Anderson, a former associate of TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel, configured the TorrentSpy mail server to copy and forward all of the site’s email to his own Gmail account. The 34 pages of information he gathered was then sold to the MPAA for $15,000. TorrentSpy’s owner later sued the MPAA, arguing that they had spied on him illegally, but this case was lost.

The court ruled that the MPAA did not technically intercept them under the WireTap Act, although jurisprudence would suggest otherwise. TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel told TorrentFreak that he has filed a brief at the Court of Appeals and that the MPAA is expected to do the same in the near future. From then on it can take up to a year before the appeal is heard in court.

TorrentSpy is supported by the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that described the earlier decision as a “dangerous attempt to circumvent privacy laws.” Indeed, if upheld the ruling will basically legalize the unauthorized copying of other people’s emails, which raises serious privacy concerns.

The Pirate Bay, who were also the target of MPAA spying activities, have not taken any action. Instead, spokesman Peter Sunde laughed it away. “I think it’s amazingly funny if the MPAA bought information like that, expensively, and against the US law. Only proves their stupidity and that they have no case,” he told TorrentFreak earlier.

For the MPAA, losing the appeal might have some serious repercussions, especially for MPAA President Dan Glickman. Glickman is already highly criticized among Hollywood insiders for his lack of effectiveness. Since his contract renewal is due around the same time the hacker case appeal will be decided on, his job is on the line.

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

The case was initiated in January 2006 and in the summer of 2007 a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to start logging all user data. The judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities and these were to be handed over to the MPAA. In a response to this decision, TorrentSpy decided to block access to all US visitors instead.

The trouble for the torrent site was not over though. On March 24 2008 the site went offline and a month later TorrentSpy’s owner was ordered to pay a $110 million fine after the court terminated the case. This decision is currently under appeal.

Today marks the passing of a year since the site’s closure, so TorrentFreak took the opportunity to catch up with TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnell to see where he stands 12 months on. We began by asking him whether he believes he made the right decision when he took the site offline.

“Most decisions you can review with hindsight and decide if it was good or bad. However, this is one that I still question even today,” Justin told us. “We took the site offline to show we were serious about settlement – we figured if they hated the site and therefore us, taking the site down would make them happy.”

However, the MPAA didn’t back off, quite the opposite. “Their bewildering reaction was to get angry instead. In short, we took the site down so it would stop being such a contentious issue with the courts and I would probably make the same decision today,” Justin said.

Although the site has ceased to exist, together with one of the largest BitTorrent communities, Justin is still dealing with the TorrentSpy legacy in court.

When we asked him what he missed the most, Justin said he didn’t “miss out” on any of the downside fun. “It is sad that a vibrant community that shared ideas and opinions about technology, politics, society and other speech has been obliterated, but the sad fact is that Goliath wins most of the time,” he told.

“I have become cynical about the fairness and standard of justice in our courts and political process,” Justin said commenting on the legal proceedings involving his site, and the future of file sharing in general. “I see very little opposition to more and more restrictions on the actions and speech of the Public to ‘protect’ the entertainment industry, especially now.”

A handful of torrent sites that are willing to stand up in court are no match for the powerful lobby of the entertainment industry according to Justin. “Money is the gas of the political engine and in 2008 alone the entertainment industry gave $47M to politicians. What do you think these profit obsessed corporations expect in return?”

It is indeed sad to see that lobbyists have manage to influence lawmakers into some of the most idiotic decisions. Change has not come yet for P2P apparently. We wish Justin all the best, and hope that his appeal is a success.

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

The judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities. Even worse, the BitTorrent site was ordered to hand these logs over to the MPAA. TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnel didn’t want to give up the privacy of the site’s users, and decided that it was best to block access to all users from the US instead. In March 2008 he went further still, taking the decision to shut down completely.

“We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to bring the TorrentSpy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008,” Bunnel wrote in a message to users of the site. A month after this decision the case against the MPAA was terminated and his company was ordered to pay a $110 million fine, which it has now appealed.

