The world’s largest recipient of these notices is Google and in the interests of transparency the company publishes a report detailing the requests it receives. But while the majority of the requests are processed without further issue, increasing numbers serve absolutely no purpose whatsoever.

Last year alone, Google discarded 21 million takedown requests, either because the claims were invalid or were duplicates of previously sent notices.

In 2014 the duplication problem appears to be getting worse, with even the BPI (who in all fairness are more accurate than most with their takedowns) sending large volumes of notices that contain high percentages of links that have already been taken down.

Across the Atlantic, Fox – which is the fifth all-time greatest sender of notices (28 million) – is also having difficulty remembering which URLs it has already asked to be erased. How Google can remember what takedowns Fox has already sent and why the studio cannot isn’t clear, but the high percentages in the refusal column suggests the numbers are significant.

That being said, these numbers should be put into perspective. The BPI has asked Google to take down more than 86 million URLs and Fox 28 million, so even many tens of thousands of duplicates are a relatively low percentage of the total. However, there is a far more depressing trend that suggests that some anti-piracy companies don’t check to see if the links they’re complaining about are actually infringing copyright at all.

The image below shows a selection of notices sent to Google this month by NBC, with a percentage of each rejected by Google. The reason for that is that they’re directed at isoHunt.com, a site that was shut down by NBC’s Hollywood allies last year. The links and the site itself simply do not exist.

Another instance, shown below, lists several TV and movie companies plus software companies Adobe and Lynda looking to take down URLs from another allegedly infringing site. Except this one, Hotfile.com, is not only dead, but was actually taken down by the studios themselves. For reference, these notices were sent four days ago and Hotfile closed down last December.

To see how prevalent this problem is we dug through the TorrentFreak archives to find sites that have been closed by copyright holders or the police in the last couple of years, to see if anti-piracy companies have updated their records.

Despite huge publicity, even now plenty of companies are wasting Google’s time with notices for content hosted on Megaupload, even though it has been closed for two and a half years. Just last month on the Usenet front, publisher Lynda targeted dead-since-last-year NZBsRus.

Also living in the past are the people at Viacom, who this month sent a flurry of notices asking for content to be removed from BTjunkie, a site that shut down 30 months ago in the wake of the Megaupload fiasco. Viacom are definitely not on their own though, as this link shows.

Finishing up, Warner Bros., whose UK-based anti-piracy group FACT shut down streaming site SurftheChannel in 2012 and helped to get its owner jailed, sent a notice to Google in March asking for it to remove links to The Big Bang Theory.

And Fox (shown earlier to be sending lots of duplicates), plus HBO, Evil Angel, NBC and Viacom are apparently still unaware that the UK Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit shut down Filecrop back in May.

Why this activity continues is anyone’s guess, but these takedowns either aren’t subjected to scrutiny or are deliberately passed with the knowledge that they’re invalid. Both options are causing unnecessary workloads for those employed to process them and putting money in the pockets of anti-piracy companies in return for zero effectiveness.

Some might argue that’s nothing new.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

As promised, we’re now back with part two of our interview in which we discover how some of the business’s pitfalls can affect profitability.

Affiliate schemes and the Megaupload effect

To begin we went straight in with a big question – how many views can John get on a top movie and what does that mean to him financially?

“I’ve had a few video files get over 100,000 hits but that is by far the exception. Most of the files I add don’t even get 1,000 hits because there is so much competition. That’s why I have to do so many! Financially…well I get between $1 and $2 per 1,000 views so I’ll let you do the math,” he explains.

As detailed in our previous article, revenue is generated when John drives traffic to file-hosting sites. We asked which ones are the best and how much money they pay out but John didn’t want to reveal too much. The takedown of Megaupload is apparently still ringing in everyone’s ears.

“Many of the file hosts now have ‘private’ affiliate programs. When Megavideo got taken down, many of them panicked and publicly removed their affiliate programs. That being said, their payouts are based on where the viewer comes from. This is purely based on what advertisers are willing to pay for. A viewer in the US is more valuable than one in say China or India,” he says.

File-hosting sites and DMCA takedowns

But of course, while John may upload many thousands of files, it doesn’t necessarily follow that those videos remain accessible. Once copyright holders find out where they are they issue takedown notices to the operators of the file-hosting sites who, if they want to stay on the right side of the law, have to disable access to the infringing material. So how often does that happen?

