5 Ways To Download Torrents Anonymously
Posted on: August 19, 2010With anti-piracy outfits and dubious law-firms policing BitTorrent swarms at an increasing rate, many Bittorrent users are looking for ways to hide their identities from the outside world. To accommodate this demand we'll give an overview of 5 widely used privacy services.
With an increasing number of BitTorrent users seeking solutions to hide their identities from the outside world, privacy services have seen a spike in customers recently. Below we've listed some of the most-used services that allow BitTorrent users to hide their IP-addresses from the public.
The services discussed in this post range from totally free to costing several dollars a month. The general rule is that free services are generally slower or have other restrictions, while paid ones can get you the same speeds as your regular connection would.
VPN (paid / free)
Hundreds and thousands of BitTorrent users have already discovered that a VPN is a good way to ensure privacy while using BitTorrent. For a few dollars a month VPNs route all your traffic through their servers, hiding your IP address from the public. Some VPNs also offer a free plan, but these are significantly slower and not really suited for more demanding BitTorrent users.
Unlike the other services listed in this article, VPNs are not limited to just BitTorrent traffic, they will also conceal the source of all the other traffic on your connection too. Ipredator, Itshidden and StrongVPN are popular among BitTorrent users, but a Google search should find dozens more. It is recommended to ask beforehand if BitTorrent traffic is permitted on the service of your choice.
BTGuard (paid)
BTGuard is a proxy service that hides the IP-addresses of its users from the public. The service works on Windows, Mac, Linux and as the name already suggests, it is set up specifically with BitTorrent users in mind. Besides using the pre-configured client, users can also set up their own client to work with BTGuard. It works with all clients that support “Socks V5″ proxies including uTorrent and Vuze. In addition, BTGuard also includes encryption tunnel software for the real security purists.
After these words of praise we're obligated to disclose that BTGuard is operated by friends of TorrentFreak, but we think that should be interpreted as a recommendation.
TorrentPrivacy (paid)
Torrentprivacy is another proxy service for BitTorrent users, very similar to that of BTGuard. It offers a modified uTorrent client that has all the necessary settings pre-configured. The downside to this approach is that it is limited to users on Windows platforms. TorrentPrivacy is operated by the TorrentReactor.net team and has been in business for more than two years.
Anomos (free)
“Anomos is a pseudonymous, encrypted multi-peer-to-peer file distribution protocol. It is based on the peer/tracker concept of BitTorrent in combination with an onion routing anonymization layer, with the added benefit of end-to-end encryption,” is how the Anomos team describes its project.
Anomos is one of the few free multi-platform solutions for BitTorrent users to hide their IP-addresses. The downside is that it's not fully compatible with regular torrent files as Anomos uses its own atorrent format. Another drawback is that the download speeds are generally lower than regular BitTorrent transfers.
On the uTorrent Idea Bank, more than 1,600 people have asked for the Anomos protocol to be built in to a future uTorrent build, making it the second most-popular suggestion overall.
Seedbox (paid)
A seedbox is BitTorrent jargon for a dedicated high-speed server, used exclusively for torrent transfers. With a seedbox users generally get very high download speeds while their IP-addresses are not shared with the public. Once a download is finished users can download the files to their PC through a fast http connection. FileShareFreak periodically reviews several good seedbox providers.
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Feel free to drop us a comment if you think we left something out, or if you have experiences or recommendations you want to share.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/BHMmX-rPpw8/ Post LinkEight Cool New uTorrent Features Coming Soon
Posted on: August 18, 2010In May this year the BitTorrent Inc. added a section to their site which enabled the community to vote for new features they would like to see included in uTorrent. Voting has been furious and dozens of new tweaks and additions have been made. Here's the next eight major additions uTorrent users can look forward to.
uTorrent is one of the most widely used pieces of BitTorrent software and is the client of choice for more than 50 million users worldwide.
In May, BitTorrent Inc. introduced its Idea Bank section, which allows uTorrent users to submit and vote for features, tweaks and ideas they would like to see implemented in their favorite client.
