Founded just three years ago, Open Your Eyes Records is a small US based record label. Unlike the large labels, it doesn’t shy away from BitTorrent. On the contrary, it recognizes the power of these massive filesharing communities, and has started a collaboration with the largest music tracker, What.cd.
“Open Your Eyes Records and What.cd are collaborating to revolutionize the industry landscape by making it clear that P2P technology and record labels can work hand-in-hand to accomplish their ultimate goals: getting artists heard and growing their fan bases,” reads the announcement at the BitTorrent tracker.
Open Your Eyes Records will exclusively distribute new releases on the BitTorrent tracker, and it will keep the filesharing community up to date on the latest news. With only one signed artist at the label, the collaboration wont add much to the existing library of nearly 100,000 artists available via the What.cd tracker. However, it sends out a strong message that confirms the current trend that BitTorrent is much more than just a tool for pirates.
There is a whole new generation of music enthusiasts that have grown up with file-sharing. It is part of the music industry now, and it exposes people to more music than they would ever hear on mainstream radio. This is probably not what the RIAA wants to hear, or will ever admit, but music is more popular than ever, with notable thanks to file-sharing. BitTorrent has the power to promote artists based on their music, not on the strength and scope of their advertising budget.
This year, thousands of artists have realized that giving away their music for free can actually help them to create a larger fanbase, but it is difficult to deny that filesharing makes it harder for record labels to hype mediocre content. However, music itself is more alive than ever before.
Post from: TorrentFreak
30.Dec.08 
TorrentFreak 
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Three years ago it was virtually impossible to stream adult content online - without a credit card that is. At that time, the member count of adult BitTorrent communities rose fast and hard, with some amassing hundreds and thousands of members.
Two of the largest adult BitTorrent communities are Empornium and PureTNA. Both sites have well over half a million members, and these giants are a thorn in the side of the adult entertainment industry. Copyright issues don’t seem to be the largest threat for these sites though - adult YouTube-type spinoffs are - and they are taking over quickly.
Streaming adult content appears to be much more appealing to the Internet user out for a quick fix. They are easily accessible and offer instant gratification, with many not even requiring the user to sign up. While some would argue that the wait for a complete download is half the fun, the majority of the porn surfers are not interested in such foreplay.
The popularity of these streaming sites didn’t go unnoticed at the adult BitTorrent communities either. Both Empornium and PureTNA have launched their very own ‘tube’ alternatives, realizing that’s what the public seems to want nowadays. Not without success too, as the streaming sites they launched are outgrowing the BitTorrent sites in number of visitors.
PureTNA is currently hiring for their streaming site, and they have some interesting job offers. They are looking for a part-time porn expert with “encyclopedic knowledge of Porn Stars, Labels, Studios and the Adult Industry”, among other things, hoping to expand the site even further.
It is interesting to see how quickly these torrent sites have adapted to the demands of the market. Hollywood could learn a thing or two from them, as instead of aggressively promoting their old technology, they simply acted in response to the public’s demands.
Post from: TorrentFreak
30.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
In addition to the remarkable first place for “Disaster Movie”, this weeks list includes three other newcomers. The Dark Knight, crowned the most pirated movie of 2008 didn’t make it into the top 10 this week.
The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. Currently both DVDrips, DVD Screeners and R5 rips are counted.
RSS feed for the weekly DVDrip chart.
Post from: TorrentFreak
29.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
It is no secret that badly moderated sites are often filled with spam, spyware and worse. The true power behind the best torrent sites are the moderators, since they are the ones who monitor all uploads and remove the bad apples by hand. Vertor.com, short for ‘verified torrents’, takes moderation a step further - the site actually downloads every file, to check for viruses, DRM and other inconveniences.
The site goes even further though. For every video file, Vertor takes several screenshots so users can verify that it is actually the film the title says it is. Similarly, for music torrents users can preview 20 seconds of the tracks, to avoid downloading the wrong files, wasting precious bandwidth.
Alex, the founder of Vertor explained to TorrentFreak: “If there is a video we extract screenshots, if there is a text file we save it on our server, if there is music we extract 20 second samples and if there is archive we open it and extract the list of files. Then we manually remove video files protected with DRM.” On an average day, 6000 torrents are downloaded, and between 2000 and 2500 torrents are verified and get published.
There is a downside to verifying all the torrents though. Since it takes some time to process, it can take one or two days before a fresh torrent appears on the site, which might be a problem for those who want to catch up with a TV-episode that aired yesterday. On the server side, the drawback is that these processes require some additional hardware. Alex told us that they use 6 Dual Xeons with 4 GB ram and 500GB of hard disk space.
It is therefore no surprise that it took a few weeks of verifying torrents before the Vertor project could go live. Currently there are 138439 torrents verified, and more than 5000 were removed because they contained a virus or a passworded archive. In addition, the site’s moderators blocked another 14445 torrents. Alex told us that they started to use new anti-virus software this week, which should be resulted in higher percentage of virus recognition.
