ImageShack Starts Free BitTorrent Download Service
Written by Ernesto on April 05, 2008The popular media hosting website ImageShack just launched a new service that lets you download torrent files onto their servers. When the download is complete, you can download the files from ImageShack via an http link.
ImageShack’s torrent download service is still in Beta, but it works just fine. The only thing you need to do is point ImageShack to the torrent file and press start. The download will start immediately, and once it’s finished you can download the files via http onto your computer.
Services like this are not new, but up until now I haven’t seen one that doesn’t charge money. There are some limitations though. Per month you can download a maximum of 15GB to your computer, and the storage on ImageShack’s servers is also limited to 15GB.
Jack Levin, the founder of ImageShack told TorrentFreak: “We think its going to be a great service for users, especially in the light of ISPs ratelimiting torrent traffic.There is a lot of free and legal torrents out there, that people should have easy access too
to. We have the capacity to do it, and the world needs it.”
For those people who are concerned about the anonymity of the service (or think it’s a honeypot), Levin said: “We will not look at what you download and simply provide you, an account, with bandwidth and space. What you do with it is up to you. The DMCA applies, so, if we get reports from copyright owners to take down content, we will comply.”
The service comes with some great features. It supports selective downloading, which means that you can deselect files from the torrent if you don’t want to download them all. This can be quite useful if you only need one album from a complete discography for example.
ImageShack also provides some basic details about the progress of the downloads. Under the “status” link they list information about the download progress, connected seeds and leechers, share ratio and more.
The status reports are not yet working perfectly, as it keeps reporting that a torrent has stopped, while it was downloading just fine. However, the torrents I have tested were downloaded very fast, and I had no problem downloading the files from ImageShack onto my computer.
A more serious point of critique is that the torrent seems to disconnect as soon as the download has finished. This basically means that you will be sharing less than you should. I hope that ImageShack will add a sharing friendly feature in the future, and will at least continue seeding until the share ratio is 100%.
Levin told us, however, that there are no plans to include such a feature. They will offer (paid) premium accounts, but this will be only for bandwidth and storage upgrades.
Overall I must say that Imageshack’s new torrent download service looks very promising, especially for a free service. Decide for yourself, we think it’s worth a try.
This article was updated to include Jack Levin’s answers
Previously: Lawyer Who Threatened File-Sharers is Banned For 6 months
Next: BitTorrent Tracker Sends Takedown Request to Torrent Indexers
193 Responses (Add yours or TrackBack)
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[quote comment="332929"]Useless services, there’s no reason to use it.[/quote]
[quote comment="332930"]Useless service, there’s no reason to use it.[/quote]
Yeah I guess with the tight FUP but it would be useful if you used it at a location, that is not your home with a blank account. Then you can go nuts (15GB).
Great idea
[quote comment="332646"]All services have a clause that says that they will release information in the event that you commit an illegal act. What do you think? That they’re going to say “Even if you break the law, we’ll cover for you”?
Here’s a fun fact; I’m not aware of a single person being arrested or sued for *DOWNLOADING*. Every case has been about uploading, because when you download with P2P software, you upload as well. Downloading through this service would be just that, downloading.
I’m not saying that it would be completely safe and that people should use it for illegal downloads, just that I don’t see it carrying the same risk as using a BT client yourself. If anything, ImageShack would be the one seen as illegally distributing files.
I’m not sure what the penalties would be for someone caught downloading, but with no evidence of any kind of distribution, either real or intended, but I imagine they’d be much less than people found guilty of distributing copyrighted files.[/quote]
Well I guess everyone was wondering that but what is precedent in court for only downloading a copyrighted work not distributing?
BitTorrent is designed to avoid the bottleneck of having a single source. This entirely works around the main benefit if BitTorrent. If you’re having ISP issues with torrents, get serious and find a better ISP.
[quote="ImageShack"]NOTICE!
April 5th, 2008 - Due to an unexpected rise in usage this weekend, we’re in the process of adding more capacity.[/quote]
This should have been expected, as soon as something new like this is released, everyone has a try.
How about “Due to an higher than expected usage, we’re in the process of adding more capacity.”.
they wont turn ur name to anyone. the mpaa and riaa and all that junk wont even know you downloaded any album. want to know why? CAUSE YOUR NOT IN THE FUCKING SEED OR PEER LIST THATS FUCKING WHY THINK! you download STRAIGHT FROM THE IMAGE SHACK SERVERS! thats it game over we won. only thing is you will only be able to download so much at a time.
I uploaded OpenOffice.
