
A few months ago, four tracks from the upcoming U2 album ‘No Line on the Horizon’ leaked onto the Internet. In order to prevent the full album from leaking before launch, U2 organized “private hearings” for the press, but these failed. Today, ten hours after the album leaked, downloads on BitTorrent are 100K – and counting.
A recent analysis of the latest P2P trends wordwide shows that BitTorrent is still the most popular filesharing protocol. P2P traffic in general shows a slight decline, but BitTorrent traffic is still on the rise. It is responsible for more than 45-78% of all P2P traffic, roughly 27-55% of all Internet traffic depending on geographical location.
The Pirate Bay trial is moving forward rapidly and again the day in court has ended early. On the third day the prosecution presented the amended charges. The defendants all called for acquittal while Carl Lundström’s lawyer scored points with the already legendary ‘King Kong’ defense.
The League of Noble Peers just released a ‘trial edition’ of their Steal This Film documentary series. It features Pirate Bay co-founders Peter Sunde and Fredrik Neij preparing for their trial. In addition, the two reenact the police interrogations that took place after the raid.
Australian officials desperate to reduce film ‘camming’ have arrested and charged a man in Sydney with 18 counts of copyright infringement. Unusually, he wasn’t caught in the act, and the cinema was a drive-in. The man is allegedly a member of the well known scene group PreVail.
There has been high drama on the second day of the Pirate Bay trial. Due to serious shortcomings in the prosecution evidence, around 50% of the charges in the case are going to have to be withdrawn. The defense describes it as a ‘sensation’, seeing half of the charges being dropped on the second day.
As The Pirate Bay trial got underway, dozens of supporters gathered around the Court waving skull-and-crossbone flags as the parties entered the court house. Pro-piracy forces in Sweden had vowed to play along in the theater of the trial. The opening act was a spectacle; in court, on the streets and online.
This morning the trial of The Pirate Bay started. Without doubt, it will be the most important case the file-sharing community has ever witnessed. Here are the key parts of Day 1, distilled from the hundreds of ongoing reports.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, “Underworld: Rise of the Lycans” tops the chart this week. Two other newcomers, “The Day the Earth Stood Still” and “Thick as Thieves” are in second and third place respectively.
Just hours ago The Pirate Bay and Piratbyrån held a joint press conference at the Museum of Technology in Stockholm. It was broadcasted live on the web and Pirate Bay co-founders Peter Sunde and Gottfrid Svartholm spoke at length. Here is a breakdown of some of the key points.
uTorrent – the client of choice for most BitTorrent users – has added a Google powered torrent search engine to its website. This added search capability uses Google’s custom search program and prioritizes BitTorrent sites in the results. With millions of visitors a month, this is likely to bring in some additional revenue for BitTorrent Inc.
The extension of copyright on audio recordings from 50 to 95 years in the EU has moved another step closer to realization, with its passage through the legal affairs committee. The action, ostensibly to provide a pension for session musicians, is in reality a multi-million euro windfall for the Big Four record companies.
Six individuals accused of leaking a DVD screener of a movie to the Internet have been handed suspended jail sentences and fines of 15,000 euros. Three of the sentenced are employees of a major European TV channel. None of the six made any money from their actions.
BitTorrent is often praised as an indestructible force moving petabytes of data around every day. It does have an Achilles’ heel though, and prominent p2p researchers warn that millions of downloads will come to a halt if eight servers hosted in Sweden happen to go offline.
At least on the surface, most in the mainstream music industry agree: illicit file-sharing is evil. However, when you aren’t getting paid to have a certain opinion, things can change. No longer taking a salary from his former company, Ex-IFPI chairman and EMI director Per Eirik Johansen speaks freely.
In just a few days time, the largest court case in file-sharing history will start in Stockholm, Sweden. The Pirate Bay will try to keep the public updated every day, with help from the community and through Twitter.
Following calls from the crew of The Pirate Bay earlier this week, it has been confirmed that the audio of the upcoming trial will be streamed live on the Internet. Swedish public broadcaster SVT will be in charge of the operation, set to begin next Monday.
Piracy of iPhone applications has become quite a hot topic recently, particularly since ‘one-click’ cracking apps such as Crackulous have become available to the public. The Kali Anti-Piracy system from Ripdev believes it has the answer, putting pirates on notice that the easy ride to free software is over.