TorrentSpy’s lawyer, Ira Rothken, told CNET News, “We’re arguing the court was wrong in procedures and wrong in judgment. In a one-hour hearing regarding discovery issues, the court terminated the case and didn’t give TorrentSpy a trial. We believe the court was wrong and abused its discretion. We believe the court ordered TorrentSpy to do things that was in violation of the site’s privacy policy and we believe that the tension between the court’s discovery orders and user-privacy rights is an important issue on appeal.”

The MPAA wont be too happy that TorrentSpy hasn’t given up the fight yet. At the time, MPAA’s Dan Glickman was very pleased with the outcome of the case, as he said: “The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders.”

With the appeal, filed at the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, TorrentSpy aim to overturn this earlier judgment, and restore hope for other BitTorrent site owners in the US.

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

In 2005, an associate of TorrentSpy, Robert Anderson, ‘changed sides’ after an internal dispute and decided to work with the MPAA instead, gathering evidence against the BitTorrent site.

The man configured the TorrentSpy mail server to copy and forward all of the site’s email to his own Gmail account. He later sold the 34 pages of information to the MPAA for around $15,000 but later relented and went back to work with the torrent site, telling them what he knew. The same man also spied on The Pirate Bay.

The EFF had filed a brief with the 9th US Circuit Court of Appeals, arguing that federal wiretap laws protect emails from interception while they are stored on the mail servers that work to transmit them. However, the federal district court ruled that because the emails were momentarily stored on the server during the delivery process, under the Wiretap Act they were not technically intercepted. The ruling itself only applies to the 9th District, but could have relevance at other courts in the US.

In its friend-of-the-court brief, the EFF states this ruling is incorrect and must be reviewed, since it could allow the government to spy on other people’s emails in the future, without the need for a court order.

“The district court’s decision, if upheld, would have dangerous repercussions far beyond this single case,” Senior Staff Attorney Kevin Bankston at the EFF said. “That court opinion — holding that the secret and unauthorized copying and forwarding of emails while they pass through an email server is not an illegal interception of those emails — threatens to wholly eviscerate federal privacy protections against Internet wiretapping and to authorize the government to conduct similar email surveillance without getting a wiretapping order from a judge.”

It appears that, as long as emails aren’t actually intercepted en-route, it could be legal for the government to request that an ISP copies an individual’s emails after they arrive on the mail server. This would not be classed as a breach of wiretap laws, which is a worryingly easy circumvention of vital privacy laws according to the EFF.

The EFF asks the Court to vacate the district court decision, and and rule that the MPAA hacker did “intercept” email communication from TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnell. The full amicus brief can be viewed here.

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

It is uncertain at this point whether TorrentSpy will appeal.

Unsurprisingly, MPAA’s Dan Glickman was very pleased with the outcome of the case that lasted over two years, as he said:

“This substantial money judgment sends a strong message about the illegality of sites. The demise of TorrentSpy is a clear victory for the studios and demonstrates that such pirate sites will not be allowed to continue to operate without facing relentless litigation by copyright holders.”

“The claims made by the MPAA in this case don’t stand up to any sort of scrutiny,” says Andrew Norton, head of the US Pirate Party in a response. “It is also clear that our judicial system urgently needs some unbiased education in modern technical matters, as anyone that has watched this case knows the judge is out of her depth. What chance does justice have in that situation?”

In 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site, but this changed quickly in August 2007, when a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data. The judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities, and hand these over to the MPAA.

In a response to this decision – and to ensure the privacy of their users – TorrentSpy decided that it was best to block access to all users from the US. This led to a huge decrease in traffic and revenue.

This was not enough for the MPAA, who argued that TorrentSpy had ignored the court decision. The legal battle continued, and this lead to a preventative closure of the site by Justin, to protect the privacy of its users.

UPDATE – Wired have the judgement available in their coverage here

UPDATE – TorrentSpy will appeal the decision.

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

The main reason for the shutdown is the ongoing legal battle with the MPAA, which started February 2006. “We now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users – permanent shutdown,” Justin writes.