Since its introduction hundreds of suggestions have been submitted to the Idea Bank and these have been voted on by thousands of users. Already nearly 60 proposals have been accepted and implemented by the team and many more are pending. Below is an explanation of the Top 8 most voted-for-and-accepted additions coming to a uTorrent client near you soon.
1. uTorrent for Linux
As reported in June, uTorrent for Linux is finally on the way. With more than 5300 votes, this is the most popular suggestion received thus far.
“We're making good progress on the Linux client,” reports site admin Firon. “Sit tight and we'll have a client out soon enough.”
2. More detailed priorities for multiple files in torrent downloads
For torrents that contain multiple files, such as one for a music album with 10 tracks, at the moment it's possible to force uTorrent to prioritize the download of those tracks, albeit primitively. Currently there are just three settings – low, medium and high.
“We'll either add up to 16 priorities or have a per-torrent option to auto-prioritize the files in order,” explains Firon. “Though not the pieces, so we'll still do rarest first.”
3. Send an email when a download completes
With increasing bandwidth and users increasing their set up knowledge, BitTorrent downloads are completing faster than ever before. However, with increased speeds comes an increased appetite for higher quality and therefore larger downloads, xvid versus DVD-size videos for example. Inevitably this means that users will be away from their machines when certain downloads complete. With email notifications, completion will be reported immediately.
“The current plan to implement this is to simply have a generalized, global option to auto-run an app after the torrent completes,” says Firon. “We'll add a few variables to the existing run after function and make it global, so you can script it to your heart's content.”
4. Only share files while the computer is idle
While some users will be sharing files all the time, many will want to use their full bandwidth for other duties while they're sat at their desk. Inevitably full-scale BitTorrent up and downloading will affect performance unless the client is carefully configured. This solution will mean that only when a user is finished his work will file-sharing kick in. Firon reports that the feature will likely include a configurable idle period.
5. Scan for viruses when a download completes
Although there is less chance of picking up a virus when using uTorrent combined with a reputable torrent indexing site than other protocols, no method of file-sharing is immune to these threats. An automatic virus check will ensure that nothing slips through the net.
“The current plan to implement this is to simply have a generalized, global option to auto-run an app after the torrent completes,” says Firon. “We'll add a few variables to the existing run after function and make it global, so you can script it to your heart's content.”
6. Password lock uTorrent
Anyone with a shared computer or one within reach of an inquisitive child will be familiar with the fear associated with potential download interference. With the use of a password, torrent transfers can continue unabated and in privacy, no matter who is at the machine.
“This will be integrated with the boss key functionality, so you can use the boss key to ‘lock' ?Torrent,” explains Firon. “When you press it again, it will ask you for a password.”
7. Move torrent files and data with one click
Anyone who has needed to move their downloaded .torrent files and the associated data to a new place on their computer will know what a drawn out manual procedure it can become when lots of files are involved.
“Yes, managing files kinda sucks in ?Torrent right now,” admits Firon. “We'll try to get this done for 2.2 as well to make it easier. Set download location will probably be renamed and will move the content for you, all in one step. Oh, and we'll make ‘Relocate' on the Files tab work the same way.”
8. UNRAR and move files support
Anyone downloading large files split into multiple .RARs will be familiar with the associated unpacking, deleting and moving procedures. This new feature will allow those who don't want this manual distraction to streamline the process.
“The current plan to implement this is to simply have a generalized, global option to auto-run an app after the torrent completes,” says Firon. “We'll add a few variables to the existing run after function and make it global, so you can script it to your heart's content.”
9. uTorrent will become Open Source!!
BitTorrent Inc. are certainly listening to their users and the Idea Bank is a great idea in itself, but don't expect every suggestion to be implemented. Especially this one....
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/aZyFuElgOzY/ Post LinkTech News Sites Tout Misleading BitTorrent Piracy Study
Posted on: July 24, 2010A new study has been making the rounds, concluding that only 0.3% of all files available on BitTorrent are confirmed to be 'legal'. The results of the study were promoted by anti-piracy outfit AFACT and have been picked up by several news outlets, including Ars Technica and ZDNet, who all failed to see that the report is bogus.
