If copyright holders had their way the world’s leading torrent sites would be blocked by Internet service providers in every country of the world. That goal remains in the distance but there can be little doubt that the process is moving forward.

Several countries around Europe are now blocking between dozens and hundreds of ‘pirate’ sites and surprisingly, given the country’s traditional attitude to infringement, Russia is also becoming a blocking front-runner.

But while copyright holders remain enthusiastic about the implementation of bans, millions of Internet users are only interested in circumventing them. VPNs, proxies and mirrors are all playing their part but it now appears that Russian torrent giant RuTracker is about to deploy an alternative system to beat the censors.

In addition to other counter-measures already being deployed, RuTracker is reportedly working on a bot system that will deliver torrents to users via the encrypted instant messaging service Telegram.

Financed by Russian Facebook (vKontakte) founder Pavel Durov, Telegram is a multi-platform messaging system that has grown from 100,000 daily users in 2013 to an impressive 100 million users in February 2016.

“Telegram is a messaging app with a focus on speed and security, it’s super-fast, simple and free. You can use Telegram on all your devices at the same time — your messages sync seamlessly across any number of your phones, tablets or computers,” Telegram explains.

The attractiveness of Telegram for RuTracker lies in its reach. In addition to sending any kind of file (doc, zip, mp3, torrent, etc), it can broadcast such content to an unlimited audience. It’s believed that the site will use Telegram to distribute magnet links, which makes sense after the site added them in recent months.

The big question now is how RuTracker will be received by Telegram’s operators. While the platform is generally anti-censorship and refuses to comply with local government restrictions on freedom of speech, it does have rules about infringing content.

Private chats between groups of users up to 5,000 members are strictly off-limits, so any exchanges there are not subjected to any takedowns. However, something more public could fall foul of the site’s rules.

“Our mission is to provide a secure means of communication that works everywhere on the planet. To do that in the places where it is most needed (and to continue distributing Telegram through the App Store and Google Play), we have to process legitimate requests to take down illegal public content (sticker sets, bots, and channels) within the app,” Telegram’s ToS reads.

While it remains to be seen how the service will view the transmission of magnet links, entertainment industry bosses are already beginning to chime in with their opinions. Alexander Blinov, General Director of Gala Records / EMI, told news outlet Izvestia that if Telegram doesn’t take action against RuTracker, his company will take the fight to Google and Apple.

“The appearance of RuTracker in Telegram is not good and if RuTracker continues to distribute illegal content through this channel, we will have to take the necessary measures, in particular filing complaints with Apple and Google,” Blinov said.

“Working relationships with these companies have already been established. However, response times are unpredictable: sometimes they act quickly, and sometimes they do not pay attention to complaints.”

According to Alexei Byrdin of the Internet Video Association, Telegram is an international project so will need to comply with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. There are no mentions of that legislation anywhere on the Telegram site but it’s certainly possible that Google and Apple could inflict the terms of the DMCA upon the service.

In any event, the move by RuTracker is certainly an interesting one. The site hasn’t really concerned itself with too much innovation over the years but in recent months has responded aggressively after receiving a lifetime block in Russia. Necessity really is the mother of invention.

Image credit: John Palmer

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

This week we have three newcomers in our chart.

Star Wars: The Force Awakens is the most downloaded movie.

The data for our weekly download chart is estimated 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.

Ranking	(last week)	Movie	IMDb Rating / Trailer
torrentfreak.com
1	(…)	Star Wars: The Force Awakens	8.3 / trailer
2	(1)	Deadpool (HDrip subbed)	8.6 / trailer
3	(…)	Ice Age: The Great Egg-Scapade (Web-DL)	6.1 / trailer
4	(6)	The Revenant (Web-DL)	8.2 / trailer
5	(3)	The 5th Wave (HDrip)	5.4 / trailer
6	(2)	Kung Fu Panda 3 (Web-DL)	8.0 / trailer
7	(4)	IP-Man 3	7.6 / trailer
8	(5)	The Hateful Eight	8.0 / trailer
9	(…)	Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice (Cam)	7.5 / trailer
10	(9)	Spectre	6.9 / trailer

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

Transmission is one of the oldest and most used BitTorrent clients. Since its first release in 2005, the free, multi-platform application has gathered a steady user-base of millions of users.