By the end of 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular than any other BitTorrent site, but this changed quickly in August 2007, when a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data. The judge ruled that TorrentSpy had to monitor its users in order to create detailed logs of their activities, and hand these over to the MPAA.

In a response to this decision – and to ensure the privacy of their users – TorrentSpy decided that it was best to block access to all users from the US. This led to a huge decrease in traffic and revenue.

This was not enough for the MPAA, who argued that TorrentSpy had ignored the court decision. The legal battle continued, and this eventually led to a preventative closure of the site by Justin, to protect the privacy of its users.

Brokep from The Pirate Bay had this to say about the closure: “Today all big torrent sites are pressured somehow. TPB has its share of pressure, however we expected it and have a legal system that is more just in cases like this. The way that the copyright lobby is going at this is totally wrong and we can’t let them win. And we won’t let them win. Today we reached a loss of a site, but it was more a person having to give up for economical reasons than anything else. The copyright lobby has their big cards – money and influence. In the long run they will have to give up as well. And when they do, I’ll go to the US and buy Justin a well-deserved beer.”

At this point it is not clear what will happen to the TorrentSpy.com domain. Perhaps Justin should offer it to other BitTorrent site owners?

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

The MPAA already claims a victory, but Justin Bunnell, founder of TorrentSpy does not want to give up yet. He told News.com in a response: “It’s not like they proved their case. It’s not like they proved that TorrentSpy infringed copyright, I think we have a lot of grounds for appeal and we’ll pursue it vigorously.”

John Malcolm, Executive Vice President and Director of Worldwide Anti-Piracy Operations for the MPAA said in a response to the ruling: “The court clearly recognized that defendants engaged in evidence destruction because they knew that such evidence would prove damaging to them. The sole purpose of TorrentSpy and sites like it is to facilitate and promote the unlawful dissemination of copyrighted content. TorrentSpy is a one-stop shop for copyright infringement and we will continue to aggressively enforce our members’ rights
to stop such infringement.”

To get a more “balanced” view we asked Andrew Norton, a spokesman for the US Pirate Party for a response, and he said: “This case shows again the need for radical reform in the US legal system, as well as educating our judges to deal with modern technology. This is not the 1970s, where the basic underpinnings and mechanics of technologies were readily understandable by the layman, but require significant knowledge in the technologies involved. Perhaps it is time we had specific courts with jurists who are kept upto date on technological progress, so that justice can be sought, rather than judgments based on which side has the most lyrical attorney.”

In August, a federal judge ordered TorrentSpy to log all user data stored in RAM. In a response to this decision – and to ensure the privacy of their users – they decided that it was best to block access to all users from the US. TorrentSpy, once the most visited BitTorrent site on the Internet has taken some serious hits from the MPAA and this ruling doesn’t make it easier. In October we reported that TorrentSpy’s traffic, and thus their revenue have plunged after they banned US visitors, and it is not likely that the movie studios will back off the site shuts down completely.

To be continued…

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

Despite the differences these four guys sometimes have, they all believe that no other P2P protocol performs better than BitTorrent at the moment. However, there’s no doubt that there will be changes in the future.

“Technology is always evolving and I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using a different protocol” says Justin from TorrentSpy. Peter (aka Brokep) from The Pirate Bay also thinks new protocols will take over eventually. “There will be other alternatives,” he said “Not necessarily ours but others will come.” Niek from mininova has more faith in BitTorrent but expects that the protocol will evolve rapidly, an opinion shared by Gary from IsoHunt.

Most of the admins also predict that mainstream production companies will eventually embrace BitTorrent and P2P and some of them hope to play an active role in the transition from old to new media distribution. Below you can read the full responses to the question I asked them: What do you think the future holds for BitTorrent and your website?

Niek from Mininova

I’m sure that we’ll see quite a few changes in the P2P landscape during the next couple of years.