Miro, the Internet TV player with a built in BitTorrent client released a new version today. LegalTorrents is now added as a default site, but users are of course free to add more sites or RSS feeds to get those latest TV-episodes on your computer seamlessly.
Some say he can encode a stack of DVDs in seconds using only his teeth, and that he can command an army of millions with just one NFO. All that we know is he’s called aXXo and he/she/they have some security advice for the worshippers.
TV-shows are some of the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
For the first time in its four year existence, Mininova now has a million torrent files stored on its servers. These meta-data files are spread out over 10 categories on this BitTorrent giant, with movies and music representing more than half of all the torrents.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, “Body of Lies” tops the chart this week. “Sex Drive” and “Changeling” remain in second and third place respectively.
The entertainment industry is furious about its treatment at the hands of pirates. Last year, even the creator of iPhone cracking-app Crackulous got pretty annoyed when his work leaked. But it’s not just content creators that get angry at pirates – and this is where it starts to get a little confusing.
Set to start in just a few days time, the trial of The Pirate Bay will be one of the most important cases the file-sharing community has ever witnessed. However, due to restrictions, the number of people viewing it first hand could be very limited indeed. “Time to make demands,” says Peter Sunde.
The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN has managed to take another 19 torrent sites down, all of them operated by the same person. Last December, the 45 year old man behind the so-called torrent site franchise was already forced to close 75 of his other sites.
The Get a Mac campaign is famous for comparing the troublesome PC with the much hipper Mac. In a series of commercials the Mac displays its superiority over the Windows based PC. Unsurprisingly, the ads never covered BitTorrent etiquette, because Windows users are better ‘pirates’ compared to their Mac counterparts.
Earlier this week a Danish court decided that an ISPs have to block access to The Pirate Bay. In response to the judgment, three ISPs have already announced that they will take the case to the Supreme Court. In addition, The Pirate Bay itself now says it will sue the anti-piracy outfit IFPI if the ISPs fail to overturn the ruling.
Nearly three years ago, we mentioned Linuxtracker in a short post on BitTorrent sites that list ‘legal’ software downloads. Now, the site is celebrating its 4th anniversary, and with over 1400 torrents it is one of the best places to get your Linux fix.
After their beloved subtitle site was taken down by an anti-piracy outfit working on behalf of US media companies, hackers responded rapidly – they defaced the anti-piracy site and inserted links to torrents hosted on Mininova. The subtitle site is already back in business – the anti-piracy site is not.
A Danish court has ruled that all Danish ISPs have to deny their users access to The Pirate Bay. Most broadband providers are not too happy with this unbalanced decision, and three of them have already announced that they will take it to the Supreme Court.
TorrentSpy, once the most frequently visited BitTorrent site, has appealed the ruling in their case against the MPAA. Last year, they were ordered to pay a $110 million fine after the court terminated the case, but TorrentSpy’s lawyer Ira Rothken believes that the issues at stake warrant an appeal.
The Pirate Bay has just released a Google-powered map of the tracker connections per country. The map is only the start of a much larger project that will cover more detailed statistics on the tracker’s users. However, it already reveals some interesting data.
The Telecommunications Carriers Forum (TCF) which represents ISPs and telecoms companies in New Zealand has drafted a code of practice which outlines the manner in which the new Section 92 “3 Strikes” regime should be handled by its members. It aims to dampen the many fears of Internet users.
A recently published survey found that one third of all broadband Internet subscribers worldwide admits to having downloaded movies or TV-shows illegally. The majority of these downloaders are well aware that their habits are illegal, but it doesn’t play on their conscience.
TV shows are by far the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
Getting an account at a good private BitTorrent tracker can be quite a challenge. Some people make a habit out of it, checking dozens of torrent sites every day. Others prefer more automated ways, such as using trackerchecker.org, a website that monitors over 500 private BitTorrent trackers.
Eircom, the Irish ISP that agreed to disconnect alleged file-sharers at the behest of the music industry, has thousands of customers still exposed to a serious security hole. The flaw, which affects up to 250,000 subscribers, could mean they are wrongly accused of something they didn’t do. Thanks to Eircom, they may now lose their Internet connection.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, “Outlander” tops the chart this week, followed by “Sex Drive” and “Changeling”.