Every so often a new study surfaces that attempts to describe the BitTorrent landscape. Yesterday a study by the Internet Commerce Security Laboratory (ICSL) was publicized (pdf) and the researchers found that only 0.3% of all torrents were confirmed legal. Good enough for a catchy headline, but how accurate is the study really?
Unfortunately, the results of these type of studies are pushed by anti-piracy outfits and taken for granted by outsiders, even by respected news outlets on the Internet such as Ars Technica and ZDNet. In this case their reporters were completely taken in by the report.
Just a few minutes into reading the study we were shaking our heads here at the TorrentFreak headquarters. Mistake after mistake is made in the report and conclusions are drawn based on painfully inaccurate data and methodologies. We'll lay out the most critical errors below, which represent just the tip of the iceberg.
The study aims to answer four questions. We will state each question and indicate what's wrong with the answers.
1. How many files are shared using BitTorrent and what are the categories of shared files?
ICSL claims that there are slightly more than a million torrent files to be found online, according to data obtained from 17 BitTorrent trackers this spring. They further come up with an overview of categories where applications account for 2.3% of all torrents, while movies and TV-shows are good for more than 70%.
Both conclusions are horribly wrong.
We're not sure how the researchers came up with the one million torrents because the OpenBitTorrent tracker, which is included in their sample, reports it has 2,5 million torrents alone. In addition, sites such as isoHunt index over 5 million unique torrents. Needless to say, ICSL's data collection methods are far from accurate.
An even bigger flaw is found in the categorization process. The categories are not based on the entire set of torrents, but only on the most-seeded ones, which heavily skews the data. Books and applications generally have a lower seed count than movie and TV-shows which means that they are underrepresented in the category overview.
2. At a given point in time, how much sharing of files is actually occurring using BitTorrent?
“For the trackers that we scraped, we recorded a minimum of 117,420,061 current seeds. This value is calculated by determining the highest available seeder count for each torrent from any tracker that was scraped,” the researchers answer in their report.
Again this is figure is bogus, but this time it's wrong on the other end of the scale. As will become clear later in our analysis, the researchers have made a critical mistake by including various trackers that report false seed counts. We had to chuckle when we saw 2-year-old torrents with more than a million seeders in their report. The real seed count at any given time lies between 10 and 20 million.
3. For each shared file, how many times has it been shared in total?
Here's where the researchers make total fools out of themselves. In their answer to the question they refer to a table of the top 10 most seeded torrents. As noted before, the most seeded file was uploaded nearly two years ago (The Incredible Hulk) and has a massive 1,112,628 seeders. The torrent in 10th place is not doing bad either with 277,043 seeds. All false data.
Top 10 of Fake Torrents?
We're not sure where these numbers originate from but the best seeded torrent at the moment only has 13,739 seeders, that's 1% of what the study reports. Also, the fact that the release is nearly two years old should have sounded some alarm bells. It appears that the researchers have pulled data from a bogus tracker, and it wouldn't be a big surprise if all the torrents in their top 10 are actually fake.
4. Overall, what is the number and percentage of shared files which are infringing, both by number of files and total downloads?
Here the researchers conclude that 97.9% of all files on BitTorrent are copyright infringing, and only 0.3% confirmed ‘legal'. Based on our previous conclusions it is hard to believe that these figures are even remotely accurate, and they aren't. There are too many flaws in the methodology to list here, but for one this statistic is grossly inaccurate because it's based on the most popular files, of which many are fake.
The researchers should have at least tried to determine the percentage of infringing files on their whole (inaccurate) dataset instead of the most seeded ones (of which many are fake). We're not trying to argue that the majority of the torrents are legit, but the selection of torrents and sources is extremely biased towards discovering copyright infringing torrents.
To back this up, we only have to take a look at isoHunt. According to isoHunt their site indexes 5,451,959 unique torrent files, and 85,457 of these come from Jamendo, a site that publishes only Creative Commons licensed music. So that's already 1.5% torrents that can be shared legally, without mentioning any Linux distros.