From a business perspective, I notice that content producers recognize more and more the advantages of P2P distribution models (see e.g. the Pariah Island case). We all know that DRM is close-to-death, and major studios are now rethinking their business models, which is a good thing. We’d like to see Mininova play a major role in this shift, so stay tuned for some related announcements the coming weeks :)

Looking at the technical side of things, I expect that the BitTorrent protocol will evolve rapidly. See for example (audio and video) streaming, which is already possible and supported by several clients. Other interesting developments are BT-capable chips and TOR-like functionality. New protocols (like the one proposed by The Pirate Bay) might arise, but only time will tell whether these will substitute BitTorrent. Personally, I think BitTorrent can go a long way with some extensions and modifications.

Having said that, Mininova’s only focus won’t be BitTorrent: when the “next big thing” arises, we’ll definitely consider backing it.

Justin from TorrentSpy

I don’t really concern myself with the future of BitTorrent the protocol but I do care about peer-to-peer as a technology platform. Technology is always evolving and I have little doubt that 5 or 10 years from now we will be using a different protocol. However I firmly believe that the use of peer-to-peer for everything from data transfer to shared CPU power will take the Internet to the next level.

If we look at TV you will already see this trend. Media use in our society is transitioning from someone else deciding what you want (push) to something that allows what you want, when you want it (pull). Right now you turn the TV on at 8pm to watch your favorite show or skip channels until you stumble across something interesting. The future is a demand system where you can buy and watch an episode the network has “released” any time you want. Tivo is a first step in this direction.

Surprising as it may seem, this can be done pretty easily today, but is tied up in complex licensing schemes, conflicts between producers and distributors, and a wide array of selfish interests. Unfortunately many companies use their power and influence to halt and punish innovations they cannot think of ways to make money with. The monopolies tried to stop the VHS, DVD, and MP3 player, but thankfully failed when they took it to Court. Now Imagine for a second all the amazing products they did manage to squash…

Gary from IsoHunt

With so much momentum of content behind BitTorrent, I don’t see it going away anytime soon. Unless there’s a far superior and open protocol that is superior to BitTorrent in efficiency and convenience, for which BitTorrent is pretty hard to beat, I see we’ll like have new developments by extending the existing BitTorrent protocol. Although Bram Cohen talked about Merkle trees as a major revision in improving BitTorrent, and that didn’t go anywhere (at least not in open source). When BitTorrent Inc. do significant enough closed source changes to the protocol, BitTorrent will fork or new open protocols will rise.

For future of BitTorrent sites and IsoHunt, I’ve always been an advocate of open and public access. The more sites try to go underground, the more reasons the authority think there’s something dark at work and more they will take sites down by force – Oink and other private trackers for example. I’ve been blogging about P2P and its economic sense/legitimate use cases for a while (latest one on independent music), and I believe that’s what will give BitTorrent continued adoption and acceptance as a de-facto protocol and internet standard. It’s like the WWW: if people didn’t use the early web for other purposes than for porn (which was prolific in the web’s early days), the governments might have a different view and regulations on the internet now. It’s not what copyright infringement or “piracy” may be occurring, on P2P, BitTorrent or the internet. It’s what new use cases we nurture that benefits both end users and content producers, that will correct the stigma behind P2P and BitTorrent and accelerate their acceptance. Development on isoHunt and our other sites will for sure be done with this in mind.

Peter aka Brokep from The Pirate Bay

First of all, I don’t think it’s easy to predict the future. But I do think that it’s very important to be very promiscuous when it comes to the protocols we use. BitTorrent is currently the best but this might change. There will be other alternatives, not necessarily ours but others will come.

In five years things are probably very different from today, technology wise and politically. The latter thing is the biggest issue, not the technology. I would foresee that streaming is bigger and the companies still try to frame their users to use their locked down systems, maybe not DRM but rather streamed with their clients (like the BT DNA system) which will contain other copyright protection scams.

What do you think?

It’s great to hear the opinions and predictions of the leading BitTorrent admins, but what do you think the future of BitTorrent will be? Will we be all using a new protocol 5 years from now, will BitTorrent sites change, will TV and movie producers embrace BitTorrent?

Let us know!

