TorrentFreak Email Update |
- Game of Thrones Sets New Torrent Swarm Record
- Cinefi Streams Movie and TV-Torrents Straight to Your Browser
- Ryushare File-Host Owner Arrested – Cash, Cars, Motorcycles Seized
| Game of Thrones Sets New Torrent Swarm Record Posted: 15 Apr 2014 02:25 AM PDT
From all over the world people virtually gathered around the various pirated copies of the show, breaking the record for the largest BitTorrent swarm ever in the process. A few hours after the second episode came online the Demonii tracker reported that 193,418 people where sharing one single torrent. 145,594 had a complete copy of the episode and continued to upload, while 47,824 were still downloading the file. These are unprecedented numbers – never before have 193,418 people shared a single file simultaneously. The previous record was set last year, when the season finale of Game of Thrones had 171,572 people sharing on a single tracker. Last week’s season opening, on the other hand, had “only” 140,000 people sharing the most active torrent. There wasn’t per se less interest in this episode, but at the time the downloaders were spread out more across different torrents.  In addition to this record-breaking torrent, there were also several other Game of Thrones torrents out there with tens of thousands of people sharing. Counting all the different releases it's estimated that the latest Game of Thrones episode was downloaded roughly 1.5 million times during the first day. This makes the show the likely candidate to be crowned the most-downloaded TV-show at the end of the year. As previously revealed, Game of Thrones downloaders come from all over the world. Data gathered during the first 12 hours after the release last week revealed that most downloaders came from Australia, followed by the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and The Netherlands. Interestingly, Game of Thrones is available through legal channels in all countries listed above, albeit not cheaply. The current record probably won’t last for long. The show’s ratings generally go up throughout the season, and so do the unauthorized downloads. This makes it likely that the barrier of 200,000 simultaneous file-sharers will be broken during the weeks to come. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. |
| Cinefi Streams Movie and TV-Torrents Straight to Your Browser Posted: 14 Apr 2014 12:15 PM PDT
The key to this success was the app’s sheer simplicity, something that was missing from most of the earlier torrent streaming services. Today, a new torrent streaming service launched, one that’s just as simple, but doesn’t require any extra software. Using only HTML5 technology, Cinefy can stream video torrents directly to a browser. There is no need to install any software or plugins and it works on every platform. This is not limited to PCs and laptops either, since it also includes mobile devices and game consoles. TorrentFreak caught up with the main developer Rich, who says that the main motivation to develop the service was to see if it was possible to make a torrent streaming tool without any additions. “We started the project for the sheer challenge of seeing if we could stream torrents directly to the browser without any other software,” Rick explains to TF. The result is a web service that looks awfully simple, but works as advertised. Similar to Popcorn Time, it taps into a database of YTS movies, but users can also stream other videos by pasting a magnet link into the search box. “Right now you can search for movies, which come from YTS, but Cinefi will play any torrent or magnet link, except videos encoded in AVI. Just paste and click,” Rich says. As can be seen below, a trailer of the fourth Game of Thrones season plays just fine after a few seconds of loading time. As with any torrent streaming service, the playback is the smoothest for files that have relatively many seeders.  Cinefy is closed source and uses a “patent-pending technology” which blends several HTML5 technologies. According to the developer, this makes it the first torrent streaming service of its kind, and since it doesn’t depend on extra software, it can be used by pretty much anyone, anywhere. Of course, the entertainment industries are not going to cheer on this development, but the technology itself isn’t infringing on any copyrights according to the Cinefy team. In fact, they advise people not to use the service in any way that might break the law. “As stated on the site, the site is legal to use, but downloading illegal torrents isn’t. We don’t encourage any illegal activity on the site. We do not host or store any torrents,” Rich tells TF. “We merely provide the technology and it is up to the user’s discretion,” he adds. Those who are interested can head over to Cinefy.com and take the service for a spin, with this torrent for example. It’s free to use, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Update: Cinefy appears to have some trouble loading every now and then, probably due to the sudden increase in vsitors. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. |
| Ryushare File-Host Owner Arrested – Cash, Cars, Motorcycles Seized Posted: 14 Apr 2014 06:31 AM PDT
Ryushare was one such site. Whether its operators deliberately influenced that is up for debate, but healthy affiliate and rewards programs certainly made it more attractive than similar sites without them. The site grew steeply in the latter half of 2012, peaking near the Alexa 500 at the turn of 2013. But while the mere existence of a reward program doesn’t signal a breach of the law, Ryushare clearly had other legal problems. Earlier this month the site completely disappeared alongside reports that its operators had been arrested. This weekend a more detailed report from the Vietnamese government stated that police had shut down an operation dedicated to the illegal distribution of pornography. According to the report, Nguyen Duc Nhat, the Vietnamese owner of Ryushare, was arrested along with three others. This led to the shutdown of the site which according to police had been operating 500 overseas servers.  Authorities say that during its lifetime Ryushare generated profits of 132,000,000,000 Vietnamese dong, or $6.2 million for those who prefer less zeros. During the course of the arrests, police say they seized two cars, three motorcycles, five laptops and five accounts containing around $355,000. The Ryushare site remains offline and rumors of a resurrection have yet to come true. Authorities say the investigation continues. Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services. |
Yesterday the second episode of Game of Thrones’ fourth season made its way onto the Internet. As expected, this generated quite a bit of activity on various torrent sites.
A few weeks ago a new piece of software called “Popcorn Time” 
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