“It all depends on the file host and the TV show/movie. Some file hosts immediately remove a file when they receive the DMCA notice. Some take the legal limit to remove it and some I work with ignore the takedown notice completely,” John explains.

“My experience is that the pay television channels like HBO, Showtime and Starz are the most active when it comes to sending notices and based on their outmoded business model they have to be. My personal belief is that the rest of them only do it occasionally because they need to show their advertisers and/or investors that they are doing something, but secretly they love the exposure and increased fan base.”

Interestingly, John says that when he uploads copies of The Big Bang Theory, the number one U.S. primetime sitcom, two things happen. One – it becomes one of his best earners, and two – the episodes never get taken down.

“Maybe Chuck Lorre thought it through and figured the exposure was worth it,” John says.

But while episodes of The Big Bang Theory might remain intact, others most certainly do not. John says that at least once a day he replaces all of the links that have been taken down via DMCA notices. This, he says, takes around an hour and while it’s an annoyance “it is just part of the business.”

Repeat infringer policies are essential – or are they?

As revealed by the Megaupload case, copyright holders are absolutely insistent that in order to remain within the law, file-hosting sites must have a repeat infringer policy. So has John, an uploader of tens of thousands of movies and TV shows, seen any signs of such a thing in play at the file-hosting sites he uses? Does he ever get warned that if he uploads copyrighted movies again his account will be closed?

“Never. All I receive is an email or other type of notification on their websites letting me know when a link has been deleted. I simply re-upload it since it is already on my seedbox and re-add it to the streaming sites. Then I notify the streaming site that the other link is bad,” he says.

“It literally takes me about 2 minutes or so to replace a link. All of the file hosts and streaming websites cover their ass by putting in their Terms of Service that they do not allow any copyrighted material. As long as they remove the file when they receive a DMCA notification, then they are legal.”

Profit gets hit from an unexpected corner

While some file-hosts are clearly turning a blind eye to the activities of people like John which is a plus for him, they can also become part of the problem. Apparently some affiliate programs don’t live up to the hype meaning that John is sometimes left out of pocket.

“I had amassed over 20,000 video files with one site and had them all added to multiple sites. They would collectively regularly receive 50,000 to 100,000 views a day. Then overnight they all disappeared and I still have no idea why…ouch. Megavideo also owed me $1,000 for a year before they got shut down,” he says.

John says his worst experience came courtesy of the operator of several very well-known file-hosting sites which are all part of the same network.

“You are able to upload to one of his file hosts and then copy it to the others. This makes it easy to add a lot of links fast. So I did what I do and added 1000s of files to all of his sites and then added them to multiple streaming websites. Never got paid a dime. Received a few emails promising to pay but nothing….grrrrr. Anyways, just part of the business I am in. How does the saying go ‘No honor amongst thieves’?”

Finally, we asked John for his general thoughts on copyright and the state of the entertainment industry. He didn’t hold back.

Broken business models

“The business model used by the television, movie, music, and soon to be book publishing industries is on life support. It is kept alive by corrupt politicians such as Lamar Hunt (Rep-R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (Sen-D-VT) who are in the pocket of the MPAA and RIAA,” John says.

“The majority of the connected population on the planet has decided that they often prefer their musical and video content to come from the Internet. But these industries still can’t get it together after more than 15 years of widespread Internet usage.

“NBC/Universal spends millions each year fighting piracy. Start a fucking affiliate program and I’ll link for you! I realize it is not quite that simple, but if they don’t adapt and soon, they will go the way of the dinosaurs. The people have spoken – is anyone over there listening? I am and other linkers are. Torrent and streaming sites are too,” he concludes.

It seems very unlikely that anyone at the studios will listen to the advice of people like John so in the meantime they will continue to exploit the weaknesses in the current business model. Whether he’s still making a decent living this time next year remains to be seen, but rest assured that Hollywood and their friends in government will do everything in their power to disrupt him.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

With 5.9 million downloads via BitTorrent, the 2013 season finale has beat the competition by a landslide.

More than half of the downloads occurred in the first week after the show aired and the total exceeds the number of traditional viewers in the US. Breaking Bad and The Walking Dead complete the top three with and estimated 4.2 and 3.6 million downloads respectively.

Game of Thrones’ win comes as no surprise since the show has broken two piracy records already this year, with over 170,000 people sharing a copy of an episode simultaneously.