Aside from the verification part, Vertor has another user friendly feature, as it allows users to download torrents in their browser with Bitlet, by clicking the “download from the web” button on the torrent detail page. For now, the site is completely ad-free, and Alex told us that he will try to keep it like that for as long as possible.
In summary, we think that Vertor has a lot of potential, especially for those people who are not familiar enough with BitTorrent to spot the bad stuff themselves.
Post from: TorrentFreak
28.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
The list is based on traffic rank reports from Compete and Alexa, backed up by visitor reports from some of the site admins.
It has been a good year for The Pirate Bay. The number of visitors spiked, despite efforts in Denmark and Italy to block access the site. Last month, The site celebrated its 5th anniversary, just after it broke the 25 million peers mark. At any given point in time, more than 25 million people actively trade files thought the Pirate Bay tracker.
Compete rank 885 / Alexa rank 117 / 2007 #3
Mininova has seen a steady rise in visitors in 2008, and more than 3 billion torrents were downloaded from the site in the past 12 months. In addition to user uploaded content, the Mininova team has started to focus more on premium publishers with their content distribution platform.
Compete rank 1,225 / Alexa rank 79 / 2007 #1
Despite being ensnared in legal proceedings with the MPAA and CRIA, isoHunt is continuing to grow. This year they partnered with the Creative Commons music distribution site Jamendo, and just like The Pirate Bay, isoHunt added SSL encryption to the site, making it impossible for your ISP or the authorities to monitor users’ activities.
Compete rank 1,106 / Alexa rank 200 / 2007 #2
Torrentz.com, one of the oldest torrent sites around, celebrated its 5th anniversary in July. The site added a “verified torrents” feature this year, and inspired many other meta-search engines to do the same. Last month a “hacker” caused some problems after it took over the torrentz domain, but luckily this issue was resolved in a few hours.
Compete rank 2,039 / Alexa rank 220 / 2007 #4
TorrentReactor redesigned and optimized the site throughout 2008, which resulted in a significant increase in visitors. In addition, the TorrentReactor launched TorrentPrivacy, a service that allows BitTorrent users to download torrents anonymously.
Compete rank 2,150 / Alexa rank 532 / 2007 #9
After being forced to go offline following threats from the CRIA, Demonoid returned this April after 6 months of downtime. Since then it is business as usual, and most of the members returned quickly.
Compete rank 3,869 / Alexa rank 526 / 2007 #na
In December 2007 BTjunkie was forced to leave their ISP following a takedown notice from the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN. This year there were no troubles, and the site continues to go strong.
Compete rank 3,762 / Alexa rank 625 / 2007 #5
In 2007, SumoTorrent quickly settled itself among the top torrent sites, and traffic continued to increase this year. The pop-ups and redirects are new though, and don’t make it one of the most convenient sites to browse.
Compete rank 4,110 / Alexa rank 1,019 / 2007 #na
BitTorrentMonster, BTmon for short, debuted in 10th place last year, and managed to climb a spot. Other than that, there is not much news surrounding the site.
Compete rank 4,737 / Alexa rank 989 / 2007 #10
Not much news about TorrentPortal this year either, but for BitTorrent sites that is usually a good thing. Traffic seems to be stable, although the site is not grow is fast as the other BitTorrent sites in this list..
Compete rank 4,300 / Alexa rank 1,126 / 2007 #7
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, but still, it managed to make out top 10 list last year. March 2008 TorrentSpy owner Justin decided to shut down completely, and in May his company was ordered to pay a $110 million fine, which it will appeal.
Post from: TorrentFreak
27.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
George Michael is possibly one of the greatest stars the music business has ever seen, so when he announced in 2004 that he intended to turn his back on the music industry, it came as quite a shock. The 100 million album-selling artist would no longer sell future albums in shops, but instead release his music on the Internet for free. In return he hoped that fans would donate money to charity.
A few weeks ago there were a handful of news articles reporting that George would release a new track in December but there has hardly been a NIN or Radiohead media surge, although maybe that’s understandable since it’s just one track.
However, as promised, on Christmas Day “December Song” quietly appeared on GeorgeMichael.com as a completely free download.
In recent years George Michael has had little problem bursting the capacity of every venue he’s appeared at, with tickets to his last tour changing hands on eBay for $2000+. That said, I think I expected quite a bit more hype to go with this song, but maybe George isn’t that interested in the ‘game’ anymore. Maybe the song hasn’t been well received? I expected to see the song on his Wikipedia page, but as of now there is no mention.
Those wishing to listen at this stage may have a problem. It may exist officially elsewhere, but a day after release and “December Song” has disappeared from Michael’s website. However, fans who haven’t heard the track don’t have to be disappointed. A torrent for the track is alive and kicking on The Pirate Bay, which brings me to the point of this post.
Many file-sharers like to promote a donation model so, if you can afford it, don’t forget George Michael’s message. No threats of being sued, just a simple request that people consider donating a little to charity if they download the track. He lists several charities on his site, including Breast Cancer Campaign, Nordoff-Robbins Music Therapy and the National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, but I expect he wouldn’t mind if your chosen charity got the money instead.
