TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Largest BitTorrent Trackers Go Offline in Protest
- Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent
- Cord Cutting Is The New File-Sharing
- Abusing Copyright To Stifle Dissent & Censor Critics
| Largest BitTorrent Trackers Go Offline in Protest Posted: 16 Jul 2012 04:58 AM PDT OpenBitTorrent (OBT) and PublicBitTorrent (PBT) are two non-profit BitTorrent trackers running on the beerware licensed Opentracker software. Neither service hosts or links to torrent files and both are free to use by all BitTorrent users. The trackers are the two most-used BitTorrent trackers, and both are generally coordinating the downloads of tens of millions people at any given point in time. However, starting a few days ago the trackers stopped working entirely, and not without reason. The admin of OpenBitTorrent informed TorrentFreak that both trackers are on strike. Both will remain offline until a solution is found for the massive waste of bandwidth that BitTorrent users generate as the result of incorrect tracker announces. Trackers on Strike
Both OBT and PBT abandoned TCP support to become UDP-only trackers last year. This was done to save resources. However, because many users keep adding HTTP addresses and since many old torrents also include these, both trackers are overloaded with bogus announces. For OpenBitTorrent this means that more bandwidth and resources are wasted on erroneous traffic than on legitimate announces. The same problem also hurts many torrent sites that don’t even operate a tracker. Many novice users add URLs of BitTorrent indexes to the “trackers” field when they generate a torrent. This results in a flood of unwanted traffic to these sites. The issue has been brought to the attention of BitTorrent developers in the past, and two months ago Pirate Bay co-founder Fredrik Neij submitted an official proposal to the developer forum which is operated by uTorrent’s parent company BitTorrent Inc. Neij’s proposal is to add a functionality that allows website and tracker owners to inform BitTorrent clients whether connections are allowed or not. The operators of PublicBitTorrent, OpenBitTorrent and many others have welcomed the proposal, but weeks passed by without a comment from BitTorrent Inc. This prompted the operators of BitTorrent’s largest tracker to go on strike. “We can’t keep paying for a shitload of boxes because they won’t implement simple policy features,” OpenBitTorrent’s admin told TorrentFreak. “PBT and OBT are on strike until the issue is resolved, we can’t continue to pay bills that are much higher than what they should be.” OpenBitTorrent on Strike
The bills are not the only problem either, as the admin points out that without a fix BitTorrent clients can be abused to DDoS any website. “If you wanted to DDoS a website now with torrent clients, all you would have to do is hack a few torrent sites and add the URL of the site you want DDoSed to the torrents and magnet URLs they are displaying.” For BitTorrent users, on the other hand, the strike of BitTorrent’s largest trackers is causing problems. Without central trackers it takes much longer to find peers, and users who don’t have DHT enabled will notice that their torrents stop working entirely if there is no backup tracker. Luckily most torrent clients have DHT enabled by default, but there are hundreds of thousands of BitTorrent users out there who have it disabled. TorrentFreak contacted BitTorrent Inc. before the weekend and asked them for a response to the proposal. We will add their statement to this article when it comes in, but for the time being BitTorrent users will have to do without the two largest trackers. Source: Largest BitTorrent Trackers Go Offline in Protest | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent Posted: 16 Jul 2012 01:12 AM PDT
American Reunion is the most downloaded movie for the third week in a row. The data for our weekly download chart is collected by TorrentFreak, and is for informational and educational reference only. All the movies in the list are BD/DVDrips unless stated otherwise. RSS feed for the weekly movie download chart.
