The music industry is changing. While the record labels are desperately trying to protect the revenue stream from album sales, a new generation of artists is starting to realize that they are better off when they give away their music for free. By now, we’re all familiar with the industry’s view, but what drives these artists?
Some months back, Project Gazelle was launched. It was an attempt to build a new and improved BitTorrent tracker script. The ultimate goal is to produce a new framework for private torrent sites, faster than the common TB source, while being more secure from a code point of view, easier to modify, and more flexible.
A company which hosts many BitTorrent trackers has been ordered by the CRIA to close at least four major sites. Moxie Colo was issued with cease and desist notices and ordered to hand over the owners data and site logs of What.cd, SumoTracker, BTMon and FullDls. They are told to simply close many other sites they host.
After a sneak peak and trial run last month, the what.cd team has finally made a semi-public release of the Gazelle tracker and site software, by doing its first large scale roll-out on its own site.
The acceptability of P2P took another big step forward over the weekend, as accounts claiming to be ‘the official profile for NIN’ appeared on a number of torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay and the private trackers What.cd and Waffles.fm. NIN has now confirmed that these accounts indeed belong to the band.
Users of OiNK-replacement What.cd, are receiving emails from what appears to be the RIAA. In it are threats that users must either stop their ‘criminal acts of piracy’ or have charges pressed against them. But is it the RIAA? Rival Waffles.fm? No, it’s a 14 yr old script kiddie out for revenge, says What.cd
With the demise of oink, many music aficionados were left with little in the way of similar sites. However, true to the hydra phenomenon, a week later and several new sites have sprung up to replace it. We asked the admins of two of these sites for their future plans.
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Left Quote“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.
Peter Sunde Left Quote
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