Five Excellent (Yet Free) Video Converters For Your iPhone And iPod

By Umar Anjum

From: http://www.smashingapps.com/

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As entertaining as they are, unfortunately portable media players cannot handle all media types you throw at them. Unless there comes an all-format-accepting portable media player, we have to use video conversion software to transform our media type before our iPhones and iPods can play them.
For my fellow iPhone and iPod owners who are looking for a competent yet free software solution for video conversion, here are 5 of the best options available online. I am sure that you will find them as useful as I did.

FreeStudio

FreeStudio is DVDVideoSoft’s handy video conversion freeware that will excellently suit iPhone and iPod video conversions. The application is compatible with Windows computers and facilitates various video format conversions. While its download size is quite high – 58MB – the features surely justify it.

Daniusoft Video Converter Free

In addition to iPods and iPhones, Daniusoft Video Converter Free also supports video conversions for PSP, Zune, and other cell-phones and portable media players. The download is 12MB, much smaller than the abovementioned program. Supported media formats include AVI, MP4, WMV, MOV, MPEG1, MPEG2, FLV, MP3, WAV, and WMA. You can install Daniusoft Video Converter Free on your Windows computer.

Any Video Converter Free

Any Video Converter Free is a personal favorite of mine because it excellently blends functionality with an appealing user interface. A wide variety of media formats are supported and converting video for your iOS device will be very easy. You can control advanced conversions options as well such as video and audio bitrates.

Quick Media Converter

Quick Media Converter comes in the setup size of 28MB. Along with supporting video conversions between various file formats, it provides a progress bar with each conversion process so you know how much of the process has completed and how much is left.

Format Factory

Although Format Factory does not offer the prettiest user interface, it does offer the most functionality out of the other entries in this list. Supporting media conversions between various video, audio, and image formats, Format Factory can quite easily become your default media conversion application. The program has a setup file size of 38MB.

Check The Quality Of Pirate Media With The All New VCDQ

Written by enigmax
From: http://torrentfreak.com/

There are many thousands of videos on the Internet and while it’s possible to just go blindly to any one of dozens of torrent sites and search for movies or TV shows, there is no guarantee that the quality will be good. For the last decade that information has been available from VCDQuality.com and shortly the site will be relaunching with a new owner, a full makeover and fresh support for BitTorrent users.

Most readers will be familiar with The Scene, the ‘place’ where most pirate movies, music, TV shows, software and games first hit cyberspace. Although members of this intensively private community would prefer to maintain their privacy, it is from their servers that media leaks out to the wider Internet community. According to the MPAA, The Scene sits at the top of the “Piracy Pyramid”.

Although The Scene has its own unique set of quality-control standards, this doesn’t necessarily mean that their output is always of a high quality. Although the most serious offenders will be ‘nuked’ (Scene talk for “something is wrong, don’t bother with this release”) in the case of movies, for example, Scene rules allow CAM releases which may be virtually unwatchable.

Furthermore, a release receiving a ‘nuke’ doesn’t necessarily mean that its unwatchable, it might just mean that it has breached any one of The Scene’s often bewildering and sometimes downright archaic in-house rules.

Of course, none of this would matter to ‘outsiders’ if Scene releases stayed locked away as intended for the use of the few, but they don’t. So wouldn’t it be great if there was a central source, a database of releases where the average Internet user could go for information on what’s hot and what’s not in the world of piracy?

Some might be surprised to learn that VCDQuality.com has been providing such a service for almost a decade. Founded in 2001, VCDQ quickly became the best place for the average non-Scener to find out quickly if a new movie had hit the Internet yet and in what quality. If it had, it would appear pretty quickly at the top of the list on the main page.

Along with the name of the release, the format of the source is indicated – DVDRIP, CAM, DVD Screener, R5 (Region 5) for example. This information is supported by links to screenshots of the release in question, its NFO (a small descriptive text file distributed by the Scene group responsible), the name of the release group and a link to the movie on IMDb.

Perhaps the most useful link moves off to the comment section. Here those that have actually downloaded and watched a particular release discuss what they have seen, specifically whether the video and sound of the release are up to scratch and worth the effort of finding and downloading.

Unfortunately, due to the site’s policy of shunning most advertising, it has lacked investment in recent times. A hard drive disaster last year caused quite a lot of pain and 8 weeks ago their server died altogether. It was time for a new beginning.

With the assistance of a new owner, behind the scenes the site has been receiving its first proper update in a decade. If all is going to plan, as you read this article or in the coming hours the new VCDQ will be launching with a fresh new look and a host of new features.

