As Reported Everywhere, MPAA issued a press release that thay are now suing isoHunt.com, TorrentBox.com, and a number of other BitTorrent, eDonkey and Newsgroup indexing sites. I still have yet to receive a formal cease and desist letter directly from MPAA Legal, but all seems to indicate this is for real and it’s only a matter of time.

This is somewhat a followup to the series of MPAA letters we’ve received a year ago.

At this point, it is still uncertain what they are actually suing us for, considering we have a thorough copyright policy outlining our stance and takedown procedures. It is sad that despite our best efforts in cooperating with copyright owners, in both disabling copyright infringing links to their works everyday while for others, helping them distribute their works globally and cheaply using P2P technologies, it is still not enough for the MPAA. Have they ever learned from the VCR or Napster? When will corporations stop fighting technology and learn to embrace it to benefit all of us?

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Top 10 Torrents for 2006

The Top 10 torrents for 2006 might not only surprise the RIAA but also some of you. What would the Top torrent be and is it a movie, game or an MP3. Drum roll please…

Number 10:

System of a Down Discography

System of a Down (also referred to as S.O.A.D. or System) is a four-piece alternative metal band, formed in 1995 in Los Angeles, California. An MP3 collection from this group was download 1,328,646 time(s) for a total bandwidth consumption of 249,785 GB.

Number 9:

Pearl Jam

Pearl Jam, is an American rock band formed in Seattle, Washington, and is considered one of the most influential bands of the 1990s. An MP3 collection of theirs was downloaded more than 1,371,404 time(s) for a total bandwidth consumption of 94,634 GB.

Number 8:

Depeche Mode

Depeche Mode, are an influential English electronic music band, formed in 1980 in Basildon, Essex. An Mp3 collection of theirs was downloaded more than 1,453,693 time(s) for a total bandwidth consumption of 49,424 GB.

Number 7:

King of the Hill

King of the Hill, is a satirical American animated television series created by Mike Judge and Greg Daniels for the FOX Network. The movie was downloaded more then 1,480,848 time(s) for a total bandwidth consumption of 259,148 GB.

Number 6:

System of a Down Toxicity

System of a Down (also referred to as S.O.A.D. or System) is a four-piece alternative metal band, formed in 1995 in Los Angeles, California. An MP3 collection from this group was download 1,506,684 time(s) for a total bandwidth consumption of 67,700 GB.

Number 5:

The Girl Next Door

The Girl Next Door, is a 2004 teen film that stars Emile Hirsch and Elisha Cuthbert. The movie was downloaded 2,155,070 time(s) for a total bandwidth consumption of 1,400,795 GB. Almost one and a half million gigabytes!

Number 4:

Britney Spears Toxic Video

Britney Spears, is a Grammy Award-winning American pop singer, dancer, actress, author and songwriter. Her video was downloaded more than 2,195,204 time(s) for a total bandwidth consumption of more than 85,612 GB.

Number 3:

Pink Floyd - The Wall (Film)

Pink Floyd The Wall, is a 1982 MGM film by British director Alan Parker based on the 1979 Pink Floyd album The Wall. The video was downloaded more than 2,196,234 time(s) for a total bandwidth consumption of 608,432 GB.

Number 2:

Dark Water 2005 (Film)

Dark Water is a 2005 American horror film directed by Walter Salles and starring Jennifer Connelly. The video was downloaded more than 2,295,495 time(s) for a bandwidth consumption of 1,632,096 GB or more than 1,500TB.

Number 1:

Fallout 2 & Fallout 1 (A Game)

Fallout 2 is a critically-acclaimed computer role-playing game published by Interplay in 1998. It was downloaded a whopping 1,165,564,987 time(s)! That is correct a game was the most popular torrent for 2006. It was downloaded more than 1 billion times! The bandwidth it consumed was a staggering 1,468,611,883 GB!

WOW!!!

Over the past couple of years, a bunch of ISPs have started (usually quietly) applying traffic shaping efforts to slow down your high bandwidth applications like BitTorrent. This is part of what the whole network neutrality debate is about, but this has more to do with the ISPs trying to keep out services that use up more bandwidth then they budgeted for.

What it really represents is the inability of ISPs to recognize a simple fact: if you offer people bandwidth, they’ll figure out ways to use it. The ISPs got into this big race with each other, and all promised unlimited bandwidth at cheap prices, making the calculation that the demand for bandwidth wouldn’t increase very much, and most people wouldn’t use very much at all.

