If it was up to the MPAA, every website with links to copyright infringing files would be banned from the Internet. Perhaps they should take a closer look at their own website first though, since it’s vulnerable to an XSS attack, making it possible to browse The Pirate Bay directly from the MPAA website.
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.
As 2008 moves toward its end, we have been taking a a look at the most pirated titles in various categories. Following our Top 10 games post where ‘Spore’ headlined, we now take a look at movies. Unsurprisingly, The Dark Knight comes out on top, with the rest of the chart featuring a few surprising entries, and some unexpected absentees.
Michael Moore’s new film about the run up to the 2004 US election was released online today, only for US and Canada residents. In order to maximize capacity, they’ve even embraced BitTorrent, and the official download is using the Pirate Bay tracker. To the dismay of their lawyers, however, this also lifts the geographical restrictions.
Bell, one of the Canadian ISPs known for its BitTorrent throttling practices, launched its very own video download store this week. So, efficient BitTorrent is throttled for being a bandwidth hog, but customers are still able to download movies at full speed – as long as they use Bell’s service, that is.
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.