Along with a rock-solid server and hosting, the site will be expanding its databases. While traditionally VCDQ has reported only on Scene releases, with the rise of BitTorrent release groups, P2P releases will be reported on too

“We’ve decided to add P2P sources due to the rise of Torrent sites in recent years,” Admin Neversoft told TorrentFreak. “While the scene still produces more releases and better quality we cannot ignore the fact that your average Torrent user doesn’t care about group affiliations or rules, they just want the best quality available.”

Scene purists (and there are a lot of those reading and resident at VCDQ) will be pleased to learn that P2P releases can be filtered out from the site, but the rise of P2P and BitTorrent in particular as a force to be reckoned with can’t be denied.

“By ignoring P2P we would be ignoring a large percentage of what people are downloading out there,” Neversoft explains. “This was a difficult decision for us, we’ve always shunned the P2P scene and to a certain extent derided it but as they say… ‘If you can’t beat em, join ‘em’ and we think we can provide the same excellent service for P2P releases as well. Having said that, it will be select releases – we’re not about to become a dumping ground for every reencode out there.”

In addition the site will add movie/TV HD formats, PC, Xbox360 and Wii sections and will improve its databases with information from multiple sources. Importantly, the site will update quicker to provide news on the latest releases, faster.

That news will be delivered in a number of ways. From the nicely presented release pages, fully customizable RSS feeds, Twitter updates, improved forum and staff blogs, the new VCDQ already looks very promising indeed. Neversoft told TorrentFreak that there’s even more to come.

“In time we’ll be improving the rating/review system as well and we’re still tweaking and will be for some time but we’re going live because the site already seriously out-performs the old VCDQ so it seems silly to just keep tweaking in beta when we already have something better’ that we can deploy now,” he explains.

Moving forward, Neversoft hopes that VCDQuality can become the iMDB of the warez scene while also providing useful services to BitTorrent and Usenet sites. While user comments on torrent sites are useful for determining if a torrent is ‘fake’ or not, often the quality of the release is a neglected topic of conversation, a gap that Neversoft feels VCDQ can fill.

“What’s the point of Torrent and NZB sites having the odd comment on releases on their site when they can link to a whole smorgasbord of comments, reviews and screenshots free of charge?”

Continuing on the P2P/BitTorrent theme, VCDQ will also allow users to submit P2P release information. So, if anyone believes the site has missed an important P2P release, all they have to do is collate the NFO along with samples if they have them and submit them to the moderation team for consideration.

All in all, this is a very welcome update to a much-valued resource. Furthermore, unlike other sources that have tried to replicate the VCDQuality experience but with tacked on download links, VCDQ remains entirely legal and as such can look forward to a stable and promising future.

The new site (blue theme, as opposed to the old red) should be available within a couple of hours at the usual URL.

IsoHunt told to pull .torrent files offline, likely to close

By Jacqui Cheng

The founder of popular Bit Torrent site IsoHunt, Gary Fung, has been ordered to remove the .torrent files for all infringing content—an order that could result in the site shutting down. US District Judge Stephen Wilson issued the order last week after years of back-and-forths over the legality of IsoHunt and Fung's two other sites (Torrentbox and Podtropolis). Fung claims he's still hoping for a more agreeable resolution that won't result in IsoHunt closing its doors, but for now, things aren't looking good for the torrent site.

Judge Wilson's order follows a summary judgement against Fung in December 2009. At that time, Wilson said that Fung had completely failed to rebut the claims brought against him by the MPAA. The movie studios had brought in expert witnesses stating that a statistical sampling of the content and server logs showed that nearly all of the content infringed copyrights, and about half of the downloads were made within the US. Fung dismissed this as "junk science" but did not present any sort of evidence showing that this wasn't a valid approach.

Fung previously tried to argue that his sites were just another search engine that just happened to pick up copyrighted content, but the studios countered with evidence that his search code was specifically tuned to find copyrighted material.

Now, Fung is stuck between a rock and a hard place as he tries to find a way to comply with his injunction without shutting down. Judge Wilson has barred Fung from creating, maintaining or providing access to categories with .torrent files, search results with .torrent files, or any "similar files using or based on Infringement-Related Terms."

This means that the basic search functionality of IsoHunt, Torrentbox, or Podtropolis would no longer be permissible under the injunction, not to mention that it would be nearly impossible for Fung to actively investigate every single file to see whether it's legal or not. Fung believes this goes outside of the DMCA and that the MPAA should provide a list of links to files that it wants taken down instead. "We’re discussing the mechanics, the process that is reasonable for an injunction. We’re still trying to hope that the judge will do the right thing," Fung told Wired.

The MPAA did not respond to our request for comment by publication time, so it's unclear how willing it will be when it comes to working with Fung. Given how well things have gone for Fung so far, though, it doesn't look very promising.