Bottom line is that this ‘Academic' paper is one of the most inaccurate reports we've seen thus far, and the mainstream tech media either didn't spend long reading the report or simply didn't have the specialist knowledge to read the results and come to their own conclusions. Even worse, the Australian anti-piracy outfit AFACT will probably use this ‘credible' report in court to convince the court that the local ISP iiNet responsible for the copyright infringements of its customers.
Let's hope that Ars and others will update their reports accordingly.
We've contacted Paul Watters, one of the researchers, for a comment but haven't heard back from him yet.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/8OOE_3gJYMo/ Post LinkAdmins Of Oldest BitTorrent Site Face Criminal Charges
Posted on: July 21, 2010Two administrators of Filesoup - the longest standing BitTorrent community - have been charged with conspiracy to infringe copyright for their involvement with the site. The case is the second against UK-based BitTorrent site operators. The first case was brought against the owner of the OiNK BitTorrent tracker, who was later cleared of all charges.
Founded in 2003, UK-based FileSoup was one of the original torrent sites. It outlived many of the sites that sprung up around the time and developed a great reputation and a warm community in the years that followed.
After years of operating the site without any noticeable trouble, in the summer of 2009 police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) conducted a raid on the home address of the site's owner, known online as ‘TheGeeker’. Another raid was carried out around the same time on the property of fellow administrator ‘Snookered'. Both were arrested and taken in for questioning.
From the information that we received after the raids it became clear that the MPAA-funded anti-piracy group FACT had been the driving force behind the case, and that they were responsible for gathering the intelligence that led up to the arrests.
Similar to other cases in the UK, such as that against TV Links, it was not the police but the private anti-piracy group FACT who took charge of property seized from the Filesoup operators. As it turned out, the police themselves knew very little about the suspects and their alleged crimes.
This became clear when Geeker was questioned by the police after his arrest last year. In common with other FACT-run cases, the nature of BitTorrent proved difficult for law enforcement to grasp, with Geeker having to explain how everything worked – including what URLs and domain names are.
Now, nearly a year later, Geeker and a fellow administrator Snookered have been charged with conspiracy to infringe copyright for their role in the site. Notably, Filesoup is mainly a discussion board and although torrent files are linked on the site, it hasn't operated a tracker for half a decade.
The full text as it appears on the charge sheet is as follows:
Between the 1.1.2003 and 1.9.2009 Stephan [...} and George [...} conspired together with others unknown to infringe copyright in a work communicated to the public in the course of a business namely the website ‘Filesoup' knowing or having reason to believe that copyright was infringed.
Conspiracy to Infringe Copyright by Communicating the work to the public Contrary to Section 1 Criminal Law Act 1977
Both admins are currently out on bail but have to surrender to the custody of Taunton Deane Magistrates in Taunton, Somerset, during early August.
Geeker told TorrentFreak that he has been in contact with the same solicitors who successfully defended the admin of the OiNK BitTorrent site, who walked free earlier this year after a UK court cleared him of all charges. He can't give out any more details on the case at the moment, but has promised to keep us updated as soon as he can.
Although OiNK and Filesoup are both BitTorrent sites, the charges are quite different. Instead of going for ‘conspiracy to defraud' as with the case against OiNK admin Allan Ellis, the Filesoup operators are charged with copyright infringement offenses.
It appears that FACT has instructed the authorities to try a different approach this time around since Allan Ellis was not convicted. The most worrying part in this and other cases is that private anti-piracy organizations have so much control of the authorities, up to the point where they can keep seized goods in their possession.
Geeker is confident that he and his fellow admin have a strong case. He believes that, like Alan Ellis, he has never done anything wrong and hopes to convince the court of the same. To be continued.
Charge Sheet (large)
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/wkxw6yVb1no/ Post LinkMusic Industry Threatens OpenBitTorrent’s New Hosting Provider
Posted on: July 11, 2010In the last year or two the entertainment industries have targeted many BitTorrent sites. The majority of the verdicts against these sites have thus far ruled in favor of the copyright holders. Only in Spain have BitTorrent sites been repeatedly found to operate within the boundaries of the law.
