TorrentFreak

It turns out that P2P is not only an enemy for the major record labels, it’s also an excellent marketing research tool. In fact, MediaDefender is using piracy to help labels increase profitability.

A recent analysis of the latest P2P trends wordwide shows that BitTorrent is still the most popular filesharing protocol. BitTorrent traffic is still on the rise and responsible for 50-75% of all P2P traffic and roughly 40% of all Internet traffic.

Harvard researchers have teamed up with the Tribler team to work on a P2P client with BitTorrent support that uses bandwidth as a global currency. They released Tribler V4.1 yesterday.

The infamous anti-piracy organization Media Defender recently bought the P2P.net domain. Currently P2P.net redirects to Google and at this point it is still unclear what their plans are for the domain. However, it is likely that they will use it for one of their pirate traps such a the fake video download service Miivi or the fake BitTorrent trackers they run.

Spam comes in many shapes and forms and today we have news that anti-piracy company Media Defender has hooked up with telecoms company Sprint and Atlantic Records to give away 16 million free tracks on P2P networks. However, don’t get too excited, its 16 million tracks from one artist.

A court in Belgium ruled that ISPs can be forced, and are obliged to, either block or filter copyright infringing content on P2P networks. Freedom of expression and privacy are not important in this regard. How exactly ISPs are supposed to block and filter copyrighted content remains a mystery.

The second part of “Steal This Film” is currently in production. The documentary will cover the (r)evolution of piracy, and p2p in general. The filmmakers interviewed people like Bram Cohen, and admins from The Pirate Bay and Mininova, but they also want to hear from YOU! Get your 15 frames of fame, and upload your message to the RIAA and MPAA.

The latest version of the “social” BitTorrent client Tribler integrates BitTorrent with YouTube while offering the best of both worlds: ease of use, browsing with thumbnails, HDTV quality, and Video on Demand support. The client uses an Amazon.com-like recommendation system to suggest what you might enjoy.

The popularity of BitTorrent is still growing. Tomorrow a new version of the Tribler BitTorrent client will be released at a seminar of European TV bosses in Geneva. Tribler is a Bittorrent client which aims to grow into a Youtube-like solution for Internet TV with torrent recommendations, search capabilities without webservers, and friends. Currently the Tribler interface is still an ugly duck but they promise to do better later this month, and even have the BBC and the Germans at that party.