Update: A MPAA spokesperson got back to us and said that the court has rejected Fung's proposal. Looks like he'll either be picking out all the illegal content or shutting down after all.

Further reading

• Judge Stephen Wilson's March 23 order (archive.org)

Canadian Movie Pirate ‘maVen’ Sent To Jail

Written by Ernesto
From http://torrentfreak.com/

Geremi Adam, a member of the movie release group ‘maVen’ has been sentenced to two and a half months in prison. The 27 year-old Montreal resident, who was referred to the Canadian police by the FBI, pleaded guilty to distributing two major motion pictures.

Half a decade ago ‘maVen‘ was one of the most active movie release groups on the Internet, known for distributing high quality ‘Telesync‘ versions of major blockbuster titles. In the summer of 2006 ‘maVen’ releases suddenly halted, and it later became apparent that the FBI had caught one of its key members.

An FBI investigation into ‘maVen’ had been running for some time and was handed to the Canadian Police in April 2006. A few months later Geremi Adam was arrested after he allegedly recorded the movies “How to Eat Fried Worms” and “Invincible” at a Montreal movie theater.

They seized his laptop and other equipment and later released him, only for him to be arrested again at another theater just a month later. According to the police, Adam had been selling copies of movies on the Internet using the alias ‘maVen,’ which were then re-sold on the web and the streets.

Following Adam’s arrest came a 14 month wait as the police combed computer systems and equipment looking for evidence to convict him. The FBI had labeled him the ‘World Leader’ in Internet piracy and his case went before court several months later.

Today the verdict came in, and the Court sentenced Adam to two and a half months in prison – the prosecution had demanded four. The defense lawyer had argued for community service because Adam suffers from depression and a troubled childhood, but despite these arguments, the Court decided to opt for a prison sentence.

As of today there are still dozens of ‘maVen’ releases available on BitTorrent, although most of these files have no active downloaders anymore.

Top 10 Torrent Sites Soon Without Mininova

Written by Ernesto
From: http://torrentfreak.com/

For the first time in five years Mininova is about to disappear from the top 10 of most visited torrent sites. This exit is due to a traffic drop that resulted from the removal of most of the site’s torrents following a lost court battle. Newcomer KickassTorrents is still gaining momentum and has already surpassed Mininova in terms of traffic.

Compared to a year ago the BitTorrent landscape has changed significantly. The Pirate Bay decided to shut down its tracker last fall and a few weeks later Mininova partly shut down its website. However, with the fall of Mininova many new torrent sites emerged, with KickassTorrents being the most successful one.

It almost seems like history is repeating itself. Early 2005, just a few weeks after that period’s leading torrent site, Suprnova.org, closed its doors, Mininova was founded. In the years that followed the site grew out to become the most visited torrent site. That growth was stunted in November 2009, when a negative verdict in a court battle against the local anti-piracy outfit BREIN forced the operators of the site to remove over a million torrents.

As expected Mininova’s decision resulted in a disastrous drop in traffic, as its users spread out over other torrent sites including some promising newcomers. Today, three months after Mininova’s downfall, the site is about to disappear from the top 10 list of most visited torrent sites. The Pirate Bay is currently leading the list closely followed by the meta-search engine Torrentz and isoHunt. KickassTorrents is currently in 9th place, which is a remarkable achievement consdering the site is only a few months old.

Below you’ll find a list of the 10 most-visited torrent sites as of today. Only public and English language sites are included. The list is based on traffic rank reports from Compete, Alexa and SiteReport’s World Rank. The number of daily visitors and page views are estimates.

#1 THEPIRATEBAY.ORG - Daily Visitors: 4,600,136 - Pageviews: 26,036,770 (5.66 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #101 - Compete Rank: #724 Visit Site | Full Report
#2 TORRENTZ.COM - Daily Visitors: 2,756,280 - Pageviews: 13,781,400 (5 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #167 - Compete Rank: Currently Not Available Visit Site | Full Report
#3 ISOHUNT.COM - Daily Visitors: 2,285,811 - Pageviews: 15,497,799 (6.78 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #187 - Compete Rank: #1,187 Visit Site | Full Report
#4 BTJUNKIE.ORG - Daily Visitors: 1,363,883 - Pageviews: 6,423,889 (4.71 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #367 - Compete Rank: #2,055 Visit Site | Full Report
#5 TORRENTREACTOR.NET - Daily Visitors: 919,552 - Pageviews: 1,783,931 (1.94 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #737 - Compete Rank: #3,035 Visit Site | Full Report
#6 DEMONOID.COM - Daily Visitors: 728,513 - Pageviews: 5,383,711 (7.39 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #626 - Compete Rank: #4,640 Visit Site | Full Report
#7 TORRENTDOWNLOADS.NET - Daily Visitors: 686,219 - Pageviews: 1,331,265 (1.94 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #1,050 - Compete Rank: #3,435 Visit Site | Full Report
#8 MONOVA.ORG - Daily Visitors: 670,536 - Pageviews: 1,562,349 (2.33 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #1,004 - Compete Rank: #6,846 Visit Site | Full Report
#9 KICKASSTORRENTS.COM - Daily Visitors: 642,498 - Pageviews: 2,634,242 (4.1 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #859 - Compete Rank: #4,347 Visit Site | Full Report
#10 MININOVA.ORG - Daily Visitors: 632,519 - Pageviews: 1,872,256 (2.96 per visitor) - Alexa Rank: #987 - Compete Rank: #3,257 Visit Site | Full Report

