TorrentFreak

Torrentspy, still one of the most popular torrent sites on the web, is about to undergo a change of appearance. It seems like they’re hopping on the web2.0 bandwagon. It looks neat though, have a look.

A month ago Torrentspy sued the MPAA because an alleged hacker, hired by the MPAA, retrieved private information from the BitTorrent indexer. But according to Cnet Robert Anderson (the hacker) is now helping Torrentspy to fight the MPAA.

Among the claims by Valence Media (Torrentspy) is that as part of its attempt to gather information on [...]

In November 2005 BitTorrent and the MPAA announced that they were going to cooperate in the “war against piracy”. The agreement was called a “historic event” and a “major breakthrough”. But now, 4 months later BitTorrent.com is still indexing pirated movies and other copyrighted material.

Torrentspy, one of the biggest BitTorrent search engines, filed a “motion to dismiss” the lawsuit initiated by the MPAA a month ago. Torrentspy is accused of “supporting” copyright infringement. However, torrentspy reacted to these accusations saying that everything they do, Google can do to… and even better.

Torrentspy, one of the biggest torrent sites out there “lost” their TV and Movie directory. This obviously makes it harder for people to browse through the torrent listing and find the files they want. The categories in question are replaced by a more general “video” directory. And categories like DVD-screener, Telecine and Cam are totally gone.

Torrentspy is flirting with movie and music studios in its quest for legitimacy. The idea to provide authorized music and movies is not new, but torrentspy is the first “torrentsite” that actively searches ways to provide authorized content to their users. However, if torrentspy want to succeed, it probably has to choose a side.

Based on Alexa’s traffic ratings torrentspy.com is the most popular torrent site of 2005. Torrentspy caught up with isohunt.com and torrentreactor.net around April.