BitTorrent’s popularity is on the rise in India, and with a massive increase in broadband subscribers just around the corner, it is the number one growth market for BitTorrent sites. With a population of over 1.1 billion people and only 4.5 million broadband subscribers, there is huge amount of untapped potential.
With a quarter billion mobile phone users, India is no stranger to technology. Up until recently, however, broadband Internet access was only available to a few. Although the number of broadband subscribers is growing rapidly, less than 0.5% of the entire population has an Internet connection.
Times are changing though. After the mobile phone revolution managed to get more than 250 million Indians connected, the government is now aiming to increase broadband Internet penetration in India. The current target is 20 million broadband subscribers by the end of 2010, and 50 million by 2012, a 1000% increase compared to approximately 5 million now.
The increase in the number of Indian BitTorrent users compared to previous years has not gone unnoticed. Mininova, for example, is reporting a 300% increase in traffic from India compared to last year, and for most BitTorrent sites India recently entered the top 10 of traffic sources. If the target of 20 million broadband subscribers is indeed reached, India will be the number one traffic source for most BitTorrent sites by the end of 2010.
Of course, BitTorrent indexers are not the only sites that are affected by the growing levels of Internet access in India, but they do tend to be traffic magnets. Data from the traffic comparison site Alexa shows that there are three BitTorrent sites among the 100 most visited websites in India. Mininova, Torrentz and The Pirate Bay are listed in 39th, 46th and 100th place respectively, and isoHunt is not far behind.
Two factors that have undoubtedly contributed to the popularity of BitTorrent, are the availability of unlimited data plans and an increase in connection speeds. In India, most ISPs initially offered metered plans, where 1 GB of data cost somewhere around $10. Today however, almost every ISP has an unlimited plan with a decent download speed for $50.
After China, India has the highest growth rate of all emerging economies in the world, and Internet access is quickly becoming affordable to a larger group of people. So, don’t be surprised when you see hundreds of Indian IPs in your peers list in a few years from now, if the Internet hasn’t collapsed by then.
Post from: TorrentFreak
19.Nov.08 
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Mininova, one of the leading BitTorrent sites, is testing a new technology which allows content producers to include subtle ads in their videos. By providing more opportunities to monetize free content, Mininova hopes to attract even more premium publishers.
The new advertising technology, Hyper MP, inserts small clickable ads into the corner of the screen. Aside from the ads, there are no limitations to the video content. Hyper MP is currently being tested on an amateur feature length comedy titled “Battle Therapy”.
Mininova co-founder Niek told TorrentFreak that Hyper MP is a great alternative to pre and post-roll ads. If it proves successful, there will be more releases on Mininova with these new ads, and Niek said that these new releases might even include some blockbuster movies.
The new advertising technology is yet another great feature to convince premium content producers to publish their work on Mininova’s content distribution platform, which was launched last year. With Mininova’s distribution platform, the torrent files are seeded by Mininova, all the publisher has to do is upload the files. It is a very simple process.
Earlier this year, CBC used Mininova to distribute one of their TV-shows. Tessa Sproule, head of CBC’s Digital Programming told TorrentFreak at the time: “I believe BitTorrent is a terrific distribution technology and absolutely something we as a public broadcaster should be experimenting with.”
Hundreds of premium publishers have already signed up at Mininova. With the new advertising opportunities, more TV and movie studios might be interested in releasing their shows and movies on BitTorrent, and what better way to get exposure than with Mininova, one of the world’s most popular sites.
Post from: TorrentFreak
19.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
After going after thousands accused of sharing video games in the UK, lawyers Davenport Lyons are now branching out into other areas. This week sees them start going after those it accuses of sharing the movie “Army Fuckers”, hardcore gay porn featuring ‘farm boys’ and Gestapo officers. Accusing the wrong people this time could prove very costly indeed.
The file-sharing media went crazy recently when UK lawyers Davenport Lyons admitted it wrongly identified married pensioners who, they claim were illegally sharing a video game. The lawyers publicly apologized over the fallibility of their evidence, with highly respected consumer magazine Which? going on record to say that “hundreds” of people may have been incorrectly identified and threatened.
The latest development is one that file-sharing commentators have quietly been expecting. While some 40-60% of those threatened over video game sharing in the UK appear to pay up, there are other ways of increasing this amount substantially via social leverage. Unsurprisingly, Davenport Lyons are now going down this road which is likely maximize compliance rates.