There are a wide variety of reasons why people download TV-shows, but to a certain degree one could claim that HBO is to blame for the massive piracy of Game of Thrones. The network prefers to keep access to the show “exclusive” and even Netflix wasn’t able to buy the rights no matter what they offered.

Interestingly enough, we also learned this year that the huge number of unauthorized downloads don’t bother the show’s makers all that much, quite the contrary. Game of Thrones director David Petrarca previously admitted that piracy generated much-needed “cultural buzz” around his show.

Jeff Bewkes, CEO of HBO’s parent company Time Warner, went even further, stating that piracy resulted in more subscriptions for his company and that receiving the title of “most-pirated” was “better than an Emmy.”

On the other end of the spectrum we have Gale Anne Hurd, executive producer of The Walking Dead, who told Variety last week that unauthorized downloads are not necessarily the blessing others claim they are.

“There’s a mistaken belief by many of my peers that piracy is somehow good, that viewers will develop a habit to pay for it. I’m not sure they really understand other than anecdotal evidence that their ratings go up that the people who pirate are not then going to choose legal downloads or legal viewing in the future,” Hurd said.

Hurd has a point, as it’s not always that easy for existing pirates to give up their habit, not even if the legal options are widely available and free. For example, The Walking Dead premiere this year was downloaded en masse in the US, despite the fact that AMC streamed the show for free.

This debate about whether TV-show piracy is a good or bad thing will most likely continue throughout the coming year, and beyond.

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows worldwide ( per single episode) for 2013, together with the viewer average for TV in the US. The data are estimated by TorrentFreak based on several sources, including download statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers.

It is worth nothing that online streaming and cyberlocker downloads are not included since there are no public sources to draw data from. The total piracy numbers will therefore be significantly higher.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

However, while the above relates to copyright liability, there are elements of Hollywood’s anti-piracy teams that believe that ISPs can be on the hook for much, much more.

During the past few days TorrentFreak received documents which show attempts by the UK’s Federation Against Copyright Theft to have streaming video site TheShowDepot.com taken offline. The site was hosted by LeaseWeb in the Netherlands.

“We are requesting the removal of the whole domain from your servers. The website serves no purpose other than to provide access to copyright protected media,” FACT told LeaseWeb in an email, supported by links to 16 episodes of The Big Bang Theory.

LeaseWeb reacted by notifying TheShowDepot of the complaint, warning that a failure “to take appropriate action to prevent future complaints” would result in an IP block of the site’s server.

It’s not clear if TheShowDepot responded “appropriately” or not, but their IP address was eventually blocked by LeaseWeb on November 30. While disabling a whole website based on one complaint might be considered excessive by some, FACT’s veiled threats to LeaseWeb during the course of the exchange will certainly raise the most eyebrows.

“The domain ‘theshowdepot.com’ appears to resolve to IP address 95.211.203.106 which is provided by LeaseWeb B.V,” a FACT ‘Internet Investigator’ told the webhost.

“The fact that LeaseWeb are now aware of this means that should you continue to facilitate the illegal activities of ‘theshowdepot.com’ and accept payment for doing so then ‘LeaseWeb’ may be committing associated money laundering offenses. If the Domain continues to operate whilst being hosted on LeaseWeb servers FACT will consider escalating the action.”

In discussing FACT’s highly unusual claims, LeaseWeb Senior Regulatory Counsel Alex de Joode sent TorrentFreak a clear explanation of where he believes his company’s liability begins and ends.

“LeaseWeb’s general abuse procedure in regard to copyright claims, for content hosted in the Netherlands, follows the agreed upon principles between the content owners, hosting companies (like LeaseWeb), the Dutch Ministry of Economic Affairs and the Dutch Justice department (NTD Code of Conduct),” de Joode explains.

“Under Dutch law, as long as we follow the before mentioned principles, there is NO criminal liability for hosters in the Netherlands. According to the eCommerce Directive the legislative regime in a third country (in this case the UK) can NOT be stricter than the legislative regime in the host country (in this case the Netherlands). Any claim otherwise is unfounded.”

The LeaseWeb counsel told TorrentFreak that his company strictly adheres to the notice-and-takedown (NTD) Code of Conduct in which there is “no room for third party pressure.”

“Either a claim is valid and content is removed, or a claim is not valid and the content remains available. We see therefore no reason to include claims of money laundering in NTD requests, this will only make [FACT's] other claims look suspicious, thus hindering a speedy processing of NTD requests,” de Joode says.