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

TorrentSpy, once the most visited BitTorrent site on the Internet has already taken some serious hits from the MPAA and are now facing another attempt to try and knock them out for good. Earlier this week we reported that TorrentSpy’s traffic, and thus their revenue have plunged after they banned US visitors, but it seems that the movie studios wont stop until the site shuts down completely.

In court documents obtained by CNET News.com we read: “(TorrentSpy) took steps to make the Server Log Data unavailable for the express purpose of avoiding compliance with the (court) order. This claim should be seen for what it is: another illegitimate attempt by defendants to evade authority of this court and the May 29 order.”

And to make it even worse, the MPAA has now asked the judge to rule that the .torrent links offered (not hosted) by TorrentSpy are illegal and infringing copyright – which is an absurd demand of course.

TorrentFreak asked Justin, the founder of TorrentSpy, for a response and he told us: “They are attempting to distort the fact that we have never logged user actions on the site into something entirely new and different. Lets put this into playground terms:”

PUNK: “Teacher! His friends hit me!”
TEACHER: “Did they actually hit you? How many times? When? Where?”
PUNK: “I have no idea! I think they did though , I just don’t like him!”
BOY: “I didn’t hit him. My friends never did either.”
PUNK: “Make him start tracking his friends! Where they go and what they do.”
TEACHER: “OK. Start tracking them.”
BOY: “Well since you bring it up, my friends don’t even go to his school…”
PUNK: “Waaaaahhhh! He is a meanie! Punish him!”

I guess we all know who the punk is here. Stay tuned!

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

Although it is relatively easy for US users to access TorrentSpy through proxies such as UnblockTorrentSpy, most people get their .torrent files elsewhere. Torrent sites like Mininova, The Pirate Bay, Torrentz and Isohunt all benefited from the partial TorrentSpy shutdowns and continued to grow over the past months.

By the end of 2006 TorrentSpy was more popular that any other BitTorrent site, but times have changed. The graph below shows that Mininova now receives the most traffic, The Pirate Bay, Torrentz and Isohunt battle for second place and TorrentSpy dropped to the fifth position.

Censorship seems to be the new strategy employed by anti-piracy organizations these days. Not only did the MPAA manage to shut down TorrentSpy from US users, they’re also the reason why Isohunt blocked access to US users on their TorrentBox and PodTropolis tracker. The Pirate Bay on the other hand is banned in Turkey and even the P2P friendly Canadians are not safe anymore after the CRIA pressured demonoid to ban Canadians from their website.

A trend?

Note: Alexa’s data gathering is quite dubious. The exact figures may be not be completely accurate for smaller sites, but it is a great tool (especially the traffic rank) to compare larger 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.

Sorry, but because you are located in the USA you cannot use the search features of the Torrentspy.com website.Torrentspy’s decision to stop accepting US visitors was NOT compelled by any Court but rather an uncertain legal climate in the US regarding user privacy and an apparent tension between US and European Union privacy laws.

The search redirect will be permanent, TorrentSpy owner Justin Bunnell told TorrentFreak: “We must comply with European Union privacy laws and turning off USA traffic was the only way to guarantee that protection for our users. It is not something with a time limit.”. Over 15% of TorrentSpy’s visitors are US residents, shutting them down for good will be a disaster for the site.

We also asked Justin how he thinks this will affect the future of TorrentSpy, and he responded: “Whatever future awaits, the innovations of peer-to-peer technology and the jobs and opportunities it creates will take place outside of the USA.”

TorrentSpy currently does not log any user data, but if the court decides that they have to hand over all information stored in RAM, this would be a huge blow to Internet privacy. The MPAA reasons that all IPs, downloaded .torrent files, dates and other user info are temporarily stored in RAM for a few milliseconds and demands that TorrentSpy logs this info and hands it over to the MPAA. Basically they are demanding that TorrentSpy should keep server logs (pdf link).

TorrentSpy lawyer Ira Rothken is determined to fight this but said in a statement about the case: “The odds favor the copyright owners, copyright law in this country is Draconian and dramatically skewed on the owner’s side”.

