The popular hosting company HostGator effectively bans its customers from storing .torrent files on their servers. They want you to store podcasts or other media files on their server instead of saving bandwidth and resources by offering it as a .torrent download.
Last week we reported that Comcast is making it impossible for its customers to seed files on BitTorrent. Not surprisingly, Comcast’s PR department does all it can to deny there allegations, but we – and with us some of the leading BitTorrent developers – know better.
The Portuguese counterparts of the RIAA, BSA and MPAA sent the Swedish police a letter in which they demanded “swift enforcement of the law” in The Pirate Bay case. They argue that the Pirate Bay is responsible for several BitTorrent related court cases in Portugal and is affecting right holders worldwide.
Google has been filtering its search results for years. That’s proven very useful for the Chinese government, and of course content owner representatives like the MPAA and RIAA. According to Google, the filtering of torrents from the search results is a response to the DMCA complaints they receive.
The popularity of BitTorrent also has its downsides. Over the past months we reported about fake torrents, torrents that force you to download malware, and torrents that spy on your download behavior. TorrentSpam is a new service that allows you to report such scams, and clean up BitTorrent sites, bit by bit.
BitLet is a cute web-based Java applet that allows you to download .torrent files on a computer that doesn’t have a BitTorrent client installed. Very useful if you want to share a torrent with your BitTorrent illiterate friends, or if you’re on a computer that doesn’t have a BitTorrent client installed.
Some people admit to using BitTorrent to obtain the occasional movie. However, it’s very rare for a rock star to confess that they are serial movie and TV show downloader – and then worry that they are going to jail for it. We’re happy to put her mind at rest.
The BitLord show released a special episode in which they interview with Brokep from The Pirate Bay. Brokep talks about TPB’s contribution to the BitTorrent scene, their secret upcoming project, the new anonymous P2P protocol they are working on and much more.
Mininova is the fist BitTorrent site to enter the list of 100 most visited sites on the Internet, joining sites like Google, Yahoo! and Digg. A great accomplishment proving that BitTorrent’s popularity and Mininova in particular continues to grow.
As more and more people hear about BitTorrent, each day the major sites get bigger, with more and more visitors, members, seeds and peers. Mainstream awareness of P2P is driving this new surge but with copyright and law enforcement agencies clamping down hard, some are considering tactics for survival.
FlixFlux is a relatively unknown BitTorrent site. The site focuses on movie releases and lists box office and DVD rental charts on the frontpage. Just recently FlixFlux added movie trailers to all the titles, pirate friendly, but something the MPAA probably won’t appreciate.
