BitTorrent Meets IMDb on Files24

Ernesto
October 30, 2009
68
bittorrent,
files24,
imdb
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Most people view BitTorrent sites as massive Internet archives of digital entertainment, ranging from movies through music to software. Nevertheless, the structure of torrent search engines often lacks the navigation that a good archive should have. Files24 aims to fill this void.

The best description of Files24 is a mashup between IMDb and BitTorrent. All the movies listed on the site have a plot description and list of cast members, the film’s director, year it was produced and the genre it falls under. In addition the site lists the IMDb rating of each film with a direct link to IMDb.

What’s most interesting about the site is that its users can also browse torrents based on an actor or director, a feature that other torrent sites lack. With just a single click users can list all the films where Patrick Swayze made an appearance, or all the films directed by Quentin Tarantino.

“The actors and directors can be added by the users when they upload a torrent file,” Files24 founder Oleg told TorrentFreak. “Also if we recognize the movie, we automatically check and fill in any missing data,” he added.

Although the site also lists music and games, thus far these advanced searches only work for movies. TV-shows are oddly enough listed in the movies section but Oleg told TorrentFreak that a TV and software section will be added in the near future.

Files24

files24

The navigational structure and design of the site is not the only thing that’s unique to Files24 though. According to one of the site’s founders, Files24 also has a dedicated tracker that is optimized to facilitate the highest download speeds.

“We track which country users come from and the tracker then gives priority to peers from their own country. As a result users can download at much higher speeds,” Files24′s Oleg told TorrentFreak.

One of the downsides of the site is that users are only permitted to upload torrents with a Files24 tracker, so this may severely limit the number of torrents that will be added to the site. On the other hand this is also one of the upsides, since this will stop a great deal of spam and fake files from being uploaded.

Files24 went live yesterday and currently lists some 40,000 torrents. It is clear that the site is still work in progress but the new features the site has to offer will be welcomed by many BitTorrent users. Of course they will also be frowned upon by Hollywood. Nothing new there.

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1st

Dude that would be great for all those idiots who dont put up descriptions for their torrents.
MM99

Thanks for the info!
Checked it out but didn’t find it that great…
outlaw

not a bad site i will give it a go
Anonymous

how about you just copypaste the title in imdb not too hard is it pretty useless if you ask me
noname

saw the site couple days ago.. digging the design for sure but it’s just another torrent site to me..
Anonymous

What a fantastic idea.

This is the first time I’ve seen this on a public tracker.

Thanks for pointing it out.

I haven’t tried out downloading yet.

I just hope the priority given to peers from your own country will work for everywhere, some countries have fairly low speeds for upload.
mu57i11

This isn’t a bad site really although i’m not quite sure that they’ll be able to defend themselves overly well in caught.
Le Fake

Excellent! Usually it goes so that I have to tab every so often to IMDB to check out the ratings etc. of the torrents I’m about to download.
MissedMemories

it may be another Torrent site… It may not be that awesome.. but give them some credit.

Most popular public websites don’t have such features… They are giving it a try.. don’t be such pessimist and support every single public torrent page, not mattering you like them or not.. Because if we don’t keep every single torrent page alive.. we will end up dead =/
h33t

file24 is clearly a torrent site specialising in copyright infringement. this is not what we want to see in the filesharing world where most of the content shared has no attached copyright issue. bittorrent is a protocol for distributing all digital content and file24 is an abuse of the protocol and an abuse of the ethos of filesharing

there will be no plausable deniability for the operators of file24 when the MPAA accuse them of a system designed specifically to assist with the online piracy of movies. what will happen when they are asked by a court to remove copyright files? take the whole site down?

what happens when a member of the MAFIAA joins the tracker and they get all the data they need on the copyright being shared and the IPs of the sharers? there is no plausible deniability for the downloader because it is a dedicated tracker explicitly advertising torrents pointing to copyright content

most sites who moderate their uploads are not actually moderating the content, they moderate only the descriptions and the behaviour of their members. the sites respond to reports from the community where there are problems with torrents not matching the descriptions (broken content or content not matching description or content containing extras like trojans) and they respond to copyright takedown notices (at least some do). these sites have no view on the contents and neither do they need a view on what is being shared because they are administering only to the reports of the community and the external interested parties. file24 on the otherhand is stating very strongly that they know what the contents are and that they know it is copyright content. what a fuk up

http://www.h33t.com warns sharers to think about the risks of using such a service depending upon the jurisdiction in which you reside
Voice of History

Might workout under certain jurisdictions, as long as they don’t add ads to the site. Otherwise, it will be taken to court if/when found out by RIAA.

BTW, is the founder’s name known? Where is it based/hosted?
wf

This seems like a bad architecture. A mash-up between IMDB and a tracker should be done on the end-user’s computer instead of being offered as a service. Files24 is probably in violation of IMDB terms of use and IMDB could easily block F24 requests not to mention what the copyright holders will do.

