IsoHunt has been one of the leading BitTorrent search engines since 2004. Despite facing legal battles with the MPAA and CRIA, isoHunt keeps on expanding and adding more torrents to its index. It now lists nearly 5 million unique torrents, tripling in size compared to last year.
BakaBT, a torrent tracker which specializes in serving anime fans, is currently down after suffering a huge DDoS attack. Although these type of attacks against torrent sites are nothing new, the operators say the person responsible has identified himself. Instead of caving in to his demands, the site has chosen to fight back.
After more than two months of downtime caused by a webhost screwup and a lack of backups, the BitTorrent site BitSnoop has returned with many added features. Among other things the BitSnoop team has implemented “FakeSkan”, a feature that warns users about suspicious torrent files.
Demonoid is without doubt one of the most famous BitTorrent trackers on the Internet. Unfortunately, it is also the tracker with the worst record when it comes to uptime as every so often the site disappears for months. With the current downtime of more than a day, users are already fearing the worst.
Following legal pressure brought by the MPAA, BitTorrent search engine isoHunt has decided to redirect all visitors from the United States to a Lite version of the site. With this action, isoHunt hopes to prevent a judicial order which would require the site to implement a mandatory filter and remove torrents based on a list of ‘banned words’.
Every month a few dozen new BitTorrent sites are unleashed on the Internet, but only a few have something new to offer. One site that popped up recently is worth mentioning, if only for the fact that it has one of the best domains for a BitTorrent index, Torrents.net.
April 1st is traditionally a day for pranks and jokes, but the Russian-led torrent site Vertor has picked this day to inform the RIAA, MPAA and various other anti-piracy outfits that their bullying tactics are not appreciated. The Vertor team has shipped condom packs with a special message to the offices of six leading anti-piracy groups.
A United States court wants isoHunt to stop inducing copyright infringement via torrents that can be found through the popular BitTorrent search engine. The proposed injunction would require isoHunt to censor its site based on a list of keywords. A similar measure led to the quasi-shutdown of Mininova last year.
Colombo-BT, once the largest torrent site in Italy, was shut down in the summer of 2008. At the time no arrests were made, but following an extensive investigation Italian authorities have announced today that two admins and four associates have been reported for breaking copyright law.
BitTorrent is undoubtedly the most efficient way to share large files on the Internet. The key to BitTorrent’s widespread adoption can nevertheless not be exclusively attributed to its technical superiority. Much of BitTorrent’s success lies in the fact that it is web-based, easy to monetize and indexed by Google.