Everything TorrentSpy does also applies to other search engines according to the TorrentSpy defense. Last year, when the case started, Rothken said “It [TorrentSpy] cannot be held ‘tertiary’ liable for visitors’ conduct that occurs away from its web search engine”. TorrentSpy claims it did nothing illegal and suggested the MPAA should sue Google.

To be continued…

Update: A federal judge ruled that TorrentSpy must log all data stored in RAM, this is why TorrentSpy blocked the searches.

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

The owner of SumoTorrent told TorrentFreak that he discovered that A search on Google for sumotorrent now triggers the following message at the bottom of the results page:

“In response to a complaint we received under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, we have removed 1 result(s) from this page. If you wish, you may read the DMCA complaint that caused the removal(s) at ChillingEffects.org.”

A search for other BitTorrent sites like Torrentspy and Torrentreactor comes up with the same message (note. the sites are still indexed but some results are removed). Strangely enough, for torrentreactor it only shows up for a search on the .com domain.

According to Google the filtered search results are caused by DMCA complaints , but the owner of SumoTorrent is a little surprised by this. He has no clue why the “content owner” didn’t contact him directly because he generally processes takedown notices within 24 hours. Unfortunately the link Google provides to the complaint in question doesn’t work, and a search on ChillingEffects.org doesn’t really help much either.

One of the few BitTorrent related DMCA complaints Google received concerned Paris Hilton’s famous . This notice was sent by Jim Salomon, the brother of Rick Salomon who used to date Paris. The complaint is hilarious, Jim even complains why it takes Google more than 4 hours to remove the .torrent in question. Funny or not, eventually Google decided to remove the .torrent file in question from their search results.

What Google has done isn’t really that revolutionary because most administrators of BitTorrent sites take down torrent files themselves upon request. However, the main reason for this is that they don’t want endless legal battles. They see it as a service to the content owners to remove the .torrent files if a decent request is made. But I kind of hoped that Google would make a stand here, wishful thinking so it seems.So what do you think? Should Google filter their results like this?

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

Various forum threads, even on TorrentSpy, warn naive users about these clients. Still, TorrentSpy is actively advertising Get-Torrent, and infecting hundreds of their users’ computers, resulting in a torrent of annoying popups.

Unlike TorrentSpy, most BitTorrent site admins refuse to advertise these clients. The Pirate Bay and mininova successfully banned these malicious clients from advertising through Adbrite, and BTjunkie and many other sites wont let them on their site either.

The malware bundled with BitTorrent clients like Get-Torrent, Torrent101, TorrentQ and BitRoll is a sponsor program called “Cidhelp”. Apparently, it can be easily removed from the Windows Control Panel. However, in most cases your anti-spyware or anti-virus program damaged the files, leaving them impossible to uninstall, while they still cause numerous popups.

In April we ran a Google Adwords campaigns on the Bitroll, Torrent101 and Torrentq websites warning users not to install these clients. Even though it was fun and probably prevented a couple of hundred people from installing the clients, it is far from an ideal solution. The best way is to spread the word, start forum threads and write blog posts or emails to warn others.

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

This basically means that the content owners such as the RIAA and the MPAA get complete control over the(ir) content on all the sites that use FileRights. They decide what torrents can stay and what torrents have to be filtered out. Pirate Bay admin Brokep thinks that the removal system is a step in the wrong direction and accuses Torrentspy of trying to make money by sleeping with both sides, “if you can’t take the heat, get out of the kitchen, don’t blow it up so nobody else can cook” he adds.

With FileRights, content owners can remove whatever they want and this raises the question how honest the content owners will be in the filtering process. As Brokep notes:

“Who checks that a copyright claim is correct? Who downloads all those files and checks them out to see if they are what they seem to be? What happens when the right holders start censoring other peoples content as well, maybe out of moral or maybe for a competing company? I’m afraid for how little people care about their own rights. Yes, the peoples rights, not the right holders rights.”