In a few weeks time, members of the European Parliament will vote on the Medina report, which proposes a wide range of anti-piracy measures and regulations. The report specifically mentions The Pirate Bay, and it approves actions by national courts against the popular BitTorrent tracker.
Crackulous, the one-click cracking application for software purchased from Apple’s AppStore, was previously only available to a select few. Now anyone with an iPhone or iPod Touch can start cracking software purchased from Apple so that they can share them with their friends, since Crackulous has just gone public.
This week, Irish ISP Eircom and the music industry avoided an expensive legal battle, and settled out of court with a deal to disconnect alleged pirates. Eircom didn’t want to start using filtering technology to thwart pirates, so it made a deal with the labels instead – and it sucks.
Comcast doesn’t really have a good reputation in the BitTorrent community and it’s getting worse by the day. They now have plans to cooperate with the RIAA and disconnect alleged copyright infringers. A worrisome development, especially since they have a tendency to accuse innocent customers.
Players of the PC game Gears of War have a problem that means they are currently unable to even load their game. The reason – a hard-coded shutoff date in the DRM that prevents the game from playing. Yet again, DRM prevents an honestly purchased game from working. Will Crysis and GTA IV break next?
In Europe, Pirate Parties have quite a following, especially in Sweden where a political scientist recently described them as a “classic civil right movement”. The U.S. Pirate Party hopes to replicate some of this success, and officially launched in California today, the home of the movie industry.
Traffic management company Ipoque has just released a whitepaper, detailing pros and cons of different methods of dealing with piracy on P2P networks. Surprisingly, the conclusions in the paper are not straight adverts for their own products and services. We will highlight some of the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly conclusions.
Despite calls from the public, pressure groups and ISPs, the New Zealand government has refused to withdraw the planned Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act. The controversial act provides ‘Guilt Upon Accusation’, meaning that those simply accused of file-sharing are disconnected from the Internet.
Hundreds of ISPs all over the world limit and restrict BitTorrent traffic on their networks. Unfortunately, most companies are not very open about their network management solutions. With a newly launched website, Google is now helping out by supporting applications that distinguish the good ISPs from the bad.
Up until today, the ‘Big Four’ record labels were taking legal action against Ireland’s biggest ISP, Eircom, in order to force it to employ filtering technology to stop online pirates. The case has been aborted as Eircom, at the behest of the music industry, has agreed to start disconnecting those accused of illicit file-sharing.
Cox, the third largest ISP in the U.S, is none too fond of BitTorrent users. Previously we reported that they disconnect alleged copyright infringers without warning. Today, Cox announced a new ‘network management’ trial where P2P, Usenet and FTP users will be slowed down when the network is congested.
Sites offering downloads of BitTorrent clients and other well-known software, which then require an SMS to be sent to ‘activate’ the installer of free software, have been appearing at an increasing rate. Not only does uTorrent end up costing up to $20, but these sites are in breach of new telecoms regulations and are set to be shut down.
The fifth season of the hit series ‘Lost’ premiered on U.S. television with two brand new episodes last week. With close to two million downloads for both episodes in only a few days, it leads this week’s list of most pirated TV-Shows on BitTorrent.
On February 16th 2009, the trial of The Pirate Bay will start in Sweden. Details of the case have been scarce thus far, but one of the witnesses for the prosecution will be a police officer who got a job at Warner Bros. last year. Pirate Bay’s co-founder Peter Sunde promised to bring more competent witnesses to court.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, “Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa” tops the chart this week, followed by the screener of “Australia”.
Ever since the UK’s major ISPs and the music industry were forced together by the government to sort out online piracy, it has been feared that a ’3 Strikes’ regime was on the horizon. Now, according to a government minister, that possibility has been ruled out.
We recently reported the story of the pirated iPhone game ‘Whack em All’, where the developer actually engaged the game’s cracker instead of taking an aggressive stance. The dialogue had a surprising effect. Sales increased 100%, pirates donated and the game is now available free of charge.
This week, millions of people watched Obama’s inauguration on the Internet through one of the many sites that offered a live feed. CNN’s broadcast was without doubt one of the most used viewed streams, with a peak of more than a million simultaneous viewers and also one that was using P2P technology.