“As far as i’m aware FACT is the only organization that uses these unsubstantiated claims. I do not understand why they would try to strong arm hosting companies in removing potentially infringing websites. If they have a valid a claim a simple, proper NTD request will suffice in having the content removed.”

In comments to TorrentFreak, Arnoud Engelfriet, a lawyer specializing in Internet law at the ICTRecht law firm, notes that FACT’s claim – that TheShowDepot has “no other purpose” than to infringe copyright – has its roots in The Pirate Bay case.

“The Dutch courts treated thepiratebay.org as a site with ‘no other purpose’ than to enable infringement and thus ordered it shut down,” Engelfriet explains.

“However, the money laundering claim is too far-fetched and sounds like legal blustering to me. The argument would be that because the site is infringing copyright, its income is illegal. Any payment to Leaseweb thus must have been made with those illegal monies, and knowingly accepting illegal monies would then be ‘laundering’. Let me be polite and say that I have yet to see a legal authority confirming that argument,” he concludes.

Several days ago TorrentFreak contacted FACT with a request for comment on their controversial claims but we have received no response. In the meantime TheShowDepot has relocated to a new host in Latvia where it remains up – for now.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The achievement comes as no surprise since the show has broken two piracy records in a few weeks, and the high number of unauthorized downloads has been widely covered in the press.

Even before the third season started there was already a lot of talk about Game of Thrones piracy. Interestingly, many of the people connected to the show saw it as a compliment rather than a major threat that needs to be dealt with.

The most outspoken position was taken by David Petrarca, the show’s director, who noted that unauthorized downloads actually do more good than harm. According to the director, pirates are partly responsible for the “cultural buzz” the show needs to thrive and survive.

After the season got underway some critical notes also appeared. The Ambassador of the United States of America to Australia recently complained about the “plain theft” being carried out by Australians.

This was countered by many self-confessed pirates including Timo Vuorensola, director of the Disney movie Iron Sky. The Finnish director told HBO that their legal service “sucks” and promised to download the show from The Pirate Bay instead.

The end result is that the most shared episode of Game of Thrones, the season opening, was downloaded by 5.2 million people all over the world. This dazzling statistic represents a 25 percent increase compared to last year and three times the amount achieved by several of the TV shows further down the top 10.

The increase in viewers wasn’t limited to the pirated channels though. HBO also saw ratings for Game of Thrones increase by roughly a quarter, driving many new customers to their paid subscriptions.

Whether the number of legal viewers would be higher or lower without piracy is hard to measure, but it could go both ways.

Looking at the full list we see that it contains many household names that have done well over the years, such as The Big Bang Theory and How I Met Your Mother, which are listed in second and third place respectively.

There are also some notable newcomers. In fact, three shows in the list of most pirated shows just completed their first season – Hannibal, Vikings and Arrow. All three achieved between one and two million downloads per episode.

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows worldwide (estimates per single episode) for the spring season from March up until June 2013, together with the viewer average for TV in the US. The data is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including download statistics reported by public BitTorrent trackers.

It is worth nothing that online streaming and cyberlocker downloads are not included since these can’t be measured accurately. The full piracy numbers will therefore be significantly higher.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Megaupload founder Kim Dotcom has been announcing it for months on his website and a white paper released today is the first big step towards that goal.

Titled “The United States vs You (and Kim Dotcom)” and written by Megaupload lawyers Ira Rothken and Robert Amsterdam, the paper accuses the Obama administration of being a pawn of big corporations. It further describes in detail how the authorities obliterated Megaupload on flaky legal grounds.

“The message is clear. The White House is for sale. Due process and the rule of law have little value to the current administration. More and more of our rights are eroding away to protect the interests of large corporations and their billionaire shareholders,” Dotcom tells TorrentFreak.

According to Dotcom his case is just one example of how corporate interests threaten people’s rights and freedom on the Internet in general.

“Silicon Valley has been turned into Surveillance Valley. Kids with keyboards are the new terrorists. Copyright is now a matter of national security. This is all very un-American. Read the White Paper and wake up.”

The 38-page white paper starts with a bang:

“The criminal prosecution of Megaupload and Kim Dotcom is purportedly the ‘largest copyright case in history,’ involving tens of millions of users around the world, and yet it is founded on highly dubious legal principles and apparently propelled by the White House’s desire to mollify the motion picture industry in exchange for campaign contributions and political support,” the white paper begins.

