Eventually both bills were defeated.

Then there was the Megaupload raid and the indictment against the “Mega Conspiracy” which dominated the news the entire year and disrupted the file-hosting business.

There were also winners in 2012, such as the ACTA protesters, Rojadirecta and thousands of alleged BitTorrent users who had their cases dismissed.

And there were those who “lost” or received bad news, such as Gottfrid Svartholm, the Ninjavideo team, the IMAGiNE release group, Demonoid, BTjunkie, NZBMatrix and others.

The Pirate Bay made dozens of headlines as well, some good and some bad. The infamous BitTorrent site ditched torrents and moved to the cloud to escape getting raided, and enjoyed a huge increase in traffic despite increased censorship worldwide.

At TorrentFreak we carefully select the stories we write, and all these articles are important to us. But, to make some kind of an objective ranking of the top stories we compiled a list of the Top 12 most-read and the most-commented upon news articles.

Of course we would love to hear which stories and events were most important to our readers so feel free to join the discussion.

And a Happy New Year to all of you all! We really appreciate your ongoing support and encouragement.

—

Here are the most read news articles, each with hundreds of thousands of page views.

1. Police Raid 9-Year-Old Pirate Bay Girl, Confiscate Winnie The Pooh Laptop

2. Download a Copy of The Pirate Bay, It’s Only 90 MB

3. Pirate Bay Moves to The Cloud, Becomes Raid-Proof

4. Demonoid Busted As A Gift To The United States Government

5. Tribler Makes BitTorrent Impossible to Shut Down

6. Demonoid Is Back, BitTorrent Tracker is Now Online

7. Pirate Bay Enjoys 12 Million Traffic Boost, Shares Unblocking Tips

8. MegaUpload Shut Down by the Feds, Founder Arrested

9. The Avengers: Why Pirates Failed To Prevent A Box Office Record

10. The Pirate Bay Moves to .SE Domain To Prevent Domain Seizure

11. Leaked: Police Plan to Raid The Pirate Bay

12. BitTorrent Pirates Go Nuts After TV Release Groups Dump Xvid

Here are the most commented articles, each with their respective comment count.

1. MegaUpload Shut Down by the Feds, Founder Arrested (1202)

2. Demonoid Busted As A Gift To The United States Government (1087)

3. Cyberlocker Ecosystem Shocked As Big Players Take Drastic Action (842)

4. BitTorrent Pirates Go Nuts After TV Release Groups Dump Xvid (816)

5. Police Raid 9-Year-Old Pirate Bay Girl, Confiscate Winnie The Pooh Laptop (692)

6. BitTorrent Giant BTjunkie Shuts Down For Good (662)

7. Book Publishers ‘Shut Down’ Library.nu and iFile-it (662)

8. Filesonic Kills File-Sharing Service After MegaUpload Arrests (625)

9. Demonoid Is Back, BitTorrent Tracker is Now Online (609)

10. Pirate Bay Moves to The Cloud, Becomes Raid-Proof (601)

11. Pirate Bay Under DDoS Attack From Unknown Enemy (594)

12. ISPs To Begin Punishing BitTorrent Pirates This Summer (576)

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

These lists give insight into people’s interests over the preceding 12 months. On Google, for example, in 2012 “What is SOPA” was the most asked question typed into Google in both the U.S. and Australia.

But what about BitTorrent? With billions of searches every year it’s worth taking a look at the most-entered keywords on the dominant file-sharing network.

Unfortunately there is no central database of searches available, but Kat.ph, one of the top 3 torrent sites in terms of visitors, was kind enough to share the most popular search terms of 2012 with us. This list is based on millions of searches and gives an indication of what people were looking for on BitTorrent during the last 12 months.

Topping the lists this year is the TV-show The Walking Dead, followed by the more general keywords 2012 and French. The latter two are used to find recent content and French language releases respectively.

The top 10 further contains six movie related searches including Ted, Taken 2, The Avengers and The Dark Knight Rises. Besides movie titles the top 50 also contains other video related searches such as DVDrip, 720p, 3D and Movies.

Traditionally, TV-shows are much sought after on BitTorrent as well, and it’s no different this year. After The Walking Dead, Homeland is the most popular TV-related search phrase in 12th place, followed by Game of Thrones and Sons of Anarchy further down the list.

Besides movies and TV-shows the list is completed with a few unavoidable adult related searches, and the relatively rare software and game related keywords such as Windows 8, PSP and Android.

Perhaps most surprising of all, music isn’t all that popular on public BitTorrent indexes, as we find no music related terms in the top 50 at all.

Ita, a term used to find Italian content, dropped from first place last year to 31st this year. This is not really surprising as Italian ISPs were ordered to block access to the site in May.

Below is the full list of the 50 most-entered search phrases on Kat.ph. This list will be different on other public BitTorrent sites, but we assume that the top searches will be popular on other indexes as well.