Several studies have shown that an extension of copyright on sound recordings is a bad idea. It will lead to less competition and higher prices while only the record labels benefit from it. Next Tuesday, the Open Rights Group will be hosting a round-table event to discuss performance copyright extension in the EU.
After months of delay, four users of the popular BitTorrent tracker OiNK have been sentenced to community service and payment of court costs. One uploader and Alan Ellis, the administrator of the site, are still awaiting their day in court
Yesterday saw the announcement of the 2009 Oscar nominees. This year there were 26 movies put forward, and by nomination day, 23 of them were already being shared online in DVD quality, many of them copies of voter’s DVD Screeners.
With the trial starting in only a few weeks, some have pictured dark clouds above the world’s most popular BitTorrent tracker. The Pirate Bay team doesn’t seem to be bothered by it though, as they prefer to look ahead. For the first time in years there are plans to redo the design of the site, and it’s looking bright.
TV shows are by far the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
Everyone can upload torrents to Mininova, but not everyone knows that the site also has a content distribution platform for premium publishers. The service is aimed at indie publishers who want to promote their works to the millions of BitTorrent users, free of charge. Today, Mininova welcomes the 1000th publisher.
IsoHunt is one of the world’s largest BitTorrent sites. For quite a while the site has been displaying Google ads through Ask.com. Today there is controversy, as several large companies found out that their ads have been appearing on IsoHunt. Among them, Sony BMG, artist sponsor StatoilHydro and Norwegian online media store Platekompaniet.
After high-level discussions on the piracy situation in 2008, the Italian government has announced the signing of an agreement which will see it collaborate with the French on the issue. Of concern to those sharing files online, Minister of Culture Sandro Bondi says Italy will follow the “French model”.
Net neutrality really is the hot topic at the moment. After the FCC slapped Comcast for slowing down BitTorrent users, Canada is now looking into the network management practices of its ISPs. And rightly so, as a CRTC investigation reveals that most of the ISPs in Canada actively slow down customers using P2P applications.
Swedish file-sharers have previously been protected from police action, since any offenses they commit do not generally carry a prison sentence. Now, the government is considering new legislation which will give the police powers to go after regular file-sharers, even if their actions were previously only punishable by a fine.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, “RocknRolla” tops the chart for the second week in a row, followed by “Pride and Glory”.
TDC, Denmark’s largest ISP and owner of most of the cables, has decided to block access to The Pirate Bay. TDC took the step following an earlier decision made by a Danish judge who ordered another ISP, Tele2, to do the same. The case is currently under appeal, but TDC decided to block the BitTorrent tracker as a precaution.
Commissioned by the Dutch government, a recently published report concludes that file-sharing has a positive effect on the economy, both on the long and short term. A massive 30% of the Dutch population uses file-sharing software to download music, games, movies and other forms of entertainment, which is now considered to be a ‘good thing’.
RLSLOG, one of the world’s most popular release news sites, has been taken down following action by Web Sheriff. The site, which did not host any copyright material whatsoever, has been down for two days after the UK-based outfit issued complaints to the site’s host and their bandwidth provider. The site will return.
Myka, a new BitTorrent enabled set-top box was about to enter the market last year, and received widespread coverage online. The project soon went silent, but this weekend they have made the news again with another promise to ship soon. Don’t fall for it though, it has scam written all over it.
The Internet has been a blessing for the music industry. Although the RIAA and IFPI frequently complain about piracy, their own research shows that only 10% of all illegal downloads are considered to be a loss in sales. Meanwhile, piracy has shown them how to monetize music online, and turn it into profit.
Ung Pirat, the youth organization of the Swedish Pirate Party received over 1.3 million Krona from the Swedish government yesterday. The money – government funding to political youth organizations – was heavily criticized by anti-piracy lobbyists.
With the defense in the Tenenbaum case getting their request to broadcast the trial online, it seemed that some light of exposure was to be brought to the RIAA’s method of litigation. Yet the RIAA doesn’t want their court practices exposed for all to see, and have now appealed the judges decision.
UK communications minister Lord Carter has drafted new regulations that will require ISPs to warn customers suspected of sharing copyrighted material, that they are acting illegally. Furthermore, ISPs will have to hand over details of repeated infringers to the entertainment industry and other rights holders.