However, if the mash-up is accomplished with some web 2.0 Javascript trickery or if it was built into a BT client, then IMDB couldn’t block it and F24 could at least attempt to claim common carrier safe-harbor protection from industry lawsuits.
Anonymous

The idea is pretty cool.

If they hashed the videos and sound files too so you can get lyrics and subs it would be another improvement LoL

Not caring about the legality of it all, just looking at the practical side of things.

TVdb have the info on TV shows.
Subtitles.org have the subdownloader app that uses the back-end that surtitles.org offers. So it should not be that difficult to integrate all of those features technically …now politically it would be hell LoL

It’s like combining GCStar, subdownloader and Bittorrent in one app LoL
Carefully Watching

@11 he has a damn good point this seems like they are purposely attacking copyright. This is what the movie industry should have done with a pay site YEARS AGO if they were smart.

I don’t think its illegal what they are doing it is linking not hosting anything but its more risky then most.

Its cool I like but I think it may be easier to attack them
pavel_at_bitsnoop_com

@13

Actually IMDB database is available in the internets, see http://www.imdb.com/interfaces#plain

It’s not free, supposed to be “licensed” for commercial use.

You can download it and use for your site. We’re thinking of using it somehow at http://bitsnoop.com/
SirReal

Wow, that sounds really good, actually.
Reventon

Rofl h33t, who the hell are you trying to kid?

Your site is absolutely chock full of links to copyright works and unless you never go there, you must be Stevie Wonder or Ray Charles not to see them
Al

@11 I agree, this is going to make filesharers look bad because it’s specifically designed to help people to abuse copyright in a really obvious way. It’s not going to help pirates keep any sort of moral high ground.
Al

I should really read things properly before posting. But, I still mean it.
Silver

Mr. H33t you are a retard.
You are involved in copyright infringement even more then they are.
Atleast they didnt load TONS of adds and damn popups on their website….
h33t

the issue is not linking, the issue is the functional structure of the network system deployment

the result of the mininova civil trial in The Netherlands was to confirm once again that torrent sites and trackers are not illegal in The Netherlands but the Judge said if the site operators participate in moderation of uploads then they must filter copyright content. furthermore, the defense of the mininova team was that it is technically impossible to filter links to copyright content on the basis of uploader data alone and the Judge then ruled that the copyright holders must provide the mininova team with the missing data they need to perform the filter

file24 is different from mininova, h33t and most torrent sites because the operator has designed a system that explicitly and automatically identifies uploads as linking to copyright content (regardless of whether or not the torrent actually contains a copyrighted work, remember that the system never sees the content). the file24 operators are stating that they believe the content to be copyrighted, they have designed a system that says it has copyright content regardless of the truth of the fact

operating a torrent site legally is a responsibility the site owners owe to the community to ensure the safety of filesharers. when we see developments in filesharing we want to see that care has been taken not to ensnare filesharers in systems which are inherently dangerous, not simply to the operators themselves, but not a liability to the greater community as a whole

we all know about honeypot sites created to log filesharer activity and identify big uploaders and sources of content (such sites are generally no longer used to identify downloaders since the RIAA and MPAA stopped chasing individuals). i am not saying file24 is a honeypot but the system as it stands is as close to the functionality of a honeypot as you can get. if the file24 dudes are genuine filesharers they will recognise the inherent danger of such a system not only for the people who use it but significantly because it is as Carefully Watching says above “purposely attacking copyright”

politically it is a bad bad move that gives ammunition to the anti-p2p who falsely claim that bittorrent is the protocol of piracy. at a time when the filesharing issue is high on the agendas of national governments in Europe it is a deeply stupid move to attack copyright in such a brazen manner

http://www.h33t.com is watching Survivor Series 19, i love it :-D
ninja

Yep, looks like a honeypot definitely.
Bitsnoop

I have to admit that h33 might have a point here actually.

There is a tiny bit of a hypocrisy here. For example h33t might be considered as partially designed to facilitate copyright infringement (“PSP” category is a good example,there’re no “legal” officially-supported public domain games).

My point is that there’s no ultimate right or wrong here, shady business that is. Still, bringing online a site designed specifically to share only copyrighted content is a bad move.

@h33t: http://bitsnoop.com/tv/shows/Survivor/19/ – haha! :)
AlfmaniaK

@heet & Bitsnop
The problem is not the legality or intention of the download it self, or if the site is assisting in copyright infringement.
Its the copyright concept that is wrong to begin with.
If p2p is all about allowing downloads within legality, then you shouldn’t upload anything copyrighted. However we upload because we want to share, we want to everyone have access to content that should be digitally available.
Cinema, music concerts, books, will live with or without filesharing… I’m not sure they will with copyright laws, though.