Pirated DVD vs. Legal DVD

Avatar DVD Screener Leaks To BitTorrent

Written by Ernesto
From: http://torrentfreak.com/
 

A few hours after Avatar received nine nominations for the upcoming 2010 Oscars race, a DVD screener of the film leaked online. The leak, which presumably originates from a screener copy sent out to one of the Academy members, is expected to be downloaded by millions of people before the Oscars winners are announced.

Avatar has been an enormous success. The film has broken nearly all records at the box-office, and together with The Hurt Locker it was last night’s big winner raking in nine Academy Award nominations.

James Cameron and the rest of the Avatar crew probably cracked open a few bottles of Champagne to celebrate, but today they will wake up with a serious hangover.

Only a few days after the nominations were announced, a DVD screener of Avatar (2D) appeared online. Before today, only a lower quality Telesync copy of the film has been available on BitTorrent and other file-sharing networks.

Ironically, the DVD screener that is now widely available online most likely leaked through one of the Academy Awards voters.

There is no doubt that Avatar will also score big in the list of most downloaded movies this year. The Telesync copy of the film that has been available for over a month was already downloaded by more than two million people.

It is expected that the DVD leak will easily double or even triple these figures. Avatar has been among the most searched for keywords on nearly every torrent site for more than a month already.

Twentieth Century Fox has been extra careful with sending out the DVD-screener of Avatar, as more Academy members received it mid January, just a few days before they had to vote. Although this did delay the leak, it couldn’t be prevented.

How and if the DVD-screener will affect the box-office revenues is up for debate. The film has already grossed more than $2 billion worldwide, which is an absolute record despite the relatively high piracy rate. In fact, high piracy numbers are often an indicator of success at the box-office and vice versa.

The Power User's Guide to Video Encoding with Handbrake

maximumpc.com — Whether you own an iPod touch, Zune HD, Nintendo DSi, or any number of other portable devices, there's one tool that makes easy work out of ripping DVDs and converting incompatible video files into manageable formats: Handbrake. This wonderful utility has just about everything you could ask for.
Click here for this full article on : The Power User's Guide to Video Encoding with Handbrake
 

Nerrot Is the Simplest, Least Spammy Torrent Site You'll Ever Use

If you're a BitTorrent lover but aren't too keen on all the pop-ups, racy ads, and clutter that's everywhere on most torrent sites, new BitTorrent site Nerrot is the cleanest, most bare-bones torrent site we've ever seen.

Just head to the homepage (this is also the only page on the site), type in the most accurate search you can come up with, and submit your search. Nerrot searches for the closest match with the highest ratio of seeders/the healthiest swarm, then automatically downloads what it determines to be the best torrent file for your search.

Nerrot is refreshing in its simplicity, but the fact remains that for a lot of torrents, it's still going to be worth your time to read through comments and check different versions yourself before downloading. For those times you don't really care, Nerrot is like the Google "I'm feeling lucky" search of BitTorrent sites.

Nerrot [via TorrentFreak]

Demonoid is back online!

demonoid.com — After months of being offline due to a loss of memory, the popular BitTorrent Tracker Demonoid is finally back online!

click here to enjoy: Demonoid is back online!

The Pirate Bay Relocates to a Nuclear Bunker

Written by Ernesto

The Pirate Bay is going on a road trip through Europe, one they hope to end today in a former NATO bunker. After a move from Sweden to the Ukraine, The Pirate Bay has now arrived at CyberBunker, an ISP that can provide them with a facility that can resist a nuclear attack as well as electromagnetic pulse bombs.

After being chased by various anti-piracy groups, The Pirate Bay returned a few hours ago. “Nobody puts The Pirate Bay in a corner,” they say on their frontpage, referencing Patrick Swayze’s famous line in Dirty Dancing. Not in a corner, no, but what about a bunker?