Source: Top 10 Most Pirated Movies on BitTorrent | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Cord Cutting Is The New File-Sharing Posted: 15 Jul 2012 01:59 PM PDT
But lately, all that rhetoric about cord cutting has been sounding awfully familiar, and I started to wonder: Where had I heard that before? And then it hit me: Cord cutting is the new file-sharing. Of course, I don't mean to say that all cord cutters are pirates. Sure, a subset of them are definitely getting their TV show fix from BitTorrent sites and cyberlockers after ditching cable, especially in countries where no legal alternatives exist. But in the U.S., many people instead turn to Hulu, Netflix and even free over-the-air TV once they cut the cable cord. Still, cord cutting and file-sharing have a lot in common. On the surface, both are about paying less for movies and TV shows. But take a closer look, and you'll realize that money is only part of the equation. What really unites cord cutters and file-sharers is that they want to take their media consumption into their own hands. Cord cutters don't just want to watch what's on TV at any given time anymore, and they don't want to spend hundreds of dollars a year on channels they don't need, or don't agree with. Instead, they want to have access to the media they want, when they want it, on the devices of their choice. The same is true for file-sharing. Sure, one of the reasons that people download torrents is that they're free. But more often than not, free is the only price point that TV shows or movies are available at to begin with. It can take months before U.S. TV shows become available in Europe or elsewhere, and broadcasters in countries like Germany still think that their audience would rather listen to horrible dubbing as opposed to the English original. In many cases, the only way to get that new TV show episode everyone is talking about on Twitter and Facebook is BitTorrent. Finally, both file-sharing and cord cutting are driving innovation, often against established industries that would rather keep things the way they are. If it wasn't for file-sharing, Spotify & Co. wouldn't exist. And if it wasn't for people looking for alternatives to traditional cable, Netflix would still just be a DVD rental service. But this potential for disruption doesn't bode well with everyone. Movie studios and record companies have been waging a legal war against file-sharing ever since the days of Napster. These days, they've found another target: Cord cutting innovators like the New York-based startup Aereo that makes broadcast TV streams available over the web. Chances are, broadcasters and Hollywood studios will win at least some of these battles, and cable companies will use their market power to keep their online competition in check. But just as file-sharers have done before them, cord cutters will prove their smarts and show us that some things just can't be stopped.  About The Author Janko Roettgers is the author of the new e-book Cut the cord – all you need to know to drop cable. He's also a staff writer for GigaOM, host of the online video show Cord Cutters and guilty of neglecting his P2P Blog. Source: Cord Cutting Is The New File-Sharing | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Abusing Copyright To Stifle Dissent & Censor Critics Posted: 15 Jul 2012 06:32 AM PDT Dan Bull is known for his protests against draconian copyright legislation such as SOPA and ACTA, and this week it once again became clear what he’s fighting for. After Bull responded to a “ridiculous” lawsuit brought by rapper Lord Finesse against his colleague Mac Miller, the critical response was censored from YouTube on copyright grounds. Interestingly enough, plenty of other Lord Finesse copyrighted content on YouTube was not censored, suggesting the takedown was political. Needless to say, this has made Dan Bull even more angry than before. “I have fought ACTA, SOPA, DEA and various other forms of censorship in the name of copyright. I will not be silenced by this kind of abuse of the copyright system. The DMCA is not supposed to be used in this way,” he writes. In the video below Bull explains in detail how ridiculous the situation is. Bull’s responseThis is not the first time YouTube’s takedown procedure has been (ab)used as a censorship tool. The same happened December last year when Megaupload’s “Mega Song” was taken down by Universal Music Group (UMG). This prompted Megaupload to sue UMG. Bull doesn’t know whether he will respond legally, but he is encouraging people to bring attention to the situation. “I still need to decide what route I will take in challenging this action further, but I want you all to be aware of what has happened. Please like and share this video. If you are a content creator yourself, read up on fair use and fair dealing so that you are able to defend your own rights should this kind of thing happen to you,” Bull writes. The irony of it all is that Lord Finesse has yet to learn the finesses of the Internet. When you try to censor something online on dubious grounds, this often results in the opposite effect. After Bull’s video was censored, many copies were quickly uploaded to YouTube and other video sharing sites. A perfect example of the Streisand Effect. Bull’s original track with video clip.Source: Abusing Copyright To Stifle Dissent & Censor Critics | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
This week there are three newcomers in our chart. 
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