Under Spanish law torrent sites and BitTorrent trackers deemed legal even though some of its users may be using it to download copyright infringing content. This might be one of the reasons why the OpenBitTorrent tracker moved to a Spanish host after Hollywood managed to get a court decision in their favor against its Swedish hosting provider.
The OpenBitTorrent tracker, which doesn’t link to or host any torrent files and is not linked to any torrent search engine, merely serves as a facilitator of the communication between torrent users, much like BitTorrent clients do. This means that the site is not breaking any laws in Spain.
“According to all Spanish legal resolutions, a link does not communicate nor reproduces the work under intellectual property,” copyright expert and lawyer Javier de la Cueva told TorrentFreak. “So, linking is not a violation, hosting without the rights holders permission is.”
OpenBitTorrent
Despite this seemingly safe legal environment, music industry lobby group IFPI decided to go after OpenBitTorrent's new hosting company in Spain. A few days after OpenBitTorrent moved to SoloGigabit, its owners received a threatening letter stating that the hosting company could be “liable for aiding and abetting criminal copyright infringements and receiving payments from criminal activity.”
In their communication with SoloGigabit, IFPI argues that OpenBitTorrent is facilitating copyright infringements because users of The Pirate Bay may be using the tracker. “The tracker performs a key function for the BitTorrent file sharing service provided by The Pirate Bay. The Pirate Bay service has been judged illegal in several countries,” IFPI writes, referring to the Swedish criminal trial that's currently under appeal.
“The OpenBitTorrent tracker does not itself host any copyright protected works, but enables the infringement of sound recordings and other copyright works to take place by its role in The Pirate Bay file sharing service. The copyright works are made available and infringed by users of OpenBitTorrent and The Pirate Bay,” IFPI explains.
Feeling threatened by IFPI's letter, the owner of the hosting company decided to inform OpenBitTorrent's operator that they have to find a new bandwidth provider by the end of July. This means that, again, OpenBitTorrent has to move to a new location, this time as the result of mere threats.
TorrentFreak contacted the owner of SoloGigabit who told us that he was not sure what to do with IFPI's complaints. After we informed the owner about the legality of BitTorrent trackers in Spain he doubted whether he had taken the right decision. However, successful or not, a lengthy battle in court is a huge burden for a small hosting company. Even though SoloGigabit might have the law on their site it is understandable that the owner is hesitant to fight IFPI.
Whatever happens, OpenBitTorrent is determined to stay online. The tracker's operators told TorrentFreak that they are prepared to move to a new location again. This time, they hope to find a company that is less prone to threats from the music industry.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/pPG3ep0r0Ik/ Post LinkHurt Locker Lawsuit Doesn’t Affect BitTorrent Downloads
Posted on: July 05, 2010In recent years copyright holders have been trying to find creative ways to turn piracy into profit, with some success. One way to make money from file-sharers is to collect the IP-addresses of the people sharing a particular file, get a court to subpoena ISPs to reveal the identity of the sharers, and then ask the alleged sharers for a settlement of several hundred dollars to avoid a $150,000 fine.
These practices have been quite common in the UK and Germany for years, and in March this year the US Copyright Group imported this mass litigation “pay up or else” scheme to the United States.
The initial targets were relatively unknown indie films, but this changed when the makers of the Oscar-winning Hurt Locker joined in. After its Oscar victory the film was downloaded by millions of BitTorrent users, and in May the filmmakers sued 5,000 of these alleged downloaders all at once.
To find out whether the download rate for The Hurt Locker plummeted after the news of the lawsuit against BitTorrent users hit the mainstream media, we decided to take a look at last month's download statistics. Interestingly, it turns out that people seem to be downloading the film undeterred.
In June, the film was downloaded little over 200,000 times, which puts it in the top 25 of most downloaded movies last month. Considering that the film has been available on BitTorrent for more than a year already, this high download number is quite an achievement and only a few percent less than the previous month.
Our statistics further show that 23% of all downloads come from the US, the territory where the US Copyright Group launched its legal action against BitTorrent downloaders.
