The Next Web » BitTorrent

Miami judge signs order calling torrenting “protected anonymous speech”, then vacates it

Drew Olanoff — Wed, 21 Mar 2012 22:51:42 +0000

According to a report by TorrentFreak, a Miami judge has issued a landmark order in a case that included over 600 BitTorrent downloaders.

Judge Marc Schumacher pulled no punches when discussing the way in which copyright holders are going after citizens, in essence bypassing federal courts thanks to a loophole in Florida that allows copyright holders to subpoena Internet providers with little or no evidence. Here’s what Judge Schumacher had to say:

[These suits are].. used to extort settlements from defendants who are neither subject to the courts’ personal jurisdiction nor guilty o

The Pirate Bay isn’t phased by UK claim that it’s illegal, shares plans to move forward

Drew Olanoff — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 18:43:19 +0000

Yesterday we reported that the popular file-sharing site The Pirate Bay could be blocked in the UK starting any day now, since the courts have deemed the site “illegal”.

The statement from the Mr Justice Arnold yesterday stated that both The Pirate Bay and its users are indeed participating in copyright infringement:

In my judgment, the operators of [The Pirate Bay] do authorise its users’ infringing acts of copying and communication to the public. They go far beyond merely enabling or assisting. I conclude that both users and the operators of [The Pirate Bay] infringe the copyrights of the claimants…in the UK.

Given this damning statement, The Pirate Bay, which has been around since 2003, has said openly that it will not simply shut down but will take a different approach to filesharing. Instead of the popular BitTorrent links that The Pirate Bay has provided over the years, the site will switch to magnet links, which are harder to detect. Here’s what The Pirate Bay had to say in an official statement on Facebook:

As we’ve said before, the 29th of february is the last day we offer torrents in it’s current form. Then it will be all magnets, which works pretty much the same. Before you go “oh ma goood why why why?!!!11″, please understand that it’s a necessary move in the saga known as The Pirate Bay. Not having torrents will be a bit cheaper for us but it will also make it harder for our common enemies to stop us (which they can’t. but everything that makes it harder for them brings more lolz to our lips).

According to The Guardian, a company called Reservella Ltd is claimed to be behind the site, but many dispute that claim from the court.

The move away from BitTorrents makes The Pirate Bay more portable, making the entire filesharing directory small enough to fit on a single USB device.

The most pirated movie in 2011 was downloaded 9,260,000 times

Drew Olanoff — Fri, 23 Dec 2011 23:01:25 +0000

TorrentFreak has listed the top 10 most pirated movies of 2011, according to download data from BitTorrent. The site points out that the #1 pirated film of the year wasn’t as popular as last year’s #1, Avatar, which was downloaded over 16 million times. The numbers also show a downward trend over all of the top 10.

Are people pirating less, or did the movies just suck this year?

After taking a look at this list of movies, I have to say that 2011 was a really crappy year for films. And after taking a look at the #1 movie, people who pirate films have no taste for cinema.

All jokes aside, I believe that online streaming has made this dent in download numbers. Downloading movies requires tons of bandwidth, and the quality isn’t always the best. With Netflix streaming pretty great movies and TV shows, I’d venture to say that it had something to do with the download decline. Also, with more people watching movies on iPads, Kindles, and tablets, they don’t have hard drives for huge movie files from BitTorrent. Streaming is the way to go.

Having said that, here are your top 10 most ~~stolen~~ pirated movies of 2011:

Seriously? Fast Five? Regardless, some think that pirating isn’t about stealing, as much as it’s a convenience. However, if you add up all of these downloads there’s a lot of money missing from some very sad bank accounts this holiday season.