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The legitimate BitTorrent video store will be launched in February, according to yet another interview with well-traveled BitTorrent co-founder Ashwin Navin. We lost count of the number of recent interviews given by Navin as the company aims to rebrand itself from a piracy tool to a legitimate distribution platform and content seller.

The BBC is teaming up with Bit-Torrent client, Azureus, to make hundreds of television shows available to people worldwide.

This means that users will be able to download popular shows like: Little Britain, Red Dwarf, League of Gentleman, Doctor Who and Fawlty Towers no matter where they are for a small fee. What’s most impressive is that the BBC isn’t going to just dip its toes into this project but is instead going to offer hundreds of shows from the very start. This gives the service a much better chance of taking off and becoming successful.

The move by the BBC is a response to the huge increase in websites that offer free downloadable TV series. Currently, by using video-share websites like YouTube, you can easily watch BBC shows like Match of the Day for free. A quick search on Google will find other sites which offer downloadable BBC television on demand for free. By enlisting the help of established Bit-Torrent software creator Azureus, which already has over 130 million downloads of its bit-torrent client, the BBC hope to distribute high quality video in a completely legal manner.

How exactly the content will be secured is unclear at the moment and the biggest fear for both the BBC and Azureus must be that the high quality downloads will end up being available on the illegal file sharing networks. If the BBC is to secure the files with something similar to the Windows Media Player DRM they could be making a big mistake. As soon as someone hacks it, they will be able to rip all of the content and then make it available on the net for free. Brave or stupid BBC?

MPAA sues popular BitTorrent search engines

This February the MPAA announced lawsuits (PDF) against Torrentspy, Torrentbox and Isohunt, three of the most popular BitTorrent search engines. Isohunt owner Gary later told Torrentfreak that they will not bow down to the MPAA. Isohunt hired a top-notch lawyer, specialized in Internet copyrights, and teamed up with Torrentbox.

The MPAA argued that the sole purpose of these torrent sites is to infringe on copyrights. But they are wrong according to Gary, who said, “We process copyright takedown requests daily, and have done so for hundreds of requests in the past, if not thousands. We work with all copyright owners, and even the RIAA email us routinely. The MPAA is the only organization unwilling to cooperate with us.”

Torrentspy was the first torrent site that took action against the MPAA. In March they filed a “motion to dismiss” the lawsuit (PDF). According to Torrentspy, the MPAA would be better off suing Google. “Everything alleged about defendants’ website (Torrentspy) is true about Google, and even more so, because Google outperforms the allegations in the complaint. Plaintiffs’ (MPAA) factually empty and broadbrush categorical accusations are like mud that covers all distinctions,” said Torrentspy’s lawyer.

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BitTorrent is fast becoming the leading p2p network as video surpasses music as the most popularly shared content medium, according to a survey by iPoque.

Indeed figures from its analysis of German Internet usage show that BitTorrent has already usurped eDonkey in terms of the amount of data traffic that each protocol generates: BitTorrent 53 per cent and eDonkey 43 per cent. Statistics from the rest of Europe show eDonkey still slightly ahead, but the trend is towards torrents.

So dominant are the two networks, that others barely register: the third most popular, Gnutella, accounted for less than three per cent of traffic during the June to October 2006 period of the survey.

The rise of BitTorrent mirrors the increase in the sharing of movies and television shows, which torrents are better equipped to handle. Where p2p was once the preserve of music sharers (and pornographers), film and TV now make up more than a third of the number of files being shared on BitTorrent and 22 per cent on eDonkey. That said, there are still many more files available on eDonkey - and much more pornography - than there are on BitTorrent. The survey found 250,000 different eDonkey files as opposed to just 56,000 on BitTorrent.

There’s little doubt that BitTorrent - both the protocol and the company - are quickly becoming the most important Internet event since the arrival of the World Wide Web. In many ways it already has supplanted the importance of the web, as it’s responsible for utilizing a majority of the Internet’s bandwidth and is the definitive distribution method for millions.

The road towards creating an Internet phenomenon has not been easy for file-sharing and P2P developers. In fact it has been a road filled with legal obstacles since the concept went mainstream with Napster. To date, the only successful P2P protocol seemingly capable in traversing from the legally questionable to outright legitimate is BitTorrent.

With a massive userbase and highly advanced protocol capable of transferring large files with ease, the entertainment industry has taken a much softer stance on the BitTorrent issue. Both mainstream and independent studios are gradually using the BitTorrent protocol to distribute their work and take advantage of the massive user potential.