Whether this means that BitTorrent downloaders are not easily scared by legal threats is hard to say. It could be that the people who downloaded the movie last month simply weren't aware of the fact that their IP-address might have been noted by the US Copyright Group.
What we can say, however, is that the makers of the film don't really mind people sharing the film now they might have found a way to make a multi-million dollar profit out of it.
At the time of writing, there are more than 200 torrent files linking to copies of The Hurt Locker floating around on hundreds of torrent sites. Although the makers of the film are quick to sue thousands of downloaders, no effort is being made to take the actual torrent files offline through a notice and takedown procedure.
Nearly every torrent site will remove a torrent file if the copyright holder complains, but clearly the makers of The Hurt Locker haven't done so – they prefer to protect their newly found business model instead. Taking ‘their' torrent files down could ironically result in implied losses of several million dollars in missed settlements.
Yes, it's the world upside down.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/IOLq272zANA/ Post LinkSwedish ISP Blocks The Pirate Bay Following Injunction
Posted on: June 28, 2010
Black Internet's relationship with The Pirate Bay has been far from smooth. Last year, the Swedish ISP bravely put its head above the parapet when it became a bandwidth supplier to the site, a move which has had several knock-on effects.
In August 2009, Stockholm's district court ordered Black Internet to disconnect The Pirate Bay from the Internet or face fines of 500,000 kronor ($64,527). The ISP quickly complied with the ruling and the site temporarily went dark, but quickly reappeared with a new host.
The very next day following its decision to disconnect The Pirate Bay, Black Internet's infrastructure was sabotaged with cost implications of “millions of kronor”. Although it was never proven, many believed that the attack and the blacking out of the world's most famous BitTorrent site were connected.
After initially saying it wouldn't appeal the district court's decision, Black Internet changed its mind. “This is the first time in Sweden that an operator has been ordered to stop delivering Internet to someone. We want to know if it’s correct to do so,” said company boss CEO Victor Möller. The appeal was granted.
Last month the Svea Court of Appeals made its decision and for Black Internet the outcome was poor.
The Court ordered Black Internet to “stop providing Internet access to the TPB web site consisting of a web site including search engine and databasefunctions on which torrent files may be stored and a tracker.”
Even though the ISP is no longer servicing The Pirate Bay, the scope of this injunction appears to be broader than first thought. Not only must it never host the site, it must also stop the rest of its regular customers from accessing The Pirate Bay, making it the first ISP in Sweden ordered to block the site.
“We have chosen to block traffic into and out of the IP addresses that are using the Pirate Bay,” said Black Internet's Victor Möller. “We made a decision on our assessment that this was the only way to live up to the Court of Appeal's decision.”
Although being precise is difficult, Möller estimates that the block affects many thousands of businesses and individuals, many of which are keen to reestablish links with the site.
“They are looking for more tips and advice on getting past this block,” notes Möller. “There seems to be a great need to reach the Pirate Bay.”
TorrentFreak is awaiting comments from both Black Internet and Hollywood lawyer Monique Wadsted and will update this article with that information as soon as it arrives.
Update: Court of appeals judge Ulrika Gustavsson Stenbäck has been speaking with Swedish media and has stated that Black Internet's interpretation of the injunction has gone too far.
“The decision meant no general duty to supervise over what people do online, or a general duty to stop someone from getting into the Pirate Bay. It is clear in our decision. Our decision relates only to Black Internet not providing internet access [hosting] to The Pirate Bay.”
It seems at this stage that Black Internet is blocking The Pirate Bay but doesn't have to.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/Cj-l3qUuCOI/ Post LinkGoogle Scores a Big Victory for BitTorrent Sites
Posted on: June 24, 2010
Over the past years Google has been battling in court with Viacom over the question of whether YouTube is protected against copyright infringement claims under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).
Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Louis Stanton granted Google's motion for summary judgment, ruling that Google is protected by the DMCA's safe harbor provision. Effectively, this means that YouTube doesn't have to remove any clips unless they are asked to do so by copyright holders.
