As we reported earlier, the decision to use BitTorrent for facilitating distribution of the movie made a bit of a mockery of the limitations of Moore’s offer, since using The Pirate Bay’s tracker sent the movie worldwide. So, even for a completely free movie, it seemed inevitable that the legal profession would get involved at some point, it was just a question of time.

It didn’t take long. In a letter dated September 25th, lawyers representing Westside Productions LLC, owner of the Slacker Uprising copyright sprang into action, demanding the removal of a torrent linking to the movie. However, they managed to make a novice error. Instead of contacting the host of the torrent site in question, the Swedish-hosted BTJunkie, they actually sent the US copyright takedown request (email & fedex) to their DNS provider, easyDNS.

easyDNS are based in Canada and, just like BTJunkie in Sweden, are not subject to the laws of the United States, although most lawyers don’t seem to understand this. Furthermore, since easyDNS aren’t even BTJunkie’s host, they are in no position to do anything about the torrent anyway.

Mark Jeftovic, a co-founder of easyDNS wrote: “But really, come on folks, please tell us that isn’t the basis for this take down request. Anybody with half a clue knows the net doesn’t work like that. In any case, I’ve sent them our standard ‘we’re not the web host, we’re just the lowly DNS service’, but I did point out this seeming contradiction in Michael Moore’s message vs his lawyer’s actions.”

Now that the lawyers managed to get a grasp of the role of a DNS server, they have withdrawn the complaint against easyDNS. They state that the problem is due to the fact that the infringing .torrent was hosted outside of the US and Canada, a situation which for some reason is unacceptable to their client and a ‘problem’ worth spending large sums of money on to remedy. Let’s be clear – no amount of money will solve this issue and it is absolutely absurd to even try.

“I’ve replied that they [the lawyers] should know it is highly impractical to attempt to impose geographical constraints on otherwise freely available files,” said Mark at easyDNS, “but I guess they want to give it a shot.”

Meanwhile, the admin of BTJunkie told us he has not yet received a takedown request.

Mo(o)re money down the drain….

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The P2P technology inside the box is Open Source software, and allows the user to stream live content via BitTorrent (picture here, via NTV). Broadcasters will be able to stream to thousands of people, using around the same amount of bandwidth they would use to stream to one or two people. Recent tests have shown that it’s possible to offer high quality video via BitTorrent, which might change how on-demand TV is broadcast.

During a tutorial session at the P2P 2008 conference, Mark from Pioneer presented the new device, and said: “By leveraging the next generation of P2P networking technology, Pioneer is taking steps to bring scalable TV broadcasting and vast on-demand media collections into the Living room.”

The device is 4th generation P2P, which means that it doesn’t use central servers to distribute or moderate the content. Pioneer, nevertheless, made it clear that it will only be possible to access legitimate content with their box “Access to a vast range of on-demand content and broadcast TV in High Definition over the Open Internet is becoming more believable with the integration of 4G P2P technologies into consumer devices,” Mark said.

Worth mentioning, is that the box runs on a 266MHz processor with just 128MByte of RAM. By doing so, Pioneer has set a new standard for what a low-cost processor can deliver using BitTorrent. Several European TV broadcasters are watching the project closely, and we expect to see some consumer trials with this new BitTorrent box in the future.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. Currently both DVDrips and R5 rips are counted.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of September 1st, 2008…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only.

RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.

As of May 27, 2008…

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Bitlord is now developing alongside Iphant which is also a BitTorrent / eDonkey client. The addition of eDonkey support makes it possible to use both networks to download a file which might speed up BitTorrent swarms that have only a few seeders. If the .torrent includes ed2k hash it is downloaded via BitTorrent and eDonkey, if not, it can be joined with the wizard you can find in the file context menu.

The fact that Bitlord is no longer based on BitComet 0.56 which by itself is a great improvement. The client is spyware free but it does contain adware. Currently is has a banner on the bottom of the application, and some advertisement for the Bitlord pro version, which is basically the UseNeXT client that is advertised on many BitTorrent sites.

Throughout its existence Bitlord has always been a controversial client. Like BitComet, Bitlord is banned from quite a few private trackers because it allegedly disobeys the BitTorrent etiquette, and bullies other clients. However, Bitlord is now moving in the right direction and according to the Bitlord developer it should absolutely be accepted by private trackers. We’ll see what the future brings.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Enjoy, and feel free to leave a comment if you have something to say to Charlie, or if you want to comment on the show in general. There’s more good stuff from Charlie over at pod2peer.com.