In line with its new strategy of trying to force ISPs to take responsibility for the actions of their customers, in 2008 the ‘Big Four’ record labels, headed up by the IFPI, announced they would take Ireland’s largest ISP to court. The case began yesterday and is already proving controversial.
The UK Government, through the BERR, commissioned a public consultation last year into illicit file-sharing, and how to deal with it. The responses should have been published in December, but due to a holdup concerning a freedom of information request, it was delayed until today. Despite this, some will still be kept confidential.
Many torrent sites come and go, but few are as large or enduring as Mininova. Today, the BitTorrent giant celebrates its 4th birthday, after the first public version of the site went live in January 2005. For those who work hard to fulfill their dreams, from little acorns, mighty oak trees grow.
Confessed pirates themselves, Franz Ferdinand have recently taken a pro-piracy stance, encouraging fans to download some of their work. It was therefore quite a surprise to hear that the band has recently hired the infamous Web-Sheriff to stop people from downloading their recently leaked album “Tonight”.
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) currently being discussed by several of the world’s leading countries, will undoubtedly lead to stricter ant-piracy legislation. The problem though, is that nobody really knows what it will entail. The EU refuses to make the drafts public, which makes it impossible for the public to review the documents before they are signed.
DtecNet, the anti-piracy outfit replacing MediaSentry as the RIAA’s chief evidence collector, also operates in several other countries. The Danish company is working for the BPI in Britain in support of its drive to force a “3 strikes” regime, and helping in Australian investigations against alleged pirates. We take a closer look.
TV shows are by far the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
The website of the Arabian Anti-Piracy Alliance, which represents the MPAA and a wide range of copyright holders in the Middle East, has been defaced by hackers. The entire news section was wiped out a week ago, and it hasn’t recovered since. It seems like this anti-piracy outfit doesn’t even visit its own site.
Last year The Pirate Bay and the Bureau of Piracy bought themselves a bus, painted it up in suitable pirate-style livery and embarked on a European tour. Now, with the trial of The Pirate Bay just a few weeks away, the bus will be coming home to Sweden to serve as the official court case press center.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, “RocknRolla” tops the chart this week, followed by “Max Payne”.
The first four episodes of the new 24 season have made their way onto BitTorrent, just hours before the official TV premiere. Jack Bauer fans have had to wait a while for this one. Season 7 was originally scheduled to be aired early 2008, but was postponed for a year because of the writers strike. The wait is finally over.
Coda.fm is a new music torrent indexer that looks surprisingly good for a torrent site, and one that combines great design and functionality like we’ve never seen before. Yet another great way to discover new music – if only the RIAA approved.
After two of its founders were arrested by Australian police, the 400,000 member MovieX tracker hasn’t seen the end of its troubles. Although it survived the arrests, the site’s vital uploaders have been jumping ship and now, with the site offline again, it appears its finances have been plundered too.
Microsoft ran into major bandwidth problems when they released the latest Beta of Windows 7 to the public. The company decided to delay the release while they added some more servers, citing “very heavy traffic”. If they had only used BitTorrent, this heavy traffic would have actually speeded up distribution, instead of slowing it down.
Over the past three years, TorrentFreak has reported on various messes generated by DRM, and how that has impacted people all over the world. Now someone has decided it needs looking into, and so the Federal Trade Commission in the US has commissioned a Town Hall meeting on the subject.
An unreleased and unfinished track produced by Dr. Dre has hit BitTorrent. The track “It Could’ve Been You” featuring R.Kelly, 50 Cent and upcoming artist Bishop Lamont, is thought to be part of Dre’s long-awaited ‘Detox’ album. It is just over four minutes long in 320k. Dre is said to be “furious”.
Silence is Sexy, a Dutch band that previously released its album through Mininova’s content distribution platform, has been picked as one of the nominees for the Interactive Award 2009. The award is given to the best concept which utilizes the Internet to promote music and engage fans.
An increasing number of musicians are experimenting with giving away their music for free on BitTorrent. This trend has led to the formation of a new Netlabel, CXCR6, which specifically targets the BitTorrent community with new album releases. We got in touch with its founder about his motivation to promote free music.