According to recipients of fresh letters this weekend, the lawyers have now expanded into movie ‘protection’ - a gay hardcore porn movie to be precise. Set on a farm in the former Czechoslovakia, Gestapo officers apparently hand out ‘forced’ punishment in ‘Army Fuckers‘, a 2006 movie originally released by Dutch porn outfit Dream Logistics BV, on the ‘Eurocreme‘ label.
Strangely, however, Dream Logistics BV aren’t the rights holder anymore, or the ones that hired Davenport Lyons. It appears the new rights holder is German anti-piracy company DigiProtect, who managed to get this High Court order for disclosure of alleged file-sharer’s identities, based on evidence provided by lesser-known anti-piracy tracking company DigiRights Solution, of Darmstadt, Germany. Indeed, DigiRights Solution GmbH appear to have no obvious Internet presence.
Davenport Lyons are demanding £500 compensation, plus the costs from the ISP for disclosing the alleged infringer’s personal details. Recipients of the letter are given 21 days to pay up and are threatened with huge court costs and damages if they don’t, which is no different to all the other threats made by Davenport on other media they ‘protect’. It is worth noting that of a claimed 25,000 threats of legal action, no more than half a dozen have gone to court and of those, none were contested, meaning that Davenport Lyons won default judgments on them all. There is no evidence to suggest that anyone has ever contested a case with many people simply refusing to pay up.
Finally, those accused and deciding to settle are asked to sign an undertaking that they will never infringe copyright on any media owned by DigiProtect in the future. Quite why an anti-piracy company appears to be acquiring the rights to these titles is open to speculation, but since most people will want to avoid being contacted by Davenport Lyons in the future, here is a list of titles that include those that appear to be now owned by DigiProtect. Although not DigiProtect titles, the eagle-eyed reader will notice the inclusion on this list of Dream Pinball 3D, Colin McRae Rally and Call of Juarez - all titles targeted by Davenport Lyons.
Of course, we live in a world that has become much more liberal in recent years, so the stigma attached to porn of all flavors has diminished significantly. However, the damage that will be done to a family will be considerable if someone is incorrectly accused of sharing porn that doesn’t ‘fit’ the acceptance levels in that household.
There is a firestorm coming, there can be little doubt, and a simple apology from Davenport Lyons for an incorrect accusation won’t be enough.
Post from: TorrentFreak
18.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
TV shows are by far the most wanted files on BitTorrent, and according to some, it’s becoming the modern day TiVo. But what are all those people downloading?
Heroes is leading the chart again, with over two million downloads for the latest episode only.
The data for the most recent TV episodes are collected by TorrentFreak from a representative sample of BitTorrent sites and is for informational and educational reference only.
Thanks to ShowInsider we now also include a list based on the total number of downloads (not only recent episodes) of all shows in the past week.
Top Downloads (Recent Episodes)
Top Downloads (All Episodes)
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18.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Mininova, the leading BitTorrent search engine, has been offline for most of the day. Inevitably, BitTorrent addicts having been getting nervous, worrying about what is happening at the same time as they long for their daily fix. We have good news for them, the wait is almost over and when the site returns it will do so, fully prepared for the future.
Similar to The Pirate Bay, Mininova is experiencing a traffic surge. Since August, the number of visitors has grown by approximately 35%, to almost 5 million every day. It come as no surprise that such an increase is stretching the limits of the hardware setup.
Over the past few months, the number of .torrent downloads have also been growing steadily. In September we reported that 10 million torrents were downloaded in a single day, but this figure quickly increased to 12 million just a few weeks later.
To cope with this growing demand, Mininova updated their server park today, and moved all the data to a brand new setup. Initially, only a few hours of downtime were expected, but Mininova co-founder Erik told us that they ran into some problems along the way. “One of the critical machines refused to boot after we transferred the data, because the table with volume information got corrupted,” Erik told us.
Erik further said that the site is coming back slowly. All the data is transferred, and they are currently tweaking the servers to get the site running smoothly again. When everything is back up again, Mininova’s setup will be more easy to scale, and totally prepared for the future - whatever that may hold.
