Back then BitTorrent was a relatively unknown technology that, for the first time in history, allowed users to share large videos with groups of people all over the world.

One of the torrents that gained quite a bit of traction in the early days is an ASCII version of The Matrix. This piece of fan art is a re-coded version of the original movie in green text on a black background, resulting in a rather unique viewing experience.

Thanks to BitTorrent, the creator of The Matrix ASCII was able to share his work with thousands of people. Exactly 10 years ago today on December 20, 2003, the torrent for this release was created.

A few weeks later the torrent file was first shared online, along with an ASCII DVD cover and insert. In the months and years that followed thousands of copies of the film were downloaded worldwide, and even today it is still being shared by a dozen people every day.

To the best of our knowledge, this means that The Matrix ASCII is the oldest torrent that’s still being actively shared.

Perhaps worried that Hollywood wouldn’t appreciate the effort, the DVD file comes with a small disclaimer.

“This work is a parody. As such I do not believe that this DVD has any possibility of competing with the original in any market. It is not for sale,” the disclaimer reads.

Prospective downloaders have very little to worry about though, as Warner Bros. is not known to go after this type of fan-art that’s created for non-commercial use.

The people who’ve downloaded a copy of The Matrix thus far responded mostly positively after watching the ASCII movie. That is, those who knew what to expect.

“This is absolutely INCREDIBLE!!! EASILY one of the coolest things I’ve EVER seen! Where’d you get the notion to do something like this!?!?!?!” one person noted in a comment highlighted on The Matrix ASCII website.

Others, who assumed that they had downloaded a copy of the original Matrix movie, were less happy with the ASCII version.

“Dude, tell me what to do with this Matrix ASCII, cause the picture is all green n stuff, can’t even see what’s going on. And, its in 4 VOB files, but why?” was the response of an unhappy downloader.

All in all it’s safe to say that The Matrix ASCII has become a fine piece of Internet history. The tale of its survival in itself has now become a reason for people to download it as a collectors’ item.

The question is, however, will it survive another decade?

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

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….

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

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.

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

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…

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

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…

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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

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.

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