Transmission is one of the most-used Mac BitTorrent clients as well as being the default BitTorrent client on various Linux distributions.

However, despite being more than a decade old official support for the Windows operating system has always been lacking. This changed earlier this month, when the first Windows build was added to the download directory.

Users who try the Windows version will notice that it’s very similar to the releases on other platforms. All the features are in the same place, and the look and feel is pretty much identical as well.

TorrentFreak spoke with Transmission developer Mike Gelfand, who’s in charge of the Windows project. He tells us that a lot of progress has been made in recent months and that the official Windows release will be added to the download page after the next version comes out.

The big question is, however, why Windows and why now?

Mike explains that the idea came from a conversation he had with Transmission developer Jordan Lee, who noted that the lack of Windows support was the “biggest missing feature.”

“Since then I saw many people showing up either willing to use Transmission on Windows since they already use it on another platform, or looking for an alternative to their current BitTorrent client on Windows for this or that reason,” Mike notes.

Transmission for Windows

Since the original developers had little experience with Windows coding, Mike decided to take on Jordan’s proposal and join this part of the project.

On the one hand, the goal was to make Transmission’s “fast, easy and free” experience available to Windows users. Secondly, an official release simplifies life for people maintaining unofficial forks.

And so, after several months of active development, Transmission for Windows arrived. Thus far the release hasn’t been actively promoted, but it has been picked up by Ghacks and a few other places already.

Mike stresses that the project is still in active development and that more changes and features are likely to be introduced in the near future. Thus far, it is pretty much a copy of the core Transmission client without any additional features.

“The only difference right now is that it runs on Windows. We’ll see how it goes, some features could be added later on which are specific to Windows and aren’t needed on other platforms,” he says.

Those interested in giving Transmission for Windows a spin can download the client here.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

In 1999, when Napster began drawing its first digital breaths, few users realized they were part of the dawn of a people-powered sharing revolution that would reach millions.

In time, founders Shawn Fanning, John Fanning, and Sean Parker would become both famous and infamous, with the latter surviving Metallica’s destruction of his business and emerging 15 years later as a Facebook multi-billionaire.

But while Parker is publicly living the dream with his pirate history all but forgotten, others on the receiving end of massive litigation have slowly but surely drifted into the background to pursue other interests. Like Gary Fung, for example.

As the former admin of torrent site isoHunt.com, Fung became a hero to many due to his extended battle with Hollywood’s MPAA. Year after year Fung defied the most powerful people in the movie industry to keep his site online, something that was well received among the file-sharing masses.

While it eventually came to a costly end, Fung’s battle was a true David and Goliath affair.

It inspired many, in part due to the way the Canadian was prepared to become a public figure whose face was well known to his fans. As a result he is still one of the most recognizable individuals to have emerged from the torrent world.

Of course, there are at least three other individuals who enjoyed even greater pirate infamy than Gary Fung. Like Madonna, Bono or Oprah, the trio of Gottfrid, Fredrik and Peter are recognizable by a single name, albeit when placed together. While moderately recognizable in the mainstream they are truly world famous among the technological masses.

Just like Fung, these Pirate Bay operators gained superstar fame due to their willingness to become recognized in public. During the height of the site’s popularity it was never a secret who was loading the servers and keeping fellow pirates happy. At every opportunity and even when on trial, one or the other was courting publicity in order to further the pirate movement.

The world’s most famous pirates (credit)

And, overall, people absolutely loved it. Unlike most of the faceless operators of dozens of similar sites, Anakata, TiAMO and brokep became icons, appearing in hundreds of mainstream publications around the world and even starring in their own movie. Throughout they stayed defiant, and remain so to this day.

