BitTorrent More Popular Than Ever, Releases Triple in a Year
The number of new releases published on BitTorrent nearly tripled compared to last year according to research from the German P2P analysis company “Evidenzia”. The data shows that 25% of all new .torrent files are movie related.
The data supplied by Evidenzia is in line with our own research earlier this year where we showed that 25% of the .torrent files on public BitTorrent trackers were movies. However, these statistics say little about the the popularity of the .torrent files and/or the number of people sharing the files, or for that matter what is defined as a movie (kvcd, Xvid, DVDr, and if adult content is included)
A more in-depth analysis that accounts for the number of people that actually share the files shows that TV-shows are far more popular. Close to 50% of all the people who use BitTorrent at any given point in time do this to download a TV-show, even though the number of available torrents are small compared to music or movies.
The popularity of TV-shows is enormous, series like “Heroes” and “Prison Break” are downloaded over a million times in any given week. This popularity hasn’t gone unnoticed, with some TV-studios allegedly use BitTorrent as a marketing tool, and others leaking unaired pilots intentionally.
Evidenzia also provides an interesting analysis of the number of files that have been released on BitTorrent since early 2004. The graph below shows that it’s at its peak right now - and even more impressive - the number of files released on BitTorrent nearly tripled compared to last year.
Together with the increase in torrents, most BitTorrent sites have noticed an increase in visitors too. Sites like Mininova, The Pirate Bay, and Torrentz more than doubled their traffic and there is no sign that this trend will be put to a halt anytime soon.
BitTorrent is here to stay.
Previously: Australians Next on the P2P Lawsuit Hitlist
Next: Frontman to File-Sharers: Steal Our Album, Help Bury the Label
17 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
“BitTorrent is here to stay.”
I really hope you are right. The MAFIAA seems to be gaining ground by going after the trackers now. Anyway, good article Ernesto.
BT is the King :)
“The data shows that 25% of all new .torrent files are movie related”
No shit. With every man and his dog uploading their own repack/re-encode and bundling a link to yet another free ipod, I’m surprised this proportion isn’t higher.
“BitTorrent is here to stay.”
YaY!
:-)
wow what a surprise, Evidenzia is a P2P monitoring firm. Firms like this will say the sky is falling and sell you umbrellas.
Actually they say edonkey is losing users and bittorrent is gaining. i cant really see how this is helping them to sell any umbrellas ;)
Hmm looks like that graph is showing bittorrent to grow exponentionally, wonder if that’s in line with normal internet traffic.
Oh and what kind of things fall into the category ‘other’?
Person, I would think things like picture sets, eBooks, video clips, Audio books, comics - all that kind of stuff that isn’t one of the others.
The surprising thing, though, is that there are more torrents of movies than of TV series - considering the steady stream of series that come out.
When i look at the torrents on public trackers, i see mostly crap.
And it is getting more by the day …
Movies are fine, but I don’t exactly want to wait for a few days for a 700MB to a 4.5 GB movie to finish. I usually wait until the new movies come onto satellite and/or rent on DVD, or go to the theatres if there is anything good on.
But yes, the BitTorrent network will go on after the current generation of people.
I Hope.
@ ColdFission: Waiting for it to appear on satellite takes longer than just downloading it, no?
I guess so, but I have limited space on my HDD and dont exactly want to invest in another HDD and more DVD blank discs.
And yes, it does take longer to appear on satellite. But I am willing to wait for the satellite rather than the download.
Currently, there is really nothing good in theatres right now. Go to RT (rotten tomatoes) and you guys can see that most of the movies (except 3:10 to Yuma) are pretty terrible.
Offcourse bittorrent are here to stay, it’s not only a program that they can ban it’s hundreds of sites instead. Only thing I can see that kills bittorrent is an even better way to share files.
the facsimile argument is important and must be remembered
is a 352×288 21fps rip the same as the geniune arifact? no it is not
does it have the same value of the original? obviously not
a 128Kbps cbr download of Ozzie’s latest howl (God bless him) is not persecuted by his lawyers (none of his downloads are). the publicity machine is in highester gear
… and the BBC publishes everything broadcast online for free.
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