Post from: TorrentFreak
17.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Amassing over a million downloads in under seven days, ‘The Dark Knight’ is by far the most pirated movie of this week. Earlier this year, Cam and DVD-screener versions of the latest in the Batman series already found their way onto the Internet, making this blockbuster the most pirated movie of 2008.
The Dark Knight has been a huge success in theaters, grossing a billion dollars worldwide. The movie currently holds the record for the best opening week, and weekend, and later this year is expected to surpass ‘Titanic’ as the greatest grossing movie in history.
This success is a truly remarkable accomplishment in times where piracy is rampant. As with every other blockbuster, ‘The Dark Knight’ was leaked onto the Internet in various formats. It began right after the premiere in July with a cammed version, which was celebrated by the folks from The Pirate Bay. The Cam was followed by a DVD-screener in early September.
Although Hollywood did its best to prevent the movie from hitting BitTorrent, their efforts were not very successful. In July, just a few days after the film premiered, the police arrested a 40-year-old man who tried to record the movie with a camcorder. However, around the same time someone else had already put up a cammed version from another source.
This week, in another round of leaks, DVD-rips of ‘The Dark Knight’ found their way to BitTorrent. Unsurprisingly, given the commercial success of the movie, these were downloaded well over a million times in just a few days. From the looks of it, Batman will crush Iron Man, The Incredible Hulk and Transformers, as it will easily become this year’s most pirated movie.
First things first though. Below is this week’s list of most pirated movies on BitTorrent. The data is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. Currently both DVDrips, DVD Screeners and R5 rips are counted.
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17.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
In this episode we talk about Obama’s victory speech getting torrented, Quantum of Solace getting pirated, Finnish kids admitting to downloading, The Pirate Bay tracking 25 million peers and of course TV-show statistics.
‘TorrentFreak TV’ is a biweekly recap of some of the best, most interesting or remarkable stories from the wonderful world of BitTorrent.
For questions, comments or suggestions, feel free to contact the crew at tv@torrentfreak.com.
An iTunes feed is available here.
Show links:
Obama torrented
No solace for Bond
Finnish pirates
25 million peers
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17.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
A hacker has successfully changed the nameservers of the popular BitTorrent meta-search engine Torrentz.com. For a few hours the site was replaced with an Adbrite ad, and a link to a warez forum. To top it off, the hacker then contacted the Torrentz admin to brag about his hacking abilities.
Last week we reported that Torrentz was facing a hostile domain takeover. With a forged driver’s license, the impostor attempted to change the domain Whois. Yesterday, the nameservers to Torrentz were indeed changed, giving the ‘hacker’ control over the Torrentz domain.
Flippy, the admin of Torrentz told us that he noticed some worrying changes when he checked his website late last night. There were banners from Adbrite at the top and bottom of the site, banners that didn’t belong there. It turns out that “the hacker” we mentioned before, managed to change the nameservers of the torrentz.com domain. In the middle of the new page torrentz.eu was now loading in a frame, so the site was usable apart from the extra ads.
When Flippy added some Javascript to the torrentz.eu site to prevent it from loading inside the frame, the .com domain suddenly linked to some fresh warez forum and an image hosting site. The warez forum, warez2share.com, was apparently hosted on a shared hosting account, and it didn’t take long before the account was suspended because of the traffic overload.
The hacker didn’t stop there of course, and he soon changed the page to a single Adbrite banner. And as if that wasn’t enough, he decided to email Flippy, to tell him how good of a hacker he is. “So, I emailed him back, and informed him that I have a lawyer who will subpoena Adbrite first thing in the morning, to get the account’s details,” Flippy told us.
After some emails back and forth, the hacker suddenly changed his tone. After Flippy reminded him that forging a US driver’s license is a serious crime, he suddenly became surprisingly cooperative. Instead of bragging about his hacker skills, he was suddenly willing to change the nameservers back. At the time of publication, the domain details have indeed been reverted, and until the changes clear, torrentz.com is being redirected to the backup domain, torrentz.eu.
It is not over yet though, as Flippy told us that he will do everything he can to find out the identity of the ‘hacker’, so stay tuned.
Post from: TorrentFreak
16.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Only a few days before the largest BitTorrent tracker will celebrate its 5th anniversary, the Pirate Bay reached a new milestone. The site now tracks 25 million peers, which is more than the entire populations of Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland and Denmark combined.