Last Friday we reported that The Pirate Bay was forced to move outside of Sweden, and that the world’s largest BitTorrent tracker had found a new home in the Ukraine. Unfortunately this was a short-lived solution, with TPB now moving to Cyberbunker.

CyberBunker is located in a former military nuclear warfare bunker in The Netherlands. The facility was built by NATO in the 50s to survive a nuclear war, but after the nuclear threats were over it was sold to its current owners. The bunker is now used as a webhosting data center.

The bunker is equipped with Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) shielding and Nuclear/Biological/Chemical (NBC) air filtration to guarantee that the servers they host stay up no matter what happens. As of this week it is also the new home of The Pirate Bay.

CyberBunker: The Pirate Bay’s new home

According to Sven Kamphuis, one of the owners of CB3ROB/Cyberbunker, there were some initial troubles with setting up The Pirate Bay in its new location as several carriers refused to pass on the relay information after they received threats from the entertainment industry led by the Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN.

Despite these troubles the site is now accessible again in most locations, and Cyberbunker will continue to host the site and does not intend to cave in to the threats of the entertainment industry.

“I don’t expect BREIN to do pretty much anything at this point. The last conversation we had with them was about some mp3 site they wanted to have shut down somewhere in 2001/2002. It took around 3 hours at 2am at night and the end result was that both parties agreed not to agree,” Kamphuis told TorrentFreak.

Whether The Pirate Bay is actually located in one of the server racks at the bunker or another hideout was not confirmed

25 Great Pirate Bay Alternatives

Written by Ernesto

The end of the Pirate Bay is nearing. Even if the deal with GGF doesn’t go through the current owners are likely to sell to one of the other interested parties. For many BitTorrent fans this means that they have to find an alternative. Luckily there are plenty of good ones out there.

Replacing The Pirate Bay is easier said then done. The tracker is currently responsible for approximately half of all public torrent transfers, which represents a significant percentage of global Internet traffic.

However, history has shown that BitTorrent users are an adaptive species that simply migrates to the next site when their home bases become uninhabitable.

While private trackers certainly have their place and will accommodate those lucky enough to get an invite, for this article we are interested in sites that are open to everyone, ranging from full Pirate Bay replacements to a do-it-yourself setup.

Full Pirate Bay Alternatives

The only full Pirate Bay alternatives are sites that index torrent files, are open to everyone and also have a working tracker. Unfortunately, there are only a few sites out there that offer this full package -there are four of them below. We decided to include Demonoid here because it tracks many public torrents.

1. Torrentbox

2. 1337x

3. H33t

4. Demonoid (semi-private)

Torrent Indexers

Torrent indexers are sites that have a searchable directory of torrent files, but don’t host a (public) tracker of their own. Mininova has a tracker, but they only allow ‘featured’ torrents uploaded through their content distribution service. The most used torrent indexers are:

5. Mininova

6. isoHunt

7. Torrentreactor

8. BTjunkie

Torrent Meta-Seach Engines

BitTorrent meta-search engines are yet another brand of torrent sites. They don’t have a tracker and don’t host any torrent files on their servers. Instead they search for and link to torrents hosted on third party sites.

9. Torrentz

10. Nowtorrents

11. Qtorrents

12. Torrent-Finder

Private Trackers (open signup)

Most of the larger private trackers require an invite to join, but there are always a few that allow new members. Below are four of these (open) private trackers and more can be found on Btracs.

13. RTN

14. BiteMyTorrent

15. BitShock

16. TorrentIt

Standalone BitTorrent Trackers

Torrent indexers and meta-search engines can be used to find torrents, but none of them will be of much use without a stable BitTorrent tracker. Standalone BitTorrent trackers are much needed, they handle the communication between downloaders but don’t index any torrents themselves.

17. OpenBitTorrent

18. PublicBitTorrent

19. The Hidden Tracker

20. Denis.Stalker

DIY Pirate Bay Alternatives

The last category of Pirate Bay alternatives are the do-it-yourself projects. By using the three ingredients below The Pirate Bay can be easily rebuilt. It might take a few hours, but then the path to world domination is clear.

21. Pirate Bay Torrents Clone

22. Pirate Bay HTML Clone

23. Torrage: Torrent API

24. Tracker Software

Last but not Least

Google, the mother of all search engines has a filetype:torrent search command that allows you to find torrent files scattered across the Internet. Also, Google’s custom search allows everyone to create their own torrent search engine. Don’t tell the MPAA and RIAA.

25. Google

If you think we missed any good alternatives, please feