TorrentFreak

Last updated

TorrentFreak
TorrentFreak logo.svg
TorrentFreak home page screenshot.png
Type of site
 Blog
Available in English
OwnerLennart Renkema PhD [1]
Created byErnesto van der Sar
Andy Maxwell
Rickard Falkvinge
Ben Jones (modified WordPress)
EditorErnesto van der Sar
Revenue Advertisements
URL torrentfreak.com
Launched12 November 2005;19 years ago (2005-11-12)
Content license
CC BY-NC 3.0 (text only) [2]

TorrentFreak (TF) is a blog dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the BitTorrent protocol and file sharing, as well as on copyright infringement and digital rights.

Contents

The website was started in November 2005 by a Dutchman using the pseudonym "Ernesto van der Sar". [3] [4] He was joined by Andy "Enigmax" Maxwell and Ben Jones in 2007. [4] [5] Regular contributors include Rickard Falkvinge, founder of the Pirate Party. [6] The online publication eCommerceTimes, in 2009, described "Ernesto" as the pseudonym of Lennart Renkema, owner of TorrentFreak. [7] TorrentFreak's text is free content under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial version 3.0 license. [2]

Their lead researcher and community manager was the Pirate Party activist Andrew Norton, from 2007 until 2022.

Specialist areas

According to Canadian law scholar Michael Geist, TorrentFreak "is widely used as a source of original reporting on digital issues". [8]

Frequent areas of reporting include:

As well as other news affecting copyright, privacy, file sharing and adjacent topics. [5]

Editorial stance

In a 2021 article, Andy Maxwell outlined TorrentFreak's editorial stance. He wrote: "As a publication entirely dedicated to reporting on copyright, piracy, torrent and streaming sites (plus all things closely related), here at TorrentFreak we aim to tell all 'sides' of the story. We do not shy away from reports that show that piracy hurts sales and we have no problem publishing research projects that show completely the opposite. It's called balanced reporting and it hurts absolutely no one." [15]

History

On 17 August 2007, TorrentFreak reported that Comcast had begun throttling its upload bandwidth, specifically against BitTorrent users. This made seeding, which is an essential part of the BitTorrent protocol, effectively impossible. [16] It was later determined that Comcast was using Sandvine products, which implement network traffic shaping and policing, and include support for both blocking new and forcefully terminating established network connections. Comcast has denied these claims whenever they have been asked to comment. A guide, for customer service representatives when asked about Comcast's BitTorrent throttling, was leaked to The Consumerist on 26 October 2007. [17]

In October 2008 through to March 2011 TorrentFreak ran a short lived video news service titled 'torrentfreak.tv', directed by Andrej Preston, founder of torrent site Suprnova made available for streaming and download on Mininova. [18] [19]

On 21 August 2013, Comcast threatened TorrentFreak for writing about publicly available court documents. [20] [21] The underlying document links a Comcast subscriber with the Prenda Law firm. [22] The court case where the document was filed was a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by AF Holdings for alleged infringement of an adult movie. [23] [24]

In August 2013, Sky Broadband blocked the site for UK customers after torrent site EZTV pointed its DNS servers to TorrentFreak's IP address and, in July 2014, the site was blocked by the controversial Sky Broadband Shield parental filter system. [25] [26]

Related Research Articles

MediaDefender, Inc. was a company that fought copyright infringement that offered services designed to prevent alleged copyright infringement using peer-to-peer distribution. They used unusual tactics such as flooding peer-to-peer networks with decoy files that tie up users' computers and bandwidth. MediaDefender was based in Los Angeles, California in the United States. As of March 2007, the company had approximately 60 employees and used 2,000 servers hosted in California with contracts for 9 Gbit/s of bandwidth.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">BREIN</span> Dutch entertainment industry interest group

The Bescherming Rechten Entertainment Industrie Nederland is an advocacy group with international links, based in the Netherlands, which represents the interests of the Dutch entertainment industry and is organised under the Dutch law through the legal form of stichting. It is notable for launching court proceedings against copyright infringement in the country and for engaging in lobbying in order to create legal precedents of global significance.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">The Pirate Bay</span> Website providing torrent files and magnet links

The Pirate Bay, commonly abbreviated as TPB, is a freely searchable online index of movies, music, video games, pornography and software. Founded in 2003 by Swedish think tank Piratbyrån, The Pirate Bay facilitates the connection among users of the peer-to-peer torrent protocol, which are able to contribute to the site through the addition of magnet links. The Pirate Bay has consistently ranked as one of the most visited torrent websites in the world.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Gottfrid Svartholm</span> Swedish computer specialist

Per Gottfrid Svartholm Warg, alias anakata, is a Swedish computer specialist, known as the former co-owner of the web hosting company PRQ and co-founder of the BitTorrent site The Pirate Bay together with Fredrik Neij and Peter Sunde.