“bringing online a site designed specifically to share only copyrighted content is a bad needed move”
Failure

Honeypot and also if it’s not, it’ll get busted so fast the space time continuum will break
Anonymous

We should try this in spain LoL

According to reports as long as nobody put an ad on the thing everything goes :)

Spaniards have a real chance at bringing home a lot of business based on servers.
Alky

Fatal error: Call to undefined function MENU_get_sub_cats() in /www/files24.com/www/root/index.do on line 78

sweet
TheCareBay

Top chap, finaly someone not doing the generic old torrent site. Will go far no doubt.
TorrentzBeak

It’s been heavily promoted on here.
Witness the Pirate Bay trial, they attempted to “stick it to the man” by putting all those “F*** You Notices on the legal threats bit, and it got them in the ned and this is not the PB and will get taken down as it’s blatantly helping in the piracy of illegal content thats b een uploaded ,,, Best of luck when the lawsuits come to both the site and the up/downnloaders. There is always FUD or honey pots … look fwd to youur arguments in court
Meh

They should have included DHT seeing as only their tracker is listed. I mean cmon.. have we not learnt from previous articles that DHT = WIN! … If the tracker fails then you’re screwed.. Personally i’ll stick with tpb and other DHT non-rapers :\

Sad really, it looks like a nice site with a decent collection of torrents.. i’m downloading a couple as we speak but as far as peer priority goes, i’m in australia and downloading from someone in bulgaria, on the other side of the world. Quite funny actually because i’m of bulgarian decent :D

Props to the site, Boo for no DHT :|
markie

Why no use IMDB Pirated Version for Greasemonkey?
Popsicle

this is like Hexagon’s resources association, only limited to movies only.
Popsicle

this is like Hexagon.cc’s resources association with torrents, but limited to movies only whereas resources is for all “things”
Ninja

TorrentzBeak is the new reasoned mind one here?

In any case, h33t guy has a point there. Or rather several points.

However, the site does make it easier for the regular p2p user to experience stuff he wouldn’t be able to normally. Example: if you like an actor, Chuck Norris for simplicity sake, and you search on files 24 for stuff he did and you didn’t know about Texas Ranger.

Wow, you think, let us check this. Then you like it and go buy because it’s the most freakin awesome thing you’ve seen in your life. Then you find out that Norris starred a movie alongside Bruce Lee and decide to check on Bruce Lee…. and so on. The money making potential of this is huge, if there is a decent online store with sane prices where you can find the content, obviously.

That brings us back to the base issue: the media industry is failing to work with its consumers.
PirLog.com

We have integrated IMDB into movie torrents long time back. The IMDB data is not user given its obtained solely by our crawler from the web.

http://Pirlog.com
hagar

Tried it out, it seems to be focussed on movies. The other two categories are useless. And database is too limited.

I have seen this feature before in public sites like http://leakz.net (and they provide content info for movies/games/music/software on their search results pages, and they have a database 1000 times bigger) and http://kickasstorrents.com (shows details of the movies too and is 100 times bigger than this site) and not to mention mininova and torrentleech and a bagful of private sites.

This site feels too too limited for me. Its already been done before many times over.
hmmm

“Most people view BitTorrent sites as massive Internet archives of digital entertainment, ranging from movies through music to software.”

no… I’m pretty sure the general public thinks of bittorrent as the ultimate piracy tool… library doesn’t really come to mind for most people when you mention bittorrent sadly
Pingback: Get Movie Ratings and Description alongwith Torrent on Files24 | Technofriends
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tORRENTzBeAK

STOPE DOWNLOADING FILES I AM SUPER SERIAL! YOUR ALL GOING TO JAILE.
silent reader

Anyone ever concider this is set up by the MPAA to make all of us look bad? Not a honypot as in catching filesharers per say, a honeypot to promote their agenda that torrent sites are bad and this is what they’re there for. Maybe this is run by the MPAA for that reason. I know my explanation is bad im tired but hopefully you can see what I mean. Some of the commments are leading to this but not actually saying it.
octavia

what is SEO crap ?
Anonymous

I am pretty sure that this guys have done a very good job to be the new #1 at MPAAs list of enemies.

Although this site is very practical in finding the best copyrighted movies, I hope for this guys that they’re somewhere where nobody will find them.

In fact it does not seem to be important if you link to infringing content, distribute torrents which link to something on something at users computer – everything is being handled as copyright infringement at all by the copyright people. Due to this I think it’s understandable that someone jsut does its best to provide the best funcionality cause the chances to deny a strategy for copyright infringements is very low nowadays – he will get threaten anyway, regardless how the site will be structured – but he’s going to provide users a good experience during the time his site is up and running.

An advise would be to NOT put advertisement on the site.
…

@36: Absolutely not, the user experience is completely different compared to leakz.net and kickasstorrents.com.