Isohunt’s owner Gary Fung clearly disagreed with this and started throwing mud back at Brokep by saying:

“You are either illiterate and don’t check the frontpage of sites you are pointing fingers at, or you are a communist. Or both. What makes you think you have rights to content you didn’t produce? People’s rights vs. copyright holders’ rights? Please. I will laugh at you when you are marked a terrorist and US armies hunt you down. Not that I like the whole anti-terrorist thing from the US but I digress.”

Justin from Torrentspy told TorrentFreak that he doesn’t understand all the commotion about FileRights.

“I dont believe FileRights is incompatible with what is going on now,” he says. “TorrentSpy processes DMCA requests and always has, so do Isohunt, Mininova, and many others. The idea for FileRights actually came from a file hash filtering system that TorrentSpy has been using for over two years. Many companies, such as Microsoft, the RIAA, the IFPI, Universal, and the Business Software Alliance have been using the system to remove their content from TorrentSpy for years already. FileRights just makes the process less time consuming for content owners and BitTorrent site admins.”

A noticeably upset Brokep, who was never a fan of either Torrentspy or Isohunt, turns it up a notch on his blog, and asks Torrentspy owner Justin:

“Or will you also in the next step of the system demand logs of the users that downloaded the content, so when a right holder puts up a torrent or hash he automatically gets the IPs that downloaded the same file? Maybe a good next step Justin”

It is clear that the admins clearly differ in their vision of the DMCA takedown process. The Pirate Bay chooses not to respond to DMCA takedown requests at all, while Torrentspy and Isohunt’s FileRights system makes it easier for content owners to take down infringing .torrent files.

So what do you think? Is the filtering system that Isohunt and Torrentspy use a necessary evil?

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

Btswarm.org

Btswarm.org is a fast and clean BitTorrent site that is available in 5 different languages. The site currently indexes 107,907 torrents, which represents over 80TB of data. Btswarm supports search based RSS feeds, a great feature that every site should have in my opinion.

SumoTorrent.com

SumoTorrent who recently partnered with FileSoup, one of the oldest BitTorrent communities, collects the BitTorrent stats for our monthly stats post. But, they also serve torrents and offer not only .torrent links but also Azureus magnet links, and DHT links.

One of the things about SumoTorrent that I particularly like is that they have their own tracker, something more BitTorrent sites should do. At the moment 50% of all the torrents on public trackers are tracked by The Pirate Bay All hell would break loose if they were taken down.

FlixFlux.co.uk

FlixFlux is a BitTorrent site that focuses on movie releases. On the frontpage they list the US box office charts, DVD rental charts, and the UK box office charts. If you register you can also keep track of your favorite movies on the site. FlixFlux has a description for every film including the IMDB rating and plans to add movie trailers and for their torrents soon, which is an interesting feature.

A similar site also dedicated to movies torrents is Superfundo, they focus mainly on Scene and aXXo movie releases.

TorrentTAB.com

TorrentTAB is a new BitTorrent meta-search engine that displays the search results in a tabbed view. Personally I’m not a big fan of meta-search engines, but I know others like it. The tabbed searching works quite well. TorrentTAB site currently searches Isohunt, Mininova, Torrentz, BTjunkie, Meganova, and Torrentspy.

JunkNova.com

JunkNova is a torrent review site that keeps you up to date on all the stuff that’s available on BitTorrent, similar to sites like rlslog and hypoh. JunkNova is brought to you by the makers of TorrentScoop, a Google-powered BitTorent search engine.

MicroTor.org

The last site in our list is Microtor, a site that only indexes TV torrents. MicroTor allows you to browse through the available shows and seasons and they also have a brief plot outline for every TV show.

Do you know any new BitTorrent sites that are worth a visit? Feel free to leave a comment!

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

01.Australia
Favorite Site: Mininova

02. Romania
Favorite Site: Mininova

03. Greece
Favorite Site: Mininova

04. Netherlands
Favorite Site: Mininova

05. Canada
Favorite Site: Torrentspy

06. United Kingdom
Favorite Site: Torrentspy

07. Sweden
Favorite Site: The Pirate Bay

08. Slovakia
Favorite Site: Torrentz

09. Malaysia
Favorite Site: Mininova

10. France
Favorite Site: Mininova

–

12 Unites States
Favorite Site: Torrentspy

It is remarkable to see that there are some clear differences in the origin of the visitors among BitTorrent sites. Mininova is the most popular BitTorrent site in Australia, Torrentspy in Canada, and perhaps less surprising, The Pirate Bay rules Sweden.