isoHunt Torrent index site closed 2013

isoHunt was an online torrent files index and repository, where visitors could browse, search, download or upload torrents of various digital content of mostly entertainment nature. The website was taken down in October 2013 as a result of a legal action from the MPAA; by the end of October 2013 however, two sites with content presumably mirrored from isohunt.com were reported in media. One of them – isohunt.to – became a de facto replacement of the original site. It is not associated in any way with the old staff or owners of the site, and is to be understood as a separate continuation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Legal issues with BitTorrent</span>

The use of the BitTorrent protocol for the unauthorized sharing of copyrighted content generated a variety of novel legal issues. While the technology and related platforms are legal in many jurisdictions, law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies are attempting to address this avenue of copyright infringement. Notably, the use of BitTorrent in connection with copyrighted material may make the issuers of the BitTorrent file, link or metadata liable as an infringing party under some copyright laws. Similarly, the use of BitTorrent to procure illegal materials could potentially create liability for end users as an accomplice.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KickassTorrents</span> Defunct file-sharing website

KickassTorrents was a website that provided a directory for torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. It was founded in 2008 and by November 2014, KAT became the most visited BitTorrent directory in the world, overtaking The Pirate Bay, according to the site's Alexa ranking. KAT went offline on 20 July 2016 when the domain was seized by the U.S. government. The site's proxy servers were shut down by its staff at the same time.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Countries blocking access to The Pirate Bay</span>

This is a list of countries where at least one internet service provider (ISP) formerly or currently censors the popular file sharing website The Pirate Bay (TPB).

Rightscorp. Inc is a Los-Angeles based copyright enforcement company, which locates alleged copyright violators and collects money from legal damages as well as out of court settlements on behalf of the copyright holder(s). Rightscorp manages copyrights of videos, music, and video games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Popcorn Time</span> BitTorrent client and media player software

Popcorn Time is a multi-platform, free software BitTorrent client that includes an integrated media player. The application provides a piracy-based alternative to subscription-based video streaming services such as Netflix. Popcorn Time uses sequential downloading to stream video listed by several torrent websites, and third-party trackers can also be added manually. The legality of the software depends on the jurisdiction.

The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) is a unit of the City of London Police, the national lead force for fraud. It was established in 2013 with the responsibility to investigate and deter serious and organised intellectual property crime in the United Kingdom.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Nyaa Torrents</span> File sharing website focused on East Asian media

Nyaa Torrents is a BitTorrent website focused on East Asian media. It is one of the largest public anime-dedicated torrent indexes.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">RARBG</span> BitTorrent metasearch engine

RARBG was a website that provided torrent files and magnet links to facilitate peer-to-peer file sharing using the BitTorrent protocol. From 2014 to 2023, RARBG repeatedly appeared in TorrentFreak's yearly list of most visited torrent websites. It was ranked 4th as of January 2023. The website did not allow users to upload their own torrents.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Library Genesis</span> File-sharing website for publications

Library Genesis (LibGen) is a shadow library project for file-sharing access to scholarly journal articles, academic and general-interest books, images, comics, audiobooks, and magazines. The site enables free access to content that is otherwise paywalled or not digitized elsewhere. LibGen describes itself as a "links aggregator", providing a searchable database of items "collected from publicly available public Internet resources" as well as files uploaded "from users".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">1337x</span> File sharing website

1337x is an online website that provides a directory of torrent files and magnet links used for peer-to-peer file sharing through the BitTorrent protocol. According to the TorrentFreak news blog, 1337x is the second-most popular torrent website as of 2024. The U.S. Trade Representative flagged it as one of the most notorious pirate sites earlier in 2024. The site and its variants have been blocked in a variety of nations including Australia, and Portugal.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Putlocker</span> Online illegal movie streaming site network

Putlocker is a file hosting index website used for streaming entertainment media, particularly films and television series, for free. The initial website originated in the United Kingdom in 2011, and grew to receive millions of daily visitors after the shutdown of Megaupload. In May 2016, the website was blocked in the UK by a High Court order, and at its peak prior to a temporary closure in late 2016, Alexa Internet listed Putlocker as ranking among the top 250 most-visited websites worldwide. Putlocker has been reported by the Motion Picture Association (MPA) as a major piracy threat.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">YIFY</span> Peer-to-peer movies release group

YIFY Torrents or YTS was a peer-to-peer release group known for distributing large numbers of movies as free downloads through BitTorrent. YIFY releases were characterised through their small file size, which attracted many downloaders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">KissAnime</span> Former anime-focused piracy file streaming site

KissAnime was an anime-focused file streaming website that hosted links and embedded videos, allowing users to stream or download movies and TV shows illegally for free. It was a sister site to a related manga viewing website, KissManga. KissAnime was described as "one of the world’s biggest streaming anime websites". TorrentFreak reported that the sites had audiences of millions and that, for a time, KissAnime was "the most visited pirate site in the world".

