We've seen Nine Inch Nails before on the blue, and the band's last two albums have been available for free online. Now there's more, in the form of a fan-produced DVD. [more inside]
posted by reptile on Oct 24, 2009 - 17 comments

The notorious torrent tracker The Pirate Bay was originally established with the support of Carl Lundström, who continues to hold a significant stake in the enterprise and support it financially. Carl Lundström is also a supporter of far-right anti-immigrant parties and was allegedly involved in an violent attack against three Latin Americans. Now a well known online computer magazine suggests that geek sympathies for The Pirate Bay have kept reporters from covering this issue. Wired's coverage only says that Lundström's detractors point to a past in nationalist politics. The Pirate Bay's defenders dismiss the questions as being nothing more than a slur, but the attacks and defense beg a fundamental question: can the views of a financial supporter taint an otherwise neutral organisation?
posted by Joe in Australia on Mar 2, 2009 - 89 comments

If you're interested in the bands playing at SXSW this year, you have more to draw on than the blurbs in the schedule. First, the 2009 collection of mp3s from showcased bands is up - like last year, as unofficial fanmade torrents - offering samples of a thousand bands in five gigabytes. Second, there's Paul's SXSW Artist Catalog, an excellent catalog of artists. It provides links to Last.fm & Youtube for each artist, & many tags to follow sounds you like. (Previously: my 2008 post, & 2007.)
posted by Pronoiac on Feb 22, 2009 - 22 comments

Wanna test if your ISP (or company or university) is blocking or throttling BitTorrent traffic? Want some tools to diagnose network problems in your "last mile" connection? Google to the rescue: M-Lab! Predictably, with the recent announcement and publicity, the servers are now getting hammered. So post this? You can help: Host a Glasnost server (tests for BitTorrent). *Results so far. Coming soon are apps to "Determine whether an ISP is giving some traffic a lower priority than other traffic" and "Determine whether an ISP is degrading the performance of a certain subset of users, applications, or destinations". Power to the People, bay-bee!
posted by spock on Jan 29, 2009 - 58 comments

Pirating the 2009 Oscars [more inside]
posted by the dief on Jan 22, 2009 - 75 comments

"If you already know his name, chances are you've been doing something illegal." The Independent on aXXo, the movie pirate king.
posted by fearfulsymmetry on Jan 2, 2009 - 107 comments

On May 29th two hackers infiltrated Comcast, gaining control of over 200 domain names, for nearly six hours. Was it revenge for Comcast's recent sabotage of BitTorrent networks? Or was it merely a "generic attack?" Either way, it's been forty eight hours and the police have yet to come knocking. Freaked, yet proud they hackers have given an exclusive interview to Wired.
posted by PostIronyIsNotaMyth on May 31, 2008 - 51 comments

Internet television host Revision3 was the victim of a denial of service attack this weekend. The source of the attack? None other than RIAA and MPAA-funded MediaDefender.
posted by mullingitover on May 29, 2008 - 27 comments

FileSharingFilter: With the possible exception of Sweden, Canada is today's frontier upon which the war of file-sharing legality is waged, with the greatest number of file-sharers per capita, and a steady increase in the number of persons who partake (according to the OECD). Historically, the CRIA's own piracy campaign (2004) was given birth only one year after the RIAA began suing individuals (2003) for participating in peer-to-peer file distribution. Unlike the RIAA, the CRIA was shot down by the courts, establishing a sort of precedent in favour of the end-user which has been upheld ever since, and indeed even reinforced. However, we may be seeing the beginning of the end as QuebecTorrent now fights the good fight to prevent a legal precedent outlawing Canadian BitTorrent trackers.
posted by tybeet on May 7, 2008 - 21 comments

Like a dog fucking a blender. Six-Word Reviews of each of the 763 SXSW Mp3s. [Previously] [Via]
posted by churl on Mar 13, 2008 - 68 comments

Each year since 2005, SXSW released a torrent of songs for people to sample their showcased artists. It's a terrific source of new, eclectic music. This year, a fan found out they weren't planning to do this, so he took matters into his own hands: here's the torrent, with "764 different artists... almost 3.5 GB of new music, for free." (previously in 2007)
posted by Pronoiac on Feb 22, 2008 - 30 comments

Bitlet allows you to stream audio directly from a torrent.
posted by goodnewsfortheinsane on Feb 9, 2008 - 15 comments

Author Paulo Coelho talks about how creating The Pirate Coelho, a site with links to torrents of his own books, leads to a massive increase in sales.
posted by dobbs on Jan 25, 2008 - 9 comments

We're only two weeks into the year, but net neutrality issues hit the ground running. The FCC already has three different inquiries open. (also) (previously) The 700 Mhz auction threatens to disrupt an already converging telecom industry. AT&T's post-merger commitment to net neutrality ends this year, and they plan to test the filtering waters, despite recently opposing the practice. And today, a leaked memo revealed that Time Warner will test tiered internet services soon. The Internet as we know it, and communications in general, might be headed for some major changes in 2008.
posted by spiderwire on Jan 16, 2008 - 20 comments