Post from: TorrentFreak
27.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
When the Swedish Pirate Party was launched three years ago, the majority of the mainstream press viewed them with skepticism, with some simply laughing them away. Times have changed though. As the government works to introduce harsher copyright laws and others that threaten the privacy of Sweden’s citizens, the party is growing stronger and stronger.
In a recent poll, 21 percent of all Swedes indicated that they would consider voting for the Pirate Party in the upcoming European Parliament elections. Among men in the 18-29 age group, this number goes up to a massive 55% - an unprecedented statistic.
Aside from the support in this poll, more people have joined the party recently. During the last quarter the membership count increased by 50% - from 6000 to 9000 - which makes the party larger than the Green Party which currently holds 19 seats in the Swedish parliament.
Swedish Pirate Party Leader Rick Falkvinge told TorrentFreak that the Internet played a big part in the recent successes of the party. “We couldn’t have done this without the dialog infrastructure that the Net provides. Oldmedia has lost control of the discourse,” he said. With all the controversy surrounding the new anti-piracy and wiretapping legislation, the Pirate Party was often mentioned on blogs, since they are the most outspoken opponent.
For the upcoming European election, the Pirate Party requires 100,000 Swedish votes to get a seat, a goal that is within reach in the current political climate. Falkvinge is optimistic too, and said “We need to grow by another 50%, counting from the Swedish election two years ago, to get seats in the EU parliament and shake the political copyright world at its core. It’s hard, it’s supposed to be hard, but the numbers show we can do it. We can do this, and the charts are going stratospheric.”
The Internet will probably play a big role in this election for the Pirate Party, and recent history has shown that this is not only true for parties that carry “pirate” in their name. Elections to the European Parliament will be held in June 2009, and it’s going to be very interesting to see how the Pirate Party fares.
Post from: TorrentFreak
26.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
Internet users were due to experience a censored Internet a couple of days ago, thanks to the launch of the ‘great firewall of Australia’. Developed ostensibly for the protection of minors, there is widespread concern that not only will it fail in its stated primary aim, but will affect regular net users from going about their business by slowing everything down. The government even plans to attempt the blocking of BitTorrent traffic.
However, for Australians today the Internet looks very much like the Internet of yesterday and the day before, since proposed filtering scheme simply failed to get off the ground. According to a report, the Federal Opposition says it is “not surprised” that the government’s filtering scheme has been delayed. The latest update is that the trial will commence mid-January 2009, with the ISPs involved being announced at the same point.
iiNet, one of Australia’s largest ISPs, has been most vocal about the minimal chances of success for the filtering scheme, even going as far as to say that it was only participating in the trials to show that it will fail. iiNet chief Michael Malone even labeled the architect of the plan, Broadband Minister Stephen Conroy, as “the worst Communications Minister we’ve had in the 15 years since the [Internet] industry has existed.”
An Australian Senate member since July 1993 and previously the Shadow Minister for Defense, Nick Minchin is the Shadow Minister for Broadband and he believes that the filtering system would drastically slow down the Internet.
He told ABC, “The laboratory trial that the Government conducted this year showed potential effect on speed of up to 87 per cent slowdown in the speed of the internet, he said, adding “And this is from the Government that wants to install a National Broadband Network so we can all have high speed broadband.”
“I think that’s a major flaw in the scheme but there are many, many others.”
So, three weeks from now the trial is supposed to start. It won’t take a fourth week to realize that it is doomed to fail.
Post from: TorrentFreak
26.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
uTorrent saw its first public release in September 2005. A year later this popular lightweight client was acquired by BitTorrent Inc. who continued to develop the application, recently introducing a Mac version.
Despite its popularity, up until now little has been known about the number of regular users the client has. Based on data from PC Pitstop, we reported in April that uTorrent was installed on 11.6% of all PCs in Europe, compared to 5.1% in the United States. However, the number of installs says little about the actual use of the application.
Trying to discover more about the number of regular users of uTorrent, we decided to ask Simon Morris, BitTorrent’s VP of Product Management, and he was willing to share some data with us. Morris told us that every month, 28 million unique clients are actively used. “Client check-ins have continued to grow steadily in the course of 2008,” he said, adding “Clearly the ongoing demand for our freeware seems to be quite strong.”
In comparison, Morris said that the Mainline client - the second most popular BitTorrent client according to PC Pitstop - has 7 million active users a month. More interestingly perhaps, is that the usage statistics of uTorrent gives us more insight into the number of BitTorrent users overall. If we know what the market share of uTorrent is, we could made a fairly accurate estimate of the number of active BitTorrent users a month.
Based on tracker reports, an estimated market share for uTorrent of between 40% and 60% seems fair, which would mean that there are between 50 and 70 million BitTorrent users active each month. If we assume that 70 million active BitTorrent users is an accurate estimate, this means that close to 5% of all people on the Internet are using BitTorrent monthly, which is quite impressive.
Post from: TorrentFreak
25.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
We’re not sending out any cards ourselves, but Merry Christmas to you all, and keep on seeding in 2009.
Mininova’s (scanned) holidays card
Post from: TorrentFreak
25.Dec.08 TorrentFreak Comments Off