If you login, you should be able to download it. Also it didn’t stay connected to seed to 100%.
http://img532.imageshack.us/tor/browse/?id=636&rel=OOo_2.4.0_Win32Intel_install_en-US.exe
This is bollocks. If the system doesn’t give back what it takes then it’s nothing more than a leech, and a leech that happens to make money from sucking up other people’s bandwidth on the behalf of users shafted by shitty ISPs. Your business ethic sucks, Jack; 1:1 or GTFO.
And as far as I’m aware downloads are not illegal in some countries, so if that’s true then how the fck is Imageshack expecting to stop people using the service to leech copywritten content? They’ll be the one’s distributing, not the downloader, and I would have thought the media companies have something to say about that particularly once they start seeing Imageshack IPs in teh evil swarms. Better get ya botty lubed up ready if this is the case…
I have Ubuntu Desktop 7.10 i386 - http://img532.imageshack.us/tor/browse/?id=30&rel=ubuntu-7.10-desktop-i386.iso
Wait, so much for that.
“Unable to locate that torrent ID.
Please be sure you are logged in to the same account which owns this torrent.”
Damn, you should be able to share links.
[quote comment="332624"]No offence but I could have told you this at least two weeks ago…[/quote]
but you are useless because you didn’t, did you?
[quote comment="332989"][quote comment="332624"]No offence but I could have told you this at least two weeks ago…[/quote]
but you are useless because you didn’t, did you?[/quote]
lol
Offence is always taking even if the person says “no offence”.
This intrigues me, which ISPs are good for torrents?
I can’t be comprehensive, but I’ll recommend what I use: http://speakeasy.net/refer/180380
ymmv
dl a .torrent file for $illegitimate_content;
rename it to $legit_content;
upload it to a webhost;
have imageshack download it;
download it from imageshack.
All you’re doing is grabbing $legit_content… and you’re not the one who distributed the, as you later found out, $illegitimate_content. Honest, Guv.
[quote comment="332795"][quote comment="332491"][quote comment="332487"]Great idea! I want ImageShack to know what I’m downloading.[/quote]
You’re a moron.[/quote]
And you can’t sense sarcasm.[/quote]
Alternatives: You are a moron, regardless of possibly using sarcasm; or, the name-calling was sarcastic and you too can’t sense sarcasm. Just saying.
[quote comment="333001"]dl a .torrent file for $illegitimate_content;
rename it to $legit_content;
upload it to a webhost;
have imageshack download it;
download it from imageshack.
All you’re doing is grabbing $legit_content… and you’re not the one who distributed the, as you later found out, $illegitimate_content. Honest, Guv.[/quote]
Perfect…What about the files contained in the torrent link.
Anyway your right, using this service, you are not distributing, only downloading; no need to be scared.
NOTICE!
April 5th, 2008 - Due to an unexpected rise in usage this weekend, we’re in the process of adding more capacity.
lol
it always says, “Your disk space has been exceeded.” even thought I am not hosting at file or using any disc space whatsoever
#91, but you’re only downloading a legit torrent as far as you’re aware. I’m thinking about deniability (UL vs DL arguments aside). A .torrents’ filename doesn’t certify its contents and all you’re doing is downloading the denoted content based on the filename… unless Imageshack forces you to observe the actual files contained within, and assuming they’re not already non-descript.
I don’t know about all this, is it not just a 5-day late April Fools story? Imageshack are gonna go down in flames surely, or it’s a trap of some sorts, or a media exercise to raise Imageshack’s profile, or something… i just don’t see how they could possibly get away with it.
[quote comment="333065"]#91, but you’re only downloading a legit torrent as far as you’re aware. I’m thinking about deniability (UL vs DL arguments aside). A .torrents’ filename doesn’t certify its contents and all you’re doing is downloading the denoted content based on the filename… unless Imageshack forces you to observe the actual files contained within, and assuming they’re not already non-descript.[/quote]
Yeah, totally get what your saying, I was talking about downloading the legit files that are not what you thought they were from ImageShack servers. :)
[quote comment="333065"]I don’t know about all this, is it not just a 5-day late April Fools story? Imageshack are gonna go down in flames surely, or it’s a trap of some sorts, or a media exercise to raise Imageshack’s profile, or something… i just don’t see how they could possibly get away with it.[/quote]
lol, that is what I thought. Yeah, the servers are going to get hammered and then a MAFIAA will try and get in on the action or sue ImageShack. And if ImageShack do not get sued, as MAFIAA sues everything then ImageShack are working with the MAFIAA.
MAFIAA do not consider files uploaded by users as excuse for hosting the files, to the MAFIAA this will never be an excuse.*
*also files from the user chosen torrent file.
logged in, but won’t let me start any torrents….
[quote comment="333078"]logged in, but won’t let me start any torrents….[/quote]
lol, yeah because it knows who you are. :)
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