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.

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).