Ares Connect

TorrentSpy has formulated a novel way to get around the federal court ruling that ordered it to track users’ usage of the site: it simply banned all US usage of the search features. Hmmm. This was decided as the best course of action to ‘protect user privacy’.

A notice on the website stated:

Torrentspy.com, an International search engine that provides links to torrent files, has decided to stop accepting visitors from the United States. … Torrentspy.com has a strong privacy policy protecting site users against the linking of personal identifying information to searches absent user consent.

Reportedly more than 15% of visitors to the site, mainly filesharers looking for movie and music torrents for download with a software client like Ares, are based in the US. Residents are far from happy with the move which, as one comment put it, feels like Torrentspy has turned its back on its user base.

But it’s not entirely the fault of TorrentSpy, we say. Instead it’s the US courts and the RIAA’s crusade of righteousness that should be blame: without these there would not need to be any ban. It’s easy to understand TorrentSpy’s position and at the end of the day it is protecting its own interests.

Until this is resolved in the US courts – which may not be for some time – the only real option is to find somewhere else from which to source your torrents.

Mininova announces that it has achieved its second billionth torrent – that’s almost 7 torrents per person in the US. Even more impressive is the timescale in which the second million has been achieved: less than five months has elapsed since Mininova announced it’s first billionth torrent.

In a coy understatement, Mininova’s blog says: “this is very good news”.

It continues: “It means our site is growing exponentially: the amount of total downloads roughly doubles every half year. And more downloads means more exposure, so more content available on our website. … Of course this is not the end, if the growth keeps continuing we might be able to reach the 4 billion mark by the end of this year! Watch out, Apple iTunes …”.

The Mininova post also includes a breakdown breakdown numbers of downloads per category of content. This makes interesting reading: TV Shows take the number one spot at 40%, with music downloads only being half as popular, taking up 21%, and movies being a close third nearly 18% of the share. The table is reproduced below:

<!–[if !supportLists]–>• <!–[endif]–>TV Shows – 40.11%

<!–[if !supportLists]–>• <!–[endif]–>Music – 21.21%

<!–[if !supportLists]–>• <!–[endif]–>Movies – 17.89%

<!–[if !supportLists]–>• <!–[endif]–>Games – 6.59%

<!–[if !supportLists]–>• <!–[endif]–>Software – 5.61%

<!–[if !supportLists]–>• <!–[endif]–>Anime – 3.61%

<!–[if !supportLists]–>• <!–[endif]–>Books – 3.04%

<!–[if !supportLists]–>• <!–[endif]–>Pictures – 0.53%

This milestone announcement adds weight to the fact that the popularity in P2P file sharing – fuelled by sharing of Torrents by resources such as Mininova – is showing no signs of slowing. Whether the growth will eventually reach its critical mass and slow or stop remains to be seen, but with more and more households getting access to computers and the Internet (and there is plenty more growth potential in developing countries), it is unlikely to fizzle out any time soon.

French record companies are now legally entitled to track P2P users sharing more than 50 files within a 24 hour period, and, according to the country’s Council of State, “keep their records for further legal proceedings”.

The P2P Blog says on the subject: “The decision comes as a blow to the French National Commission for Data protection and the Liberties who rules in the fall of 2005 that automatic P2P networks violates local privacy laws”.

Does this news represent the end of heavy file sharing in France? Unlikely. French file sharers have launched 51 fichiers (51 files) in protest against the “systematic criminalisation of the Peer-to-peer networks and their users”. Those wishing to speak out against the ruling would “share at least 51 files that are freely distributable … and keep them on the P2P system until ‘something happens’”.

The 51 files used should all be legally shareable and distributable, the group says. It also points out that P2P file sharing applications can easily be set to limit the number of shared files to only 49 – 1 below the legal ‘trigger level’.

The auto-monitoring would be based on a list of 10,000 files; this is a fairly limited sub-set of all the files that are shared – legally or otherwise – on the P2P networks, and industry commentators have noted that it is only the most popular files that are likely to be monitored with any diligence: “That means that, most probably, if you are fan of Johnny Halliday and that you download his music, you have more chance … than if you are fan of a dark regional group of rock’n’roll-garage”

There’s likely to be plenty more lively debate on this subject, so stay tuned.

The spectacular blast, which occurred in September in the Carina constellation, produced energies ranging from 3,000 to more than five billion times that of visible light, astrophysicists said. The US space agency’s Fermi telescope has detected a massive explosion in space which scientists say is the biggest gamma-ray burst ever detected, a report published Thursday in Science Express said.Observing the massive explosions could also lift the veil on more of space’s enigmas, including those raised by the burst spotted by Fermi, such as a “curious time delay” between its highest and lowest energy emissions.The Fermi gamma-ray space telescope was developed by NASA in collaboration with the US Department of Energy and partners including academic institutions in France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden and the United States.

Wal-Mart is joining other large organisations in offering DRM-free music downloads from its online store. Joining Viacom’s MTV Networks and RealNetwork joint effort, along with LimeWire’s proposed online music store, Wal-Mart is the latest in a line of corporations wishing to cash in on what is clearly a very lucrative market. Unlike many of the bigger corporations, though, Wal-Mart do not intend on lacing the tracks with privacy-infringing DRM.

Apple attempted to do the same with iTunes, but there is a price to pay. Literally. The iTunes catalogue markup amounts to an almost 30% increase over standard rates. Also, as we reported earlier, it’s arguable that iTunes tracks do in fact contain DRM since they include users’ names and passwords. Apple’s justification is that DRM-free tracks are higher quality at 256kbps, rather than the 128kbps iTunes that are ‘polluted’ with DRM.

Wal-Mart’s prices are looking to be around 94 cents per track – less than the going rate – and these are also at 256kbps quality. Files including Microsoft’s DRM ‘feature’ are cheaper at around 88 cents per track.

Hopefully this will offer some healthy compeition to the corporations and especially to iTunes, all of whom seem to be sitting on their laurels as far as accepting music downloads as a legitimate market (rather than the monopoly that Apple seem to be viewing it as).

Apple has been making moves to increase its iPhone games net. Negotiations in Canada, Italy and 10 other countries mean that Apple’s reach before the launch of the second generation iPhone games – due soon – is getting all that much bigger. Apple’s campaign at the moment seems driven towards this imminent release (though the date is currently unknown) and they have even stopped supplying handsets from their online shops.

Apple’s motivation behind the decision to stop supplies is fairly transparent: stopping the supply will increase the demand up until the point when the new iPhone games is released; there will also be no need to recall outdated stocks from shops when the release is announced. The clever boys and girls have done it again.

People are reportedly holding off the purchase of the iPhone games until the newer model hits the shops, so this shortage isn’t going turn fans away in favor of the Palm or similar.