Alain Robbe-Grillet's La Belle Captive, Andrzej Zulawski's 'comedy,' My Nights Are Better Than Your Days, Carl Theodor Dreyer's Vampyr, Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Seance, Masahiro Shinoda's Pale Flower, Seijun Suzuki's Tattooed Life and Kanto Wanderer, Lucio Fulci's House by the Cemetery, Kinji Fukasaku's Blackmail is my Life, If You Were Young: Rage and Legend of the Eight Samurai, five films by Takashi Miike, the entire Ring series, thirteen(!) Zatoichi sequels, and 500+ other movies, streaming, online, free and legal. (Some links, NSFW) [more inside]
posted by broodle on Nov 26, 2007 - 19 comments

Dear torrent seeder: I am the producer of a motion picture. This is not a case-and-desist order. I am writing to thank you. Jerome Bixby's The Man From Earth succeeds through sharing. [more inside]
posted by Bora Horza Gobuchul on Nov 24, 2007 - 31 comments

Oink.busted
posted by awesomebrad on Oct 23, 2007 - 405 comments

Anti-Piracy agents MediaDefender have 700MiB of juicy internal emails leaked on BitTorrent; are in trouble.
posted by East Manitoba Regional Junior Kabaddi Champion '94 on Sep 16, 2007 - 83 comments

Ambushing yer bits on teh Interpipes (maybe) Accusation against Comcast shows need for net neutrality laws.
posted by univac on Aug 22, 2007 - 22 comments

Good Copy Bad Copy is "a documentary about the current state of copyright and culture," featuring Danger Mouse, Lawrence Lessig, Dan Glickman of the MPAA and others. The film's creators are releasing it free of charge, via Bittorrent.
posted by jbickers on Aug 3, 2007 - 30 comments

Tons of bands playing at this year's SXSW. Not going or going and don't know what to check out? They've put up a torrent of 739 MP3s by 739 artists. The organization also has plans for an upcoming torrent of trailers for scheduled films. {via waxy}
posted by dobbs on Feb 20, 2007 - 39 comments

Remember Napster? Well, it's returned to its roots and is once again offering free music via a revamped ad based web-site. But according to their FAQ, you can only listen to any given song up to 5 times before you'll be asked to pay for it. Even though this equates to roughly 10 million free plays, in an age where BitTorrent is king, will this pay off for the company? Some say no, as the catches that come with this new system are just too many. But (for the moment at least) the share market is saying yes.
posted by Effigy2000 on May 1, 2006 - 38 comments

Conspiracy Central hosts a torrent for The AntiChrist and a Cup of Tea. Author, Tim Cohen, takes legal action. PayPal seizes CC's account. CC appeals to its members exlaining the situation. Tim Cohen joins the fray.
posted by airguitar on May 1, 2006 - 41 comments

It turns out, in the PC game business, no copy protection doesn't mean everyone pirates your game. This makes some people angry. From the article:

"For example, we were quite disturbed to discover that the company that makes Starforce provided a working URL to a list of pirated GalCiv II torrents. I'm not sure whether what they did was illegal or not, but it's troubling nevertheless and was totally unnecessary."

via digg
posted by graventy on Mar 11, 2006 - 25 comments

Without any hint of irony, p2pnet has republished a copy of an article originally published at Gamustra entitled 'The End Of Copyright', in which author Ernest Adams argues that the advance of technology (specifically the internet and file sharing programs) will kill off the very notion of copyright. Another recent article argues much the same thing. As an interesting aside to these two articles, both articles mention Metallica's much publicized stand on the issue of file sharing and their stealing of music, which is interesting only because of recent claims by Queens of the Stone Age rocker Josh Homme, who said in a recent magazine interview that Metallica "borrowed" a frustratingly large volume of music he recorded with his former band Kyuss.
posted by Effigy2000 on Dec 14, 2005 - 20 comments

Tape It Off The Internet started as a joke, but now they want to beat out the flickrs of video and iTunes, with its $1.99 tipping point, in the world of TV show downloads. If they ever actually release the thing, that is.
posted by TunnelArmr on Nov 14, 2005 - 15 comments

Skype can now be stored on a flashdrive and taken from PC to PC. And this tiny BotTorrent client (82Kb) can also be carried around on a flashdrive.
posted by bobbyelliott on Sep 23, 2005 - 18 comments

WeFunkRadio.com has 390 full shows available for download featuring the funk, underground hip-hop, and rare grooves that are so hard to find. BitTorrents are available for the two most recent shows and there's always the audio stream and podcasts coming at you fresh from Montréal's CKUT radio.
posted by furtive on Sep 16, 2005 - 16 comments

Jon Stewart in Wired
posted by Mephistopheles on Aug 23, 2005 - 60 comments

"Legal Torrents" is a collection of Creative Commons-licensed, legally downloadable, freely distributable creator-approved files, from electronic/indie music to movies and books, which we have made available via BitTorrent."
posted by mcsweetie on Aug 9, 2005 - 20 comments

