At first glance the data seems to be pretty accurate are not very accurate, and it gives a good impression of what’s hot at the moment. The charts are based on the total number of seeds and peers.

Currently topping the charts in the Video section are The Davinci Code and Slither, and in the TV section the first season of Prison Break and the second season of Lost.

Mark Ghuneim, C.E.O. and founder of Wiredset LLC said that “Wiredset’s unique charts allow entertainment companies to better understand the reality of media asset trading”

However, the same charts might be very informative to pirates as well, but he obviously didn’t mention that.

Have a look.

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

So in the near future it could be that you’re downloading your favorite torrents from your ISP’s server instead of some random seed or peer at the other side of the globe.

Currently, “regular” BitTorrent is traffic is suffering from throttling ISP’s that claim that BitTorrent traffic is cluttering their pipes. This morivated the developers of the most popular BitTorrent clients implement encryption to protect BitTorrent users from being slowed down by their ISP’s.

However, Bram Cohen, the creator of the BitTorrent protocol and the developer of the mainline BitTorrent client did not believe that encryption was the solution, and found (tohether with Cachelogic) a more ISP friendly alternative. However, this new and improved version is promising the opposite, downloads will be accelerated instead of throttled. However, only for commercially licensed content.

Ashwin Navin, President and Co-founder of BitTorrent states:

“CacheLogic has developed an innovative solution to address a major problem that all ISPs face with respect to network congestion. Today, people use the Internet for many bandwidth-intensive services and consumers are increasingly aware of the quality of service needed for their favourite applications. With the popularity of BitTorrent usage worldwide, ISP networks are being taxed in a way they weren’t designed for. As a remedy to this, the Cache Discovery Protocol is providing carriers with an economical and scalable solution that improves the end-user experience for applications that consumers are growing to love.”

press release.

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

Here it is, after 2 months the first installment is ready. Be sure to tell your friends. It’s huge, 43.8GB! It contains over 300 videos of various TechTV/G4TechTV shows including: The Screen Savers, Call for Help, X-play, Unscrewed, AudioFile, Big Thinkers, Conspiracies, CyberCrime, Extended Play, Eye Drops, FreshGear, GameSpot TV, Internet Tonight, Max Headroom, Silicon Spin, Tech Live, Thunderbirds, and some really old ZDTV shows.

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

TorrentFreak asked Meganova owner Bogaa if these rumors are true. And indeed, Bogaa confirmed the story:

Yes, Targetpoint made an offer to buy Meganova. They offered $20.000, 30% of the ad revenues and an additional $1000 per month. We do however prefer to continue working with Targetpoint on a pay per click basis.

Meganova is not the only BitTorrent site that Targetpoint is interested in. They are currently working with sites like Isohunt, The Piratebay and Mininova. And according to a our source they even have a 37% share in The Piratebay .

It started a couple of months ago when Targetpoint contracted two major adult content BitTorrent sites Empornium and PureTna. Empornium has approximately 650,000 active users; they moved their servers from the US to The Netherlands after the acquisition by Targetpoint in August 2005.

So it seems that Targetpoint is willing to invest in sites that have trouble getting advertisers through other channels such as Google’s Adsense because these sites are (assumed to be) associated with copyright infringement.

Targetpoint was founded in 2004 and is an Israeli company, with servers located in the Netherlands. In these countries offering .torrent files is not considered to be act of copyright infringement.

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

* Interview with the man behind the BitTorrent Song

* A day in the life of a Tv-Torrent geek

* New Ipod Torrent Site

* Port Washington, another independent movie release on BitTorrent

* Click and view, article on BitTorrent and TV

* HBO not happy with TV-Torrents

* Teenager Indicted On Online Piracy Charges

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

Btqueue, another BitTorrent based piece of software won in the clustering category.

Check out the results

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

“He admitted making the Swedish action film ‘The Third Wave’ accessible to others through a file sharing programme.”

But not only did Hollywood’s AntipiratbyrÃ¥n fail to move the court, “I interpret this as a clear decision that individual file sharers, if they don’t earn money from file sharing, won’t get anything more than a fine,” the story has prosecutor HÃ¥kan Roswall saying.

“That means we can’t trace IP addresses, which means that we can’t trace private file sharers.”

The question of punishment, “is decisive in determining how police and prosecutors may investigate file sharing,” says The Local. “If only fines are imposed, then the crime is not so serious that IP addresses, each computer’s unique identifier on the internet, can be requested from internet service providers.”

The prosecutor also wants the punishment reviewed, “and appealed against the judgement,” says the story, adding:

“After Wednesday’s decision in the high court, he said that a change in the law would now be required if legal proceedings were to be brought against individuals.”

p2pnet.net

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

“I’m not convinced that it causes network congestion at this point, but clearly it has the potential to do that,”

He looked at Qwest’s peering points to get an idea of how much P2P traffic is on its networks. And, while he admits that it’s not an exact measurement of the P2P traffic load, he says the fears of network congestion are a little overblown.

“I… found that the traffic is well under what some in that industry say is happening. I mean, you hear claims of significant double-digit penetration of peer-to-peer traffic, and it was not near there,”

via

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

This new law is adopted exactly two months after the German anti-piracy federation (GVU) busted some of the key players in “the scene”. But now it seems that not only the release groups have to worry, but everybody who tries to download something from the net that might be copyrighted. The new law comes into effect on january the 1st, 2007.

The law is widely debated and currently one of the toughest in Europe at the moment.

Patrick von Braunmühl, of the Federation of German Consumer Organisation was not pleased and said:

This sends a completely wrong signal to society. It criminalises consumers and will deeply disturb internet users

However, the German justice minister defended the law, and said:

The aim is not now to slap handcuffs on downloaders in the school playground. But if someone downloaded a film before it reached the cinemas it was obvious that they were responding to an illegal offer and breaking the law

Günther Krings, the Christian Democrat legal affairs spokesman responded:

There should be no legal distinction between stealing chewing gum from a shop and performing an illegal download

So if you steal a chewing gum in Germany you will face up to 2 years in prison? Or even 5 if you try to sell it?

We’re going to hear more about this…

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

Michael Geist went through the complete study report and concluded:

In summary, CRIA’s own research now concludes that P2P downloading constitutes less than one-third of the music on downloaders’ computers, that P2P users frequently try music on P2P services before they buy, that the largest P2P downloader demographic is also the largest music buying demographic, and that reduced purchasing has little to do with the availability of music on P2P services. I’ve argued many of these same things, but now you don’t have to take my word for it; you can take it from the record labels themselves.

Pollera, the company that conducted the story called Michael Geist’s interpretation “misleading, incorrect, and inconsistent” and wrote a 11page! response.

Michal Geist, who’s the Canada Research Chair of Internet and E-commerce Law at the University of Ottawa posted a great rebuttal to Pollera’s response. Here’s a snippet:

Pollara misleadingly recharacterizes some its own questions. For example, it points at page six to a question on whether the person had ever acquired a CD with songs downloaded from a file sharing service such as Kazaa. This is then inaccurately presented as “Ever Purchased or Received a CD That Contained Illegally Downloaded Tracks”. One might say that Pollara should stick to polling for its paying clients like CRIA rather than offering up its opinion on the legality of P2P in Canada.

Read More

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