—

1. the walking dead
2. 2012
3. french
4. ted
5. dexter
6. batman
7. taken 2
8. the dark knight rises
9. the avengers
10. brave
11. skyfall
12. homeland
13. game of thrones
14. 720p
15. the hunger games
16. dvdrip
17. 1080p
18. windows 8
19. prometheus
20. sons of anarchy
21. 3d
22. the amazing spiderman
23. looper
24. arrow
25. revenge
26. yify
27. twilight
28. battleship
29. total recall
30. glee
31. ita
32. movies
33. psp
34. supernatural
35. resident evil
36. x art
37. windows 7
38. magic mike
39. telugu
40. android
41. fringe
42. minecraft
43. once upon a time
44. harry potter
45. madagascar 3
46. wwe
47. breaking bad
48. family guy
49. american horror story
50. 2011

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

There is no significant change in the total number of movie downloads compared to last year but it’s clear that demand for movies remains strong.

Project X as “winner” is perhaps the biggest surprise as it’s the lowest grossing movie in the top 10 with only $100,931,865.

As is the case every year, our top 10 list has a few notable absentees in 2012. These include the top grossing The Hunger Games and Skyfall. The latter is currently only available in a lower quality release, which explains its absence.

Whether these unauthorized downloads are a serious threat to box office revenues is unclear. Earlier this year researchers found no evidence that BitTorrent piracy hurts US box office returns. There is a link between downloads and revenues internationally, which the researchers attributed to long release windows.

However, looking at box office revenues is only half of the picture as DVD sales, rentals and on-demand movies are perhaps more likely to be impacted.

The data for this list is collected by TorrentFreak from several sources, including reports from all major BitTorrent trackers. All release formats, including cammed versions, that are downloaded between January 1st and mid-December are counted.

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.

Which torrent sites get the most visitors at the start of 2012? At first glance little seems to have changed, as many of the sites in the top 10 have been among the top torrent sites for more than half a decade. But moving down the list we see quite a few movers and shakers as well as three newcomers.

The most notable absentee this year is TorrentReactor, one of the oldest torrent sites on the Internet. The Russian-based site hasbeen featured in the top 10 since 2006, but missed the cut in 2012. Last year’s best newcomer LimeTorrents took an even bigger hit in traffic and has dropped off the list as well.

Below we have compiled a list of the 10 most-visited torrent sites at the start of the new year. Only public and English language sites are included. The list is based on traffic rank reports from Compete and Alexa. In addition, we include last year’s ranking for each of the 10 sites.

1. The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay is probably the best known BitTorrent brand on the Internet. The site was founded in 2003 and is still expanding, despite the various legal troubles and blockades that were designed to hurt the site in recent years. The Pirate Bay currently has close to 2 billion page views a month.

2. Torrentz

Torrentz has been the leading BitTorrent meta-search engine for years. Unlike the other sites featured in the list Torrentz does not host any torrent files, it merely redirects visitors to other places on the web.

3. KickassTorrents

Founded in 2009, KickassTorrents is one of the youngest sites in the list, and this year it moved up to the top 3. Responding to the increasing worries about domain seizures, the site moved from its kickasstorrents.com domain to kat.ph a few months ago. The site continues to innovate and release new features every other week.

4. IsoHunt

In 2010 isoHunt became the first search engine forced to implement a keyword filter provided by the MPAA. Despite this setback, isoHunt continues to be listed among the top torrent sites. In 2012, isoHunt hopes to get rid of the filter through the Appeals Court.

5. BTjunkie

BTjunkie had to deal with a setback a few months ago when the site was blocked in Italy following a court order. In response to the block, the site’s owners launched an ad-free proxy site for Italians only. Just as last year, BTjunkie settles in fifth place.

6. ExtraTorrent

ExtraTorrent is one of those robust torrent indexes that doesn’t make the news very often. Compared to last year the site has moved up a spot and is now the 6th most popular torrent venue.

7. Demonoid

The semi-private tracker continues to attract a massive audience, also on the new .me domain name. Behind the scenes the site’s owners are working on a new and improved look.

8. EZTV

Unlike the other sites in the top 10, TV-torrent distribution group EZTV is a niche site specializing in TV content only. Despite its fair share of downtime this year, EZTV has managed to get a spot in the top 10 for the first time in its six year existence.

9. Bitsnoop

BitSnoop is another newcomer that gained a large audience this year. This didn’t go unnoticed by the RIAA, who filed a complaint at the U.S. District Court of Columbia and obtained a subpoena to reveal the identity of BitSnoop’s owner a few months ago.

10. 1337x

1337x is also new to the top 10, and focuses more on the community aspect than some competitors. The site’s owners say they started 1337x to “fill an apparent void where it seemed there was a lack of quality conscience ad free torrent sites with public trackers.” Its 10th place this year proves that they’re getting the success formula right.

Disclaimer: Yes, we know that Alexa isn’t perfect and that Compete has plenty of flaws, but combined both do a pretty good job at comparing sites that operate in a similar niche.

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

Whatever happens, we’ll try to be there with a post every day as always.

Thanks everyone for reading…

—

Here are a few stats from 2011…

We published 1178 articles (bits included)

With 1,557,408 views the Mega Song article was the most read of the year.

“New Law Will Shut Down TorrentFreak, Music Industry Expert Says” got the most comments, 449 in total.

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

The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are DVDrips unless stated otherwise.

RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.

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