Capitalism and other kids stuff Four UK based socialists produced this hour long documentary in which some of the problems of capitalism are presented in a simplified, kindergarten model. Tought provoking, incomplete but NOT derailing into bipartisan hate for a change ..an hour well spent IMHO. You can also DL it with Bittorrent program.. a good reason to install it (5 minutes ) and witness how a distributed cooperative program such as Bittorrent can do wonders.
posted by elpapacito on May 30, 2005 - 25 comments

The Empire Strikes Back. Want that bittorrent of the new Star Wars movie? You won't find it on elitetorrents.org, the site where the file first appeared.
posted by nyterrant on May 25, 2005 - 91 comments

Easytree.org has been shutdown. Easytree, for those unfamiliar, was a tracker site for legal (apparently not) live music and video bit torrents, similar to Archive.org's Live Music collaboration with etree.org. Other discussions of File-sharing on MeFi (specifically the MGM vs. Grokster SCOTUS case) here and here. [more inside]
posted by schyler523 on Apr 6, 2005 - 22 comments

If you are going to SXSW next week, you might want to download the 2005 Showcasing Artist BitTorrent file that CitizenPod has put together. It features over 750 high-quality songs; over 2 GBs worth of tracks from bands playing the festival. [via OneLouder]
posted by Quartermass on Mar 8, 2005 - 10 comments

LokiTorrent was a popular spot to get movies and they even put up a fight against the recent crackdown, raising thousands in a legal defense fund. Today, it seems the MPAA won, forcing the owner to shut down. That's understandable and I'm not surprised, but they've gone a bit further than I expected, turning the site into a big scary ad against filesharing and warning that you're next. Even worse, the old owner is turning the logs over to the MPAA, for them to go after folks.
posted by mathowie on Feb 10, 2005 - 110 comments

eXeem Lite , the spyware free version of eXeem! Violate eXeem's copyright for fun and profit.
posted by Iax on Jan 21, 2005 - 41 comments

Suprnova.org is back... with a vengeance?! It was just last week when suprnova.org, the most popular site online for finding BitTorrent downloads, shut down their site. The MPAA and RIAA crowed, but it appears the celebration was a tad premature. Suprnova's new site mentions a special announcement tomorrow at 9 PM GMT on NovaStream.org radio. Rumors suggest that it will introduce Exeem, a decentralized, BitTorrent-driven software client that turns every user into a tracker, removing the requirement for a centralized site such as suprnova, while providing users with easy searchability, the swarming powers of BitTorrent, and a network that is far harder to shut down.
posted by insomnia_lj on Dec 29, 2004 - 73 comments

R.I.P. SuprNova Greetings everybody, As you have probably noticed, we have often had downtimes. This was because it was so hard to keep this site up! But now we are sorry to inform you all, that SuprNova is closing down for good in the way that we all know it. Apparently something went down last night that prompted this exit from the scene, a great loss indeed as suprnova was the gold standard for bittorrent sites. From the inside I have also learned work on exeem is being halted (any beta testers can verify?) trying to head off problems previously seen here.
posted by gren on Dec 19, 2004 - 146 comments

Blog Torrent is out, it's been under development for a while now by the good people at Downhill Battle. It's a really simplified way of uploading files for the bittorrent network with an integrated client/server solution. Right now the client side is windows only, but the core functionality works with any client of course. Pretty neat.
posted by rhyax on Nov 24, 2004 - 15 comments

BitTorrent of Excel Saga episode 1. It is funny. I urge you to watch it. Preferably drunk. There is a DVD you can buy. The guy with the afro is the animator.
posted by Pretty_Generic on Oct 26, 2004 - 29 comments

SharingTheGroove.org Trade concerts at this site where BitTorrent tech is combined with DAT concert taping audiophiles. You can read the boards to find music or you can just check their bitTorrent tracker. If you want to go low tech they also have Blanks & Postage or Tree/Vine forums.
posted by srboisvert on Oct 12, 2003 - 17 comments

Don't kill p2p because of a few bad eggs Peer-to-peer networks can be used for legal or illegal purposes. So can the telephone, a newspaper or a church's bulletin board. People are responsible for their own actions and there are laws designed to prosecute people for illegal actions.
The legal uses of P2P are rarely heard, because they are not 'sexy' or political. P2P allows artists and listeners to connect directly. The proliferation of unique works created and distributed on the Internet is staggering.(not the best letter to the editor, but the best I could find)

---

Ok, so in theory, p2p apps can be used for purposes other than downloading coprighted music and porn. But seriously, does anyone actually use it for legitimate purposes? What do you search for on Kazaa/Gnutella/BitTorrent that is useful, legal, and interesting?
posted by mecran01 on Sep 16, 2003 - 42 comments

The RIAA is at it again, this time there are supposedly plans to DDoS people who are sharing "illegal" files. Via The Register and ZDnet.
posted by Maxor on Oct 18, 2001 - 15 comments