Netgear has just announced its Internet TV Player, a set-top box that allows users to play content from video streaming sites like YouTube, directly on their TV. Perhaps of more interest is the device’s built-in BitTorrent client, which makes it an ideal TV-torrent player as well.
The developer of an iPhone game had a nice surprise when it suddenly saw a surge in users. The game had around ten downloads a day from iTunes, which inexplicably transformed into more than 400 users in a single day. The reason – the game got cracked. Read what happened when the developer confronted the cracker.
Entertainment industry lobbyists are desperately pushing to get tougher anti-piracy legislation implemented worldwide. The Pirate Prisons Project followed these developments closely and sees it as a business opportunity. It has now opened up their prison construction project to investors, while pirates are given the chance to book a cell in advance.
A few days we reported on a new service which claimed to offer lifetime anonymous BitTorrent for a $50.00 one-off payment. As the service ‘launched’ we had our doubts, but understandably some people decided to give it a try since it was so cheap. It turns out that the offer was indeed too good to be true.
TV shows are by far the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
The BitTorrent popularity surge is still underway, with more users discovering that it’s the fastest way to transfer large files online. One of the most frequently visited torrent sites, Mininova, has seen the number of torrent downloads double from 3.5 billion to 7 billion during 2008, and this download rate is still increasing.
Next month, New Zealand is scheduled to implement Section 92 of the Copyright Amendment Act. The controversial act provides ‘Guilt Upon Accusation’, which means that if a file-sharer is simply accused of copyright infringement, they are immediately guilty. The punishment – summary Internet disconnection.
The top 10 most downloaded movies on BitTorrent, “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” tops the chart this week, followed by “Appaloosa”.
A new trojan popped up at several torrent sites a few weeks ago, one that blocks access to The Pirate Bay and Mininova, while informing its victims that “downloading is wrong.” The trojan edits the hosts file on Windows machines, and redirects the BitTorrent sites to localhost, making them impossible to load.
Hustler Europe, part of the world’s largest adult entertainment company, has hired anti-piracy company Media Protector to start chasing down file-sharers. The partnership will have a familiar aim – to find alleged infringers on P2P networks and send them threats to pay up – or else.
The music industry has taken some extreme measures to counter piracy, but it hasn’t found the silver bullet yet. The key is to come up with a service that will fulfill the needs of music lovers, and one that would even be embraced by the most hardcore pirate. With Spotify, this might just become possible.
What will happen to BitTorrent users and their favorite sites in the new year? What will happen to the music industry’s new efforts to combat piracy with the help of ISPs, and what about efforts to legalize file sharing? We asked guest columnist Janko Roettgers for his predictions for 2009.
In these harsh economic times, everyone is looking out for a bargain. A new VPN service launched recently offering a lifetime of anonymous BitTorrent, completely unlimited, for a one-off $50.00 payment. Sounds good? We take a closer look to see if the numbers stack up.
TorrentFreak published 688 articles during the last year, a record for us. We’d like to end 2008 with our latest chart which uniquely, is determined by you, our readers. Additionally, our three regular writers reveal their personal favorites from an eventful year.
Opentracker, the BitTorrent tracker software utilized by The Pirate Bay, is released under a beerware license, meaning that anyone who uses it and meets the developer should buy him or her a beer. To fulfill the license, the German Pirate Party donated 50 liters of beer to the main developer at the Chaos Communcation Congress.
TV shows are by far the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
In November, the Spanish government launched a media campaign which heavily criticized file-sharers. Now, Spain’s Association of Internet Users has issued a complaint, claiming the content “recklessly offers information that lacks all legal basis, with the exclusive aim of re-educating public opinion.” Sounds familiar.
2008 will be remembered as the year when BitTorrent went mainstream, with an increasing number of artists discovering that it is an excellent tool to promote music. Today, in a sign of the times, Open Your Eyes Records and the popular music tracker What.cd have announced an exclusive partnership.
BitTorrent and porn go hand in hand, so to speak. When Bram Cohen, the inventor of the protocol wanted to test his application in the wild, he used adult content to do so. In the years that followed, many BitTorrent sites specializing in adult content gained millions of visitors, but in the past year, usage has dropped.
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Peter Sunde Left Quote
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