While Napster may have been first and Fung was undoubtedly brave, these three renegades were in a class of their own and will go down in history as the most popular digital pirates the world has ever seen.

Fredrik addressing Pirate Bay fans in Sweden

Of course there have been others since, most notably Kim Dotcom. Although he’s never likely to embrace the Department of Justice’s claims that he’s the biggest intellectual property pirate the world has ever seen, to many Dotcom is still a pirate hero, regardless of whether he was responsible for the massive piracy on Megaupload.

The key factor is that like Gary, Gottfrid, Fredrik and Peter, rightly or wrongly Dotcom is facing similar persecution from Hollywood. And, just like them, he has remained strong, refused to fold and has indicated the studios can go forth and multiply. A lot of people like that.

Furthermore, what Dotcom has done is position himself as a freedom fighter. He’s placed a human face on what began as a fight over piracy yet has developed into a struggle for control of the Internet. That resonates with millions, even those who oppose other elements of his character.

But although it was fun while it lasted, in terms of public personalities the pirate movement has already enjoyed its ‘Concorde Moment‘. During the last decade and a half fearless pirates put their faces into the public arena, confident in the knowledge that they could never be touched, that somehow laws would never catch up with innovation.

Now, however, it’s clear that the only pirates with their faces being shown in public are those being raided, arrested, prosecuted or subjected to punishing civil litigation. No longer is it fun to prod the bear while shouting out one’s real name. The bears have learned to be patient and now return at a later date to inflict mountains of regret.

There might still be a surprise in store, a brave entrepreneur and entertainer might arrive prepared to sacrifice himself for the benefit of others. But for now the prospect of lawsuits, jail and extradition will ensure that the next generation of pirates will reject superstar status and accept something much more basic.

Their freedom.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.

During the latter part of every year, pressure builds as Internet pirates prepare for the inevitable.

Having been sent out to industry professionals “For Their Consideration”, so-called DVD Screener copies of the latest movies begin to hit the Internet.

Last year was a pretty memorable one with some massive titles hitting the web. Both The Revenant and The Hateful Eight were furiously downloaded on BitTorrent before their theatrical debuts, causing shockwaves and controversy as anti-piracy advocates took the opportunity to bemoan droves of “Internet thieves”.

But of course, these leaks have to originate somewhere and as revealed in February with a high-profile arrest, movie insiders are often to blame for content being made available online.

While Kyle Moriarty from Lancaster admitted to copying screeners of The Revenant and The Peanuts Movie while working on a movie studio lot, other DVD screeners do make it to their intended recipients. However, even though these people are supposed to guard the discs with their lives, some don’t appear to do so and are happy to let their friends view them in advance of their theatrical release.

This kind of reckless behavior is welcomed by pirates and almost guarantees a flood of titles hitting BitTorrent around the same time every year. At this point Internet pirates get all the blame yet it’s pretty clear that although the industry doesn’t really want to talk about it, those closer to home are main source of the problem

To see the scale of the issue one only has to turn to the world’s favorite online auction house. Known as a source for just about anything, it turns out that eBay is also a great place to buy DVD screeners, presumably being offloaded directly or indirectly by those who were expected to review them.

For example, for just US$16.53 one can currently buy a lovely Emmy ‘boxed set’ of TV show screeners including episodes of Bates Motel, The Returned, Intervention, Wahlburgers and Married at First Sight.

For those more interested in movies, eBay has plenty of treasures available. Around December 17 last year a DVD screener copy of Straight Outta Compton leaked onto the Internet. Just a handful of months later and it appears that screener recipients are looking to convert those discs into cash via the popular site.

And the more one digs, the more titles appear. A copy of Tom Hardy’s Kray’s movie Legend, for example, along with a vintage copy of Inglourious Basterds, and many, many more besides. Shame the Walking Dead screeners aren’t more recent.

Finally, if binge-watching is more your thing, Netflix screeners are also catered for on eBay. Apparently the company sends out huge box-sets for recipients’ binge-worthy consideration.

Source: TF, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing, torrent sites and ANONYMOUS VPN services.