One of the main complaints against the legal process is that under U.S. law Megaupload and its employees can’t be held criminally responsible for copyright infringements committed by the site’s users.

“The prosecution seeks to hold Megaupload and its executives criminally responsible for alleged infringement by the company’s third-party cloud storage users. The problem with the theory, however, is that secondary copyright infringement is not – nor has it ever been – a crime in the United States.”

“The federal courts lack any power to criminalize secondary copyright infringement; the U.S. Congress alone has such authority, and it has not done so. As such, the Megaupload prosecution is not only baseless, it is unprecedented,” Rothken and Amsterdam write.

The paper continues to give a detailed overview of legal jurisprudence in Megaupload’s favor. Among other things, the lawyers note that Megaupload granted very broad DMCA takedown powers to copyright holders, who could remove any file from the cloud hosting service without oversight.

Most of the legal arguments laid out in the white paper have been highlighted previously. What is new, however, is the legal team’s frontal attack on the Obama administration. The suggestion is, that the White House has been corrupted by corporate money and that the assault on Megaupload was a payoff.

“The degree to which the Copyright Lobby, and the MPAA specifically, have managed to instrumentalize the current Administration to take down a foreign corporation and its executives is, quite literally, un-American,” the lawyers write.

Corrupted by sizable election contributions from corporate interest groups, the United States no longer stands for principled standards and the rule of law, the lawyers argue.

“Those values appear to have fallen by the wayside under this White House, which seems content to violate the due process rights of criminal defendants, mislead the courts, and advance baseless legal theories so long as its fund-raising remains uninterrupted.”

The Truth Will Come Out

Megaupload’s lawyers see the MPAA as the driving force behind the criminal prosecution of the cloud hosting site and its employees. According to them, it is no coincidence that the Hollywood group is headed by former Senator Chris Dodd, one of Vice President Joe Biden’s best friends.

“As the new Chairman and CEO of the MPAA, Chris Dodd improperly leveraged his friendship with Joe Biden to achieve the MPAA’s objectives. Former Senator Dodd’s relationship with the Vice President– who comes off manipulated, a cheerfully credulous facilitator – together with the Obama Administration’s ravenous hunger for campaign contributions, has given the MPAA absolute control over how the U.S. Department of Justice plays the game in enforcing copyright law,” they write.

Continuing on the corruption theme, Rothken and Amsterdam go on to describe MPAA’s influence in Washington as “State Capture.”

“The MPAA’s overt use of campaign contributions to sway the U.S. government into engaging in what amounts to unlawful action against Megaupload reflects a form of State Capture, a term coined by the World Bank to describe a brand of corruption characterized by the ability of a relatively small number of private interests to shape the official rules of the game through direct payments or other forms of financial influence.”

One cited example of how political funding was used to influence decisions was a January 2012 threat from the MPAA’s Chris Dodd. He stated that Hollywood would stop donating to politicians who fail to protect their interests.

“By threatening to revoke vital political and monetary support from the Administration at a crucial moment, the MPAA has exercised de facto control over key levers of executive power in Washington – law enforcement, prosecutors, trade negotiators – and is using those instruments of state power to further the financial interests of its members in Hollywood.”

The white paper further gives numerous examples of how Megaupload’s lawyers believe the authorities abused their power to further the interests of the copyright lobby. The overall conclusion is that people’s rights and freedoms are trumped to secure political donations, which are clear signs of contract prosecution.

“The U.S. government’s attack against Megaupload bears all the hallmarks of a contract prosecution: a case resting on erroneous theories of criminal law, littered with due process violations and prosecutorial abuses, carried out for the benefit of a select few in exchange for their political and financial support,” the lawyers write.

“In the name of eliminating copyright infringement, Hollywood has exerted a corrupting influence in Washington, leading us all down a slippery slope that not only threatens innovation and Internet freedom, but also has profound implications for constitutional principles of free speech, privacy and due process.”

Finally, the white paper suggests that this is not an isolated incident. It warns the public that these corrupt forces can quash anything that stands in the way of the private interests of those who make significant campaign contributions.

“Megaupload and Kim Dotcom are today’s targets, but the crosshairs can just as easily be trained on anybody who dares challenge or inconvenience a special interest that holds sway in Washington, and the current Administration – with its notoriously insatiable appetite for campaign contributions – seems all too willing to cooperate.”