“If a service provider knows of specific instances of infringement, the provider must promptly remove the infringing material. If not, the burden is on the owner to identify the infringement. General knowledge that infringement is ‘ubiquitous' does not impose a duty on the service provider to monitor or search its service for infringements,” Judge Stanton wrote.
In a response, Google claimed the judgment to be a victory for all the people who ‘share' on the Internet. “This is an important victory not just for us, but also for the billions of people around the world who use the web to communicate and share experiences with each other,” the company wrote on its blog.
This judgment is obviously a huge win for YouTube and other video hosting services, but it also sets an important precedent for BitTorrent sites. Google’s YouTube shows striking similarities to torrent sites as it allows users to submit content. The only difference is that YouTube actually hosts the uploaded files, whereas torrent sites only link to content indirectly through .torrent files.
The Pirate Bay aside, nearly all torrent sites work closely together with copyright holders to ensure that their rights are respected. Like YouTube, IsoHunt and others have strict notice and takedown policies and swiftly remove .torrent files pointing to infringing material when they are notified by copyright holders.
Despite the similarities, BitTorrent sites haven't been very successful in court thus far. Using the same arguments as Google did in its case against Viacom, Mininova and isoHunt have both argued in court that they were protected by a DMCA(-like) safe harbor, but both eventually lost their case.
The good news is that both isoHunt and Mininova have still options to appeal, and with yesterday's landmark victory in hand their chances of winning may have increased.
If anything, BitTorrent sites should be seen as less infringing than video hosting sites because they only link to copyright infringing content indirectly through .torrent files. If Judge Stanton's decision is translated to BitTorrent sites, it means that under safe harbor protection sites like isoHunt and Mininova would operate legally and wouldn't have to use filtering mechanisms to prevent users from uploading ‘infringing' torrents.
Viacom, meanwhile, isn't done with Google and Youtube just yet. “We believe that this ruling by the lower court is fundamentally flawed and contrary to the language of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the intent of Congress, and the views of the Supreme Court,” the company said in a statement.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/_9kRkl7DQHU/ Post LinkPirate Bay’s Founding Group ‘Piratbyrån’ Disbands
Posted on: June 23, 2010Piratbyrån had many purposes, but could be described as a pro-piracy lobbying organization. It was founded in response to Antipiratbyrån, the local anti-piracy outfit in Sweden. The goal was to start a debate on copyright issues and how they affect society. Until then, most press in Sweden would simply take everything Antipiratbyrån said for granted.
Internationally, Piratbyrån is mostly known for launching The Pirate Bay in the fall of 2003, just a few months after the group itself was founded. Since there were no Swedish BitTorrent sites at the time, Piratbyrån decided to launch the first Scandinavian BitTorrent community, using the then relatively new BitTorrent protocol.
By the end of 2004, a year after the site launched, the tracker was already tracking a million peers and more than 60,000 torrent files. Around the same time the founders also became aware that it wasn’t just Scandinavians showing an interest in their site.
Because of increasing worldwide popularity, The Pirate Bay team completely redesigned the site, which became available in several languages from then on. Around the same time The Pirate Bay became separated from Piratbyrån, with the latter focusing more on other ‘copyfights' that had to be won.
Piratbyrån
In the years that followed Piratbyrån engaged in discussions about the role of intellectual property in the digital age, giving a voice to millions of file-sharers who believed that copying is not a crime. Now, nearly 7 years after it was founded, Piratbyrån's role has been played out and the group has decided to disband.
The discussions about file-sharing that Piratbyrån wanted to have, are already won,” former Pirate Bay spokesperson and Piratbyrån member Peter Sunde told TorrentFreak. “The projects that needed to start have already been finalized. Piratbyrån was a temporary group for a temporary reason.”
The final decision to disband the group came after Ibi Kopimi Botani, a prominent member and co-founder of the group, passed away. Without one of its greatest minds, the group would never be the same again, Piratbyrån's member felt.
“The discussions about abolishing Piratbyrån have been going on for years already, but this weekend a beloved friend and member died, and we decided it was time to move on for real, since the group could not be the same without him anyhow. It felt like a good time for passing this part of life,” Peter told TorrentFreak, who added that the group was about much more than being the founders of The Pirate Bay.