You can listen to the show using the on-site player, download the mp3 directly, or grab the .torrent. Here’s the RSS feed , and the BitTorrent RSS feed for the show. You can download the .torrent over here, and the mp3 here.

[audio:http://media.switchpod.com/users/pod2peer/TorrentPod031.mp3]

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Enjoy, and feel free to leave a (audio) comment if you have something to say to Charlie, or if you want to comment on the show in general. There’s more good stuff from Charlie over at pod2peer.com.

You can listen to the show using the on-site player, download the mp3 directly, or grab the .torrent. Here’s the RSS feed , and the BitTorrent RSS feed for the show. You can download the .torrent over here, and the mp3 here.

[audio:http://media.switchpod.com/users/pod2peer/TorrentPod029.mp3]

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

BitFox is still in the very early stages of development, and not currently available for download. The only way you can install it is from SVN. BitFox makes use of Libtorrent, the open source C++ BitTorrent library that aims to be CPU and memory efficient.

The extension, just like Firefox, is cross-platform and open source. Joshua Hendo, the developer, notes that BitFox has only been tested on Windows and Linux. He also asks anyone interested in contributing to the project to join the bitfox-extension mailing list on Google Groups.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Once a torrent is downloaded, Ted will automatically launch it in your default BitTorrent client, in my case, Transmission. If your BitTorrent client has the option to delete the original torrent once it has been imported, the whole process can be made very clean, with no traces or files left behind.

The simplicity of Ted is reminiscent of LimeWire, the P2P application that made downloading mp3s easier than surfing the web. The only problem is that you need to have a BitTorrent client installed. I’m guessing that the Opera browser with its built-in BitTorrent functionality would do. Ubuntu users might have it the best, since the OS comes with a version of the mainline client pre-installed.

Ted is not yet perfect, and still needs some work. Something funny I noticed was that while setting it up, it asked me whether I wanted it to start minimised in the system tray. Mac OS X doesn’t have a system tray! It’s quite obvious that Ted was originally written for Windows.

Torrent Episode Downloader (Ted) is completely free and open source, and can be downloaded from the official site.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

It is hard to tell if these sites will ever stop growing, and if they will ever make it into the top 100 without one of them going down, but we’ll see what the future brings. Isohunt, the site that bumped the other sites into the top 200, is currently moving their servers from The USA to Canada, and will probably be up and running soon.

Note: Alexa’s data gathering is quite dubious. The exact figures may be not be completely accurate, but it is a great tool (especially the traffic rank) to compare sites within the same niche and to get a global impression of traffic shifts over time.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The current version of BitThief comes with a property file contained in the bitThief.jar. The actual data is posted to http://dcg.ethz.ch/projects/bitthief/et.php every time a torrent starts or stops.

It is unknown why the developers decided to collect the data. It could be that they collect these statistics for academic use, but I guess the more paranoid people among us could easily come up with other, more evil, motives.

The curious thing is that this “feature” of BitThief in not documented. The client is spying on you without your consent. Whatever the real motives are, it is yet another reason not to use this client.

Update: The BitThief homepage was updated a couple of hours after we posted this article. It now lists the spy feature.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Web 2.0 is interactive by nature. People are not only consuming content, they’re creating it too. From uploading photos and videos to sites like Flickr and YouTube to downloading files over BitTorrent and sharing them on P2P networks, traffic flow on the Internet is now bi-directional.

The problem is that most ISPs seem to be completely unaware of this phenomenon. Upload speeds offered are many times less than download speeds. Most ISPs in the U.S. provide largely asymmetric connections, upload speeds are on average 15 times slower than download speeds. Strange since the country seems to be the epicenter of the Web 2.0 boom.

Slow upload speeds directly affect BitTorrent transfers. If users aren’t able to upload bits as fast as they download them, a torrent requires more seeders than leechers to stay healthy. And for there to be enough seeders, a significant number of users have to have already downloaded the file. That’s why the speed at which you download a newly created torrent is normally much slower than a HTTP transfer. The speed of the BitTorrent swarm will always max out on the combined upload speed.