The numbers below show how popular these sites are. 59 for Australia means that mininova ranks 59th in the list of most visited sites in Australia.

Mininova
59. Australia
78. Romania
78. Greece
81. France
92. Netherlands

Torrentspy
63. Canada
68. Australia
77. United Kingdom
77. Croatia
84. United Arab Emirates

The Pirate Bay
17. Sweden
34. Norway
61. Denmark
64. Finland
127. The Netherlands

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.

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.

Even worse is the fact that they advertise these malware clients on several torrent sites, using phrases like “Download Torrents using Torrent101 for high speed downloads”. Torrentspy and Torrentscan are two reputable sites that knowingly advertise for these clients. They go so far as to integrate the ads into their design. Experienced BitTorrent users will probably not fall into this trap, but I bet many newcomers will.

You might wonder why respectable BitTorrent site admins advertise for these clients. Well the answer to that is simple: MONEY. The developers pay a lot of cash to these admins, who get paid for installing malware on their turn.

The ads also appear on The Pirate Bay and several other sites through contextual ad-services like Adbrite and Targetpoint (screenshot). They they tried to get on mininova as well, but the site admins rejected the ad proposal on Adbrite, and blocked ads from these malicious clients via Targetpoint.

Another site that was recently infected is Snarf-it. One of the junior admins accidentally made a deal with Torrent101, something that goes completely against the ’safe ads’ policy of one of the cleanest BitTorrent sites on the net. The contract was canceled as soon as possible, and Rafe, the site admin later apologized for the mistake.

So watch out! And avoid these malicious clients.

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

It’s interesting how BitTorrent Inc’s focus has shifted to include DRM and be restricted to only legal content. The initial goal of BitTorrent.com was to index all the various movies, music, TV shows and other files available over BitTorrent. Wired News reported in 2005 on the upcoming launch of the site that was going to be “an advertising-supported search engine dedicated to cataloging and indexing the thousands of movies, music tracks, software programs and other files for download.”

We recently wrote about how BitTorrent.com was helping game developers distribute demos. In that article we profiled the strategy game Disciples II: Dark Prophecy. It was only a demo. But if you type “Disciples” into the search box on BitTorrent.com, you’ll find both the demo and a pirated version of the full game. Or try searching for “Prison Break” and see what you find. Each one of the 29 results you get is a copyrighted file. How exactly do these “filters” work?

How does BitTorrent.com get all this illegal content? It obviously doesn’t have an active uploading community like The Pirate Bay or Torrentspy. Instead, it indexes other torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, Meganova, Torrent Portal and TorrentReactor.

So, our question is, How is BitTorrent.com different from any other so-called illegal torrent site that indexes copyrighted content? Btmon.com does exactly the same thing! Sure, BitTorrent.com’s frontpage is full of game demos, legal music downloads and movie trailers, but one little search query away is just about every popular movie, TV show, music album and computer game.

In our minds, and according to US law, what BitTorrent.com is doing is not illegal. The DMCA clearly states that websites are only required to take down files if the copyright holder or a representative files a complaint. But why does the MPAA sue sites like Isohunt and Torrentspy (who also respect the DCMA), while they’re in bed with BitTorrent?

Dan Glickman (MPAA) and Bram Cohen (BitTorrent)

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

And then there was this strange story about the “hacker” that was hired by the MPAA to steal confidential information from Torrentspy. Luckily this alleged hacker switched sides later, and decided to help Torrentspy to take on the MPAA instead.

There was more good news. Torrentspy continued to grow, and is, together with Mininova, the most popular BitTorrent search engine on the Internet. Both sites are even in the list of the top 250 most visited websites on the Internet.

And there was of course the complete site redesign, which made Torrentspy even more user friendly for those 2 million registered users.

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