The above points are just samples from the white paper, which is certainly worth reading in its entirety. There is no doubt that the Megaupload legal team have just planted a virtual bomb under the Megaupload prosecution. It will be interesting to see how this is received, and whether we will hear a response from the accused.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Over the years the number of TV-show downloads on BitTorrent has leveled off a bit, but this year we saw a small increase again.

The majority of TV-show piracy, more than 80 percent, occurs outside the US and lacking availability is the top reason why people turn to BitTorrent.

For chart leader Game of Thrones this is no different. Airing delays and HBO’s choice not to make it widely available online are two of the top reasons why so many people pirated the show.

Game of Thrones is particularly popular in Australia, where people have to wait a week longer than fans in the U.S. to view the show. Nevertheless, even in the U.S. hundreds and thousands are downloading the show for free, although many would love to pay for it if HBO offered a standalone HBO GO subscription.

In common with many branches of the entertainment industry, the challenge for TV companies such as HBO is to come up with a business model that allows users to consume what they want at any given time, without losing existing revenue in the process.

When that puzzle is solved worldwide the number of unauthorized downloads will be pretty much insignificant.

Below we have compiled a list of the most-downloaded TV-shows (single episode) in 2012, together with the TV audience in the U.S. The data for the top 10 is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

While there are many reasons for people to download TV-shows through BitTorrent, airing delays and HBO’s choice not to make it widely available online are two of the top reasons.

Game of Thrones is particularly popular in Australia, where people have to wait a week after the U.S. release comes out. Nevertheless, even in the U.S. hundreds and thousands are downloading the show for free, although many would love to pay for it if HBO offered a standalone HBO GO subscription.

It’s clear that HBO (and others) prefer exclusiveness over piracy, which is a dangerous game. They might make decent money in the long run by selling subscriptions. However, this limited availability also breeds pirates, and one has to wonder how easy it is to convert these people to subscriptions once they have experienced BitTorrent.

For now, Game of Thrones appears to be the top contender to throw Dexter off the throne by the end of the year, to become the most pirated TV-show of 2012.

–

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows worldwide (estimates per single episode) for the spring season up until June 1st 2012, together with the viewer average for TV in the US. The data for the top 10 is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

He says that piracy isn’t as evil as Hollywood claims and believes that Internet providers shouldn’t mess with people’s BitTorrent traffic.

“I believe in network neutrality, I don’t believe that piracy is the end of the world as we know it (I particularly don’t believe that a download or file shared automatically equals a lost sale*) and I don’t believe in crippling the Internet to protect a business model that desperately needs to change.”

Net Neutrality should be guarded according to Wheaton, who accuses Hollywood lobby groups for wanting to shut is down.

“Some ISPs are blocking all bittorrent traffic, because bittorrent can be used to share files in a piratical way. Hollywood lobbying groups are trying to pass laws wich would force ISPs to block or degrade bittorrent traffic, too.”

“Personally, I think this is like closing down freeways because a bank robber could use them to get away, which I know is an imperfect comparison, but is the best I can do after a night of not-especially-good sleep.”

Wheaton the goes on to show his readers how to download a Linux distro. And seed it properly.

You can read the rest of Wil’s thoughts on his blog.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Despite the fact that Dexter and runner-up Game of Thrones have more downloads than television viewers in the US, the overall number of TV-show downloads is leveling off.

The percentage of TV-show downloaders, from the US in particular, has steadily declined in recent years. This is in part thanks to alternative viewing options such as Hulu and Netflix. In other regions, such as Australia and Europe, the demand for US TV-shows remains strong.

Outside the US fans sometimes have to wait endlessly before their favorite show airs on TV in their own country. Many of them are simply not that patient or willing to torture themselves, and turn to BitTorrent in desperation.

The above suggests that availability is one of the key solutions to decreased TV piracy, and this was confirmed earlier this year. When Fox decided to delay the airing of new episodes on Hulu in August, many former Hulu users turned to BitTorrent where the number of US downloads more than doubled.

In common with many branches of the entertainment industry, the challenge for TV companies is to come up with a business model that allows users to consume what they want at any given time, without losing revenue in the process. When that puzzle is solved worldwide the number of unauthorized downloads will be pretty much insignificant.

Below we have compiled a list of the most downloaded TV-shows (single episode) of 2011, together with the viewer average for TV in the US. The data for the top 10 is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all public BitTorrent trackers.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.