Also, because BitTorrent is a fair trade protocol, what you give is what you get. The more you upload, the more you’ll be able to download from others. So, for example, If you had to choose between a 1Mbit up – 1Mbit down connection and a 0.5Mbit up – 2Mbit down connection, the first option would be a better choice.

The Internet is slowly moving away from central servers that store data, towards P2P powered services like BitTorrent where content is dispersed over a large number of users. ISPs need to understand this and realize that users are soon going to start demanding symmetric connections, with upload speeds equaling downloads. After all, TIME Magazine’s person of the year is “You”. And there wouldn’t be a “You” without YouTube and other such services that allow us to get online and express ourselves.

Creative Commons photograph by Micha Niskin.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Wrong, when I loaded the torrent file in uTorrent, I noticed that the videoclip was over 1GB! Wait a minute, 1GB for a 5 minute videoclip? That’s over 3MB per second! I know that BitTorrent recently expanded their server park, but this is just a waste of bandwidth. V2 Records probably never heard of “compression” because they offer a whole collection of oversized videoclips.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The article compares bt.etree.org, piratebay.org, torrentportal.com, easytree.org, btefnet.net and alluvion.org. The data appears to be a little outdated, because both easytree.org and the famous bt.etree.org were shutdown in spring 2005.

One of the main conclusions of the researchers is that a relatively small percentage of peers is responsible for most of the uploading. The top 10% sharers upload just as much as the rest of the people in the swarm.

Another interesting finding is that the highest percentage of seeders can be found at The Piratebay (29%), and the most sharers at easytree (59%). This can be explained by the fact that easytree is a private tracker, enforcing “healthy” share ratios.

Unfortunately, the authors make a big mistake when they suggest that RSS feeds might be responsible for the higher seed percentages at btefnet.net. At the time the data was collected (early 2005) only Azureus had experimental RSS support, and only a few people were actually using it.

Personally I think it it hard to make comparisons between there six torrent sites. It is nothing more than comparing apples and oranges, they offer different content, and target a different audience.

Gifting Technologies: A BitTorrent Case Study

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The new torrent download includes a high-quality rip of the master DVD and a 40 minute interview with Joel Bakan, the author of the book and writer of the film. Mark Achbar actually dedicated a computer in his garage to do nothing but seed.

Although the torrent download is free, the filmmakers encourage people to donate a small fee if they like what they see. We asked Mark Achbar how the first round of donations went. He said, “since my initial torrent launch of The Corporation at the end of August, there have been $635.00 in contributions. They ranged from $2 to three very generous gifts of $100 each. All are very much appreciated.”

The makers of “The Corporation just launched a Campaign for Corporate Harm Reduction (C4CHR) in collaboration with Hellocoolworld.com. The purpose of this campaign is to collect stories about the impact of the film, asking people what they did, or something they’ve heard happened as a result of the film.

“We want to create a feedback loop on the “what you can do” front, and perhaps turn it into a book. The torrent is a great way to stay in touch with people about our current activities Achbar” Achbar explained.

He added, “my only regret is that I didn’t put up my own torrent sooner.”

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

In the documentary “done the impossible” the fans tell their part of this success story. They explain why and how they managed to get their Firefly heroes on the white screen in the popular movie Serenity.

The makers of the documentary offer a free, Creative Commons licensed .torrent download of their film. They state:

In our opinion, the modern state of copyright is counter productive to creativity and free culture. It puts unnatural restraints on “fair use”, hinders the creative process and has fundamentally destroyed an entire industry before it was even born.

Personally I’m impressed with the quality of this documentary, I highly recommend this one if you are interested in the story behind Firefly and Serenity.

You can view the trailer over here or download (.torrent) Done the impossible

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

The great thing about the project is that the movie is made entirely using Open Source software.

The movie is 11 minutes, including the credits, and they offer an impressive high definition AC3 5.1 surround copy.

The graphics are absolutely stunning but I found the story a bit disappointing. You can grab the .torrent over here

elephantsdream.org

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

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.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

BREIN claims to have taken down 50% of all BitTorrent sites in the Netherlands.

Brein often threatens the site owners to admit they are infringing copyright and asks them to give BREIN all the information about their members or we will sue. These threatening and intimidating talk seems to work, although Brein has no legal power, they do have the money to sue.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.