“Without Piratbyrån there would have been no Pirate Bay of course, but Piratbyrån has accomplished so much more than just that,” he said, a position shared by all of the group's members. Marcin de Kaminski, who announced the end of Piratbyrån in a blog post, is proud of what they've accomplished in all those years.
“The most longlived project which has originated from Piratbyrån is obviously The Pirate Bay, but when it comes to great accomplishments I would like to point out how Piratbyrån were forerunners in one of the most obvious clinches of our time,” Marcin told TorrentFreak.
“By proudly standing up for the ideas of a whole generation of internauts and taking the fights no one else did, Piratbyrån worked as catalyzers when it came to understanding the current evolution of culture, clusters and chaos,” Marcin said. “While other actors have been trying to deliver answers, Piratbyrån has been very focused on targeting problems of the present by searching for the right questions.”
All the right questions have been asked now, and the group believes it has served its purpose. File-sharers are more vocal than ever before, they can stand up for themselves now and continue to challenge the corporations that promote intellectual property abuse.
Just copy what Piratbyrån did and evolve.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
http://feed.torrentfreak.com/~r/Torrentfreak/~3/F1AxnxT-VD0/ Post LinkThe World’s 5 Largest Public BitTorrent Trackers
Posted on: June 14, 2010The BitTorrent landscape has changed dramatically in the past 12 months. The two largest BitTorrent trackers today didn't exist a year ago, and the top tracker of last year has shut down. The upside is that all these changes went by relatively unnoticed to the millions of downloaders.
Despite claims that millions of BitTorrent downloads would cease to work if a major BitTorrent tracker closed down, most downloaders today don't even notice when a tracker stops working. Thanks to technologies such as DHT and PEX central trackers have become a luxury good to some degree.
Indeed, larger torrents with thousands of peers will work just fine without a central tracker. But the majority of torrents out there only have a handful of peers and for these files a central tracker is still an essential part of the downloading process.
It's therefore good to know that several new players took the place of The Pirate Bay's tracker when it shut down last year. Below we show a list of the five largest public BitTorrent trackers based on the number of torrents and peers (downloaders+uploaders) they track.
| # | Tracker | Torrents | Peers | Software |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| torrentfreak.com | ||||
| 1 | PublicBitTorrent | 2,484,145 | 21,694,091 | Opentracker |
| 2 | OpenBitTorrent | 2,388,738 | 21,186,589 | Opentracker |
| 3 | Denis.Stalker | 1,614,356 | 10,527,993 | Opentracker |
| 4 | 1337x.org | 302,799 | 4,889,991 | XBT |
| 5 | Torrent.to | 326,467 | 3,205,170 | Opentracker |
The first thing that stands out in the top five above is that the first three spots are taken by standalone trackers that do not have a torrent index or search engine attached to them. These three trackers are responsible for the coordination of millions of public downloads on BitTorrent but do not provide any torrents on their sites like The Pirate Bay used to do.
PublicBitTorrent and OpenBitTorrent, number one and two in the list, are both relatively new trackers that emerged after The Pirate Bay announced that it would sell the site last year. This sale eventually failed to go through, but The Pirate Bay did close its tracker so both trackers became a very welcome addition to the BitTorrent ecosystem.
Another observation is that there is a lot of weight on the shoulders of the top three trackers. Although there are close to 50,000 known BitTorrent trackers, only a fraction of these are active, and of these only a few dozen track more than 1,000 torrent files. Without the five trackers in the list above most of the smaller public torrents could quickly become unavailable.
Although trackers in the top five are all public ones, there are a few private ones that should be in this list if it was only based on the number of torrents tracked. The music tracker What.cd, for example, currently tracks more than 800,000 torrents alone. A dazzling number that puts the site in fourth place based on the number of torrents, not peers.
For BitTorrent's long tail content reliable public trackers are still invaluable. The good news is that the ecosystem is better off than a year ago when The Pirate Bay was carrying this burden alone, but it's far from bulletproof yet.
Article from: TorrentFreak.
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