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ACCEL WILL provide $20 million in Series B financing to BitTorrent.

Bram Cohen, the CEO and co-founder of BitTorrent, said that the financing testified to his firm’s tech and potential growth and will help further develop his firm’s technology.

Accel partner Ping Li said BitTorrent had revolutioned digital media content internet distribution. The initial investor in BitTorrent is DCM, which helped lead the second round of financing.

Bittorrent already offers some old monochrome photographic films - for example in the column John Wayne, cowboy and the game west -. Now the enterprise wants to enter in larger framework into the business with film and series downloads. Bittorrent plans to start an on-line Shop for films and series.

The enterprise is thereby according to their own statements around it, the users material, also out of China, which can be found with difficulty, Japan and India to offer. The service will thus not step therefore into competition to video download portals such as Unbox, which was bought recently by Amazon.com, or approximately against Apple iTunes begin - with those both primarily Mainstream announced is. Instead of one wants its content marked out, which users want, but difficulties have to find. In addition for example Bollywood films or series based on Japanese Manga Comics count. “we used a niche, therefore we decided to supply content which nobody offers otherwise”, said Ashwin Navin, president and co founder of Bittorrent in an interview. In the USA, in particular outside of large cities, such content is  impossible to find. In the second step Great Britain is to follow, at the beginning of next yea. Gradually the service is to be developed then world-wide.

http://www.pcwelt.de/news/online/57429/

Managing BitTorrent traffic has become an issue in the news lately. NetEqualizer, by APConnections, has been able to manage encrypted BitTorrent traffic for quite some time, and without any change in technology, without upgrades or without even requiring IT administrators to input protocols.

Further, the NetEqualizer’s ability to keep BitTorrent traffic in check will not be affected by encryption techniques neither today nor into the future.

Mike Morgan, Windows Server Administrator of Poplar Bluff Internet, serving Southern Missouri, says, “We have 13,000 subscribers and have found the NetEqualizer will handle all forms of BitTorrent (encrypted or otherwise) traffic quite nicely. In fact, we are replacing a more expensive tool from another company that required us to purchase upgrades at just about the same price as a fully supported new NetEqualizer.”

NetEqualizer’s customer base comprises a growing subset of IT administrators that don’t feel the need to identify types of traffic explicitly, as long as their impact is kept in check.

This is a key differentiator between APConnection’s product line, their customers, and the rest of the industry: Administrators that don’t want more control, but less. They want less work on their plate. NetEqualizer does it all automatically and leaves them time to administer their network with out monitoring for and inputting new protocols.

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/060905/phtu007.html?.v=69

Having been an Optimum customer for 5+ years, my recommendation is that nowadays you should NOT order Optimum Online. Why? Because it is EXTREMELY SLOW.

Once upon a time, I installed Azureus (bittorrent) and blazed uploads and downloads at 200 kB/s. Then one day everything stopped working. Azureus stopped working, and my web browser stopped working.

I thought it was my router, so I tried a new one. I tried a direct connection. I tried different bittorrent clients, and different web browsers. I came to dslreports and then I read about the 20 kB/s bandwidth throttling. That describes what I’m seeing now.

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SAN FRANCISCO, Aug. 31 /PRNewswire/ — 365 Main Inc., developer and operator of the world’s finest data centers, today announced that BitTorrent, provider of the world’s leading peer-assisted digital content distribution platform, has expanded its data center presence with 365 Main by a factor of 10.

BitTorrent first became a customer of 365 Main’s San Francisco data center in February 2005, occupying a single rack. After growing to three racks earlier this year, this recent expansion brings the company to a 600-square- foot server cage, roughly 28 racks.

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The advent of BitTorrent was a cause for celebration for people who wished to share large files very quickly, but Internet Service Providers did not see the technology in quite the same positive light. ISPs soon found that the majority of their bandwidth was taken up with BitTorrent traffic, and some, like Canadian provider Shaw, started throttling the service in response. BitTorrent clients such as Azureus added a feature that encrypted torrent traffic to try and get around these ISP roadblocks.

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More than 50 law enforcement officials raided 10 locations, confiscating the computers and detaining three people.

ThePirateBay.org had described itself to be the largest search index for BitTorrent, a system used for sharing large files across the internet.

The entertainment industry welcomed the action against a site it argued was a major source of music and film piracy.

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