Probably the result is the same, but the navigation, way of presenting data, etc. is completely different.
Freakazoid

@ 38 poor imitation as the spelling is so useless and it’s all in caps.
Sorry Epic Fail
Anonymous

@43

YOU! fail even more. it was not supposed to be a direct imitation of the the beak. go back to watching freakazoid lol.
blackstormattack

we already have PTP where you can search in that way to movies….
Terminator

The more heads Hydra has, the better. It does not matter whether it has blue eyes, small nose, large ears etc. All that matters is that the Hydra has an EXTRA head.

Same thing for torrent sites. A site operating its own tracker is better than a site that does only indexing.

So more heads (i.e. more trackers) = EPIC WIN for Hydra (i.e Bittorrent)
Pingback: Files24: BitTorrent & IMDb in One place
Pingback: Files24: BitTorrent & IMDb in One place - P2P Talk?
ehhhh

Firstly not all the people commenting here know all of imdb’s data is available for download (sql dumps) on their own site for personal use only. So you don’t need JS trickery to scrap data you can simple get it all in one scoop.

They certainly are violating TOS of imdb coz, they need permission from imdb even for linking. which I doubt they will get with their site head deep in copyright infringement and TOS violation, and internet fraud in terms of US law. If they are really in US, they must start running for their lives or spend rest of life fighting in court. Amazon and mafiaa both have lotta money to haunt the site owners if they want to pursue it.

And how exactly do they conclude…
“We track which country users come from and the tracker then gives priority to peers from their own country. As a result users can download at much higher speeds,”

You should let the clients do this business, and pass all the known peers. This scheme can save money for network/bandwidth providers, but with people using different types of connections, you can’t guess who will give good speed unless you check by downloading it yourself.

Are they also downloading from peers to check their speed?
Anonymous

The sooner I can move to 1MB/s the better. Hell, I might start sellin some of this shit and make some real money like the TPB crew. Shoukd help pay the fines, LOL
anonymous

It should have a link directly to IMDb too…
Rekrul

Naturally, the site LIES about the number of seeds and peers, just like every other torrent site. I looked up a 1980s movies I’ve been looking for. The site claimed that there were 46 seeds and 220 peers. So I Downloaded the torrent. Know how many there actually are? *0* seeds and *2* peers. Of course, nothing is downloading.

Here’s the one I tried;

http://www.files24.com/torrent/763993903006/

Anyone care to explain why a site that’s only been up for a couple days claims that a torrent has 100x more peers than it actually does?

It also doesn’t mention the language, so it’s probably the same screwed up English/German copy that’s on every other site…
.neo.styles|nvDX

Interestingly enough, there is no FAQ section. I guess they’re not afraid of the MPAA.
Anonymous

BITSNOOP site is garbage and alot of its links are full of antivirus2009 be careful.
Kickass_Sid

Few good ideas, but nothing special
steve

finally a torrent site that is EASY TO NAVIGATE. i dont give 2 cents about who dont like it or whos copyright or what. i really dont care. its easy to use then piratebay or others. i wanted eaiser site. to use and i got one.
bri

people are just mad cause there’s no loopholes to get to the torrents.no annoying design to stop you, no hard non functioning search to stop you. everything is crystal clear and easier to read and navigate. no pain in the ass banner or sound ads to make u not want to spend a second longer then you have to on the site like others are. no need to go look up a movie on IMDb. its right there for you . the usual loop holes are gone and some torrent snobs cant handle that. every torrent site should look like this.
jen

cool idea but not something to switch sites about…

you can add IMDb to torrentroot, which allows any search engine to be added to its meta-search..

site: torrentroot.com

goto “options” and “Set custom search engine” then add

site name: IMDb
site address: http://www.imdb.com/find?s=all&q=

after setting this option you can see the IMDb page along with the torrent reults… hopes this helps people who want like the idea of a IMDb/Torrent mashup
bad

PassThePopcorn does this much better.
Anonymous

wow this is great

oh, wait it is not, no one is seeding
Anonymous

Seem to be based in China

http://whois.domaintools.com/files24.com

try and sue this MAFIAA
nah

I downed a music torrent in FLAC from them the other day. Tho it was posted on mini… but shit was good.
John

@50 no, they don’t lie, it’s becuase you haven’t got a con. with all of trackers.
John

@50 no, they don’t lie, it’s becuase you haven’t got a con. with all trackers.
aoeui

@50: U R right

@61 & @62:there is only one tracker in the torrent-file, can you specify the torrent who is missing!!
aoeui

I have added these trackers
http://tracker.openbittorrent.com/announce
http://tracker.thepiratebay.org/announce
http://denis.stalker.h3q.com:6969/announce
http://tracker.publicbt.com:80/announce

but it doesnt give me more peers
the site is lying about its peers, and i going have that opinion until someone give me proof that i doesnt

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