When The Pirate Bay was founded, November 2003, it was a site targeted at the Swedish population. This soon changed however, when the founders found out that most visitors came from outside Sweden, or even Scandinavia.
In the years to come, The Pirate Bay established itself as the largest BitTorrent tracker on the Internet. Recently, the number of peers that use the tracker at any given point in time grew larger than the entire population of Scandinavia. In fact, over the past 12 months, the number of peers more than tripled, to 25 million.
At the time of publication, The Pirate Bay tracks 25.064.271 peers, divided over close to 1.856.243 torrent files. Quite an accomplishment when you consider that it is not even 2 months ago since they the 15 million mark. Coincidentally, the server that tracks the statistics crashed due to a hard drive failure, right around the time they reached the new milestone.
We asked Peter Sunde, co-founder of the site, how this huge surge can be explained, and whether the traffic to the site is also increasing. “I think it’s because of the new updates to the software and recent additions in hardware,” Peter told TorrentFreak. “We’re putting up new trackers all the time to cope with the traffic increase. And yes, the traffic to the site is also increasing. New visitor records every week.”
In an attempt to make their “torrent tracking” record official, The Pirate Bay applied for an entry in the Guinness book of world records last week. A record that they will probably break themselves every weekend. It is estimated that The Pirate Bay tracks 50% of all public torrents, which means that they are responsible for a significant part of the total Internet traffic.
“It’s just weird,” says Peter in response to these mind boggling statistics. “It’s cool to do something that big, but it’s scary that it’s so few people managing that of a big system. PLEASE, people, start more trackers! Put them out there, have open systems! We need the diversity.”
It might indeed be a good idea to spread the load a bit. There are plenty of private trackers, but good and reliable open trackers remain scarce. Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay will continue to update their hardware, and tweak their software, while working on side-projects such as the recently updated email service Slopsbox.
Hollywood will probably not be too happy when they hear that the Swedish deviant has broken yet another record, but Peter and the other Pirate Bay founders couldn’t care less what they think. Peter has a message for them though: “Stop hating the future. Be smart and come over from the dark side.”
Post from: TorrentFreak
15.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Canada has its first conviction under the controversial Bill C-59. A man has been found guilty of ‘camming’ the movie ‘Sweeney Todd’ in Calgary on its opening day. The 21 year-old was given a $1,495 fine and placed on probation for a year. During this time he is also excluded from all theaters and is forbidden to possess any video recording equipment, even that on a cellphone. He avoids jail.
Early in 2007, Twentieth Century Fox announced that Canada had a major movie ‘camming’ problem, claiming that 50% of all such copies of movies originated from the country. The controversial claims caused panic and before long, theater staff were commonly being equipped with night-vision goggles in a bid to catch pirates.
On December 21 2007, Richard Craig Lissaman of Calgary hid a camcorder in his clothing and went to the Empire Studio 16 theater. There the 20 year old joined the matinee performance of the Johnny Depp movie ‘Sweeney Todd’ on its opening day. Sitting at the left of the theater at the back, Lissaman hid the camera in a sock and hid the tell-tale LED lights on his camera with duct tape to avoid being spotted.
Unknown to Lissaman, an investigation financed by the Canadian and US movie industries had been underway for months - and his luck was about to run out. According to Crown prosecutor Rob Bassett, “The house lights were turned on and the movie was shut off and Calgary police arrested him. The accused (later) admitted he had recorded the picture.”
Charged with one count of the unauthorized recording of a movie, Lissaman became the second person in Canada to be charged under new legislation designed to crack down on camcorder pirates. Previously, under Canada’s laws the authorities had to prove that any camcorder movie recording was destined for sale, rental or other distribution to get a conviction. But with changes that took effect on June 1st 2007, any image recorded without consent could result in a prison sentence of up to 2 years.
Yesterday, Lissaman, now 21, pleaded guilty as charged and was sentenced by Judge Catherine Skene to $1,495 in fines and 12 months probation. During this period, Lissaman is excluded from going into any movie theater and is banned from owning or possessing any video recording equipment, including video-enabled cellphones.
Virginia Jones, a director of policy and legal affairs for the Canadian Motion Picture Distributors Association said: “We would have liked to see jail time, sending a stronger message. We hope this is just a starting point.”
Post from: TorrentFreak
15.Nov.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