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Z-Library</span> File-sharing site for journal articles, books, and magazines

Z-Library is a shadow library project for file-sharing access to scholarly journal articles, academic texts and general-interest books. It began as a mirror of Library Genesis, but has expanded dramatically.

References

  1. ↑ Pouwelse, Johan; Renkema, Lennart (17 April 2009). "Piraten zijn digitale pioniers" [Pirates are digital pioneers]. NRC Handelsblad (in Dutch). Archived from the original on 11 September 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  2. 1 2 "Copyright". TorrentFreak. Archived from the original on 27 October 2018. Retrieved 27 October 2018.
  3. ↑ Injijian, Allen (14 May 2007). "Pwned: Final Project Interview #2: Ernesto of TorrentFreak.com". Archived from the original on 30 June 2007. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
  4. 1 2 Smith, Ethan; McBride, Sarah (4 August 2008). "Web Piracy: The Enemy Within?". The Wall Street Journal . Archived from the original on 25 October 2016. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  5. 1 2 "About TorrentFreak". Archived from the original on 27 June 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  6. ↑ Profile. Rick Falkvinge Archived 16 January 2013 at the Wayback Machine , torrentfreak.com.
  7. ↑ San Miguel, Renay (30 June 2009). "Pirate Bay Decides to Join the Navy". E-Commerce Times. Archived from the original on 26 October 2012. Retrieved 7 October 2012.
  8. ↑ Geist, Michael (20 April 2010). "The 2009 Copyright Consultation: Setting the Record Straight". Archived from the original on 27 June 2010. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  9. ↑ "File-sharing site back up after copyright suspension". Archived from the original on 23 December 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  10. ↑ Lee, Dave (29 July 2014). "Police placing anti-piracy warning ads on illegal sites". Archived from the original on 3 December 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  11. ↑ Johnson, Ted (15 November 2013). "U.S. Trade Representative Defends Pending Trade Pact After WikiLeaks Disclosure". Archived from the original on 12 January 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  12. ↑ Cooke, Chris (1 September 2014). "MPAA research bigs up UK web-blocking". Archived from the original on 23 December 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  13. ↑ Knowles, Jamillah (18 May 2012). "UK Pirate Party sees more than 1.8m visits in 24 hours after ISPs block The Pirate Bay website". Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  14. ↑ Henry, Alan (23 March 2014). "Five Best VPN Service Providers". Archived from the original on 1 January 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  15. ↑ Maxwell, Andy (3 January 2021). "Police Have a 'Secret Weapon' to Stop Fans Streaming Pirate TV For Free". TorrentFreak. Retrieved 3 February 2023.
  16. ↑ Lawler, Ryan (21 August 2007). "Comcast Takes on TorrentFreak". Light Reading. Archived from the original on 27 October 2009. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  17. ↑ "Comcast's "We Don't Throttle BitTorrent" Internal Talking Points Memo". The Consumerist. 26 October 2007. Archived from the original on 27 October 2007. Retrieved 14 June 2010.
  18. ↑ Ernesto (20 March 2011). "TorrentFreak TV Is Back!". Archived from the original on 29 October 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  19. ↑ Roettgers, Janko (14 May 2011). "Suprnova.org: Former Pirate King Embraces Web Video". Archived from the original on 28 October 2014. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  20. ↑ Franceschi-Bicchierai, Lorenzo (21 August 2013). "Comcast Threatens to Sue TorrentFreak for Copyright Infringement". Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 2 January 2015.
  21. ↑ "Comcast Threatens to Sue TorrentFreak for Copyright Infringement (updated)". TorrentFreak. 21 August 2013. Archived from the original on 21 August 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  22. ↑ "Comcast Business Record Affidavit". Docket Alarm, Inc. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  23. ↑ "Docket for AF Holdings, LLC v. Patel, 2:12-cv-00262, No. 1 (N.D.Ga.)". Docket Alarm, Inc. Archived from the original on 3 January 2015. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  24. ↑ "Complaint, AF Holdings, LLC v. Patel, 2:12-cv-00262, No. 1 (N.D.Ga. Nov. 2, 2012)". Docket Alarm, Inc. Archived from the original on 3 December 2013. Retrieved 21 August 2013.
  25. ↑ Shubber, Kadhim (9 August 2013). "News site TorrentFreak 'blocked' by Sky's piracy filter". Archived from the original on 10 April 2016. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
  26. ↑ Brewster, Thomas (6 January 2014). "TorrentFreak News Site Blocked By Sky Porn Filter". Archived from the original on 23 December 2014. Retrieved 23 December 2014.
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