Last weekend, a CAM version of the Norwegian movie “Lange Flate Ballær II” leaked onto several BitTorrent sites. Quite surprisingly, the producer doesn’t hold a grudge against the person who leaked the film. Instead, he thinks it’s an honor that someone took the effort to record it in a movie theater.
As previously shown, BitTorrent can be a boon to the independent film-maker. Usually a lack of money restricts the distribution of a film, but occasionally the content works against it. As well as the promotion of new, aspiring talent, torrents can be used to spread films which may be politically discouraged from more usual methods.
TV-shows are by far the most popular files on BitTorrent sites. On Mininova alone, some episodes are downloaded more than 2 million times. Movies are a good second, with over 500.000 downloads for the most popular titles.
There have been Harry Potter spoilers popping up all over the web since the 7th book was leaked before its release. Some have shown up on websites, others in e-mail signatures. The most unexpected, though, are in a DVDrip of “Evan Almighty”.
The absolute winner of the OscarTorrent night 2007 is Pan’s Labyrinth with 6 Oscars, including the Oscar for best foreign language film. Blood Diamond is runner up with 3 Oscars. An Inconvenient Truth, The Departed, and Children of Men were all rewarded with 2 Oscars, and Marty Scorsese got his first award from the pirates.
BitTorrent Inc has released the final details of their long awaited video store. The store itself will go live this Monday, and will offer movie rentals at $2.99 - $3.99, and “download to own” TV shows and music videos for $1.99. The “BitTorrent Entertainment Network” will start off with 5000+ titles in their collection, including movies such as Superman Returns and An Inconvenient Truth, and the popular TV show 24.
A new project by the name of Aufero integrates BitTorrent in the Windows Vista Media Centre. According to the unnamed developer, Aufero is an attempt to bring BitTorrent content to your living room sofa.
The Pirate Bay and its young owners have reached a new level of fame. They’re no longer just Internet personalities, they’re now mainstream celebrities. The March issue of Vanity Fair is carrying a 6 page article on BitTorrent, movie piracy, torrent sites, and in particular, The Pirate Bay.
For the first time, a ‘cracked’ Blu-Ray movie has been uploaded to BitTorrent. And no, it’s not that ‘Vivid’ title that the TWiT hosts seem to be oh so familiar with. It’s just the opposite. The first Blu-Ray movie on BitTorrent is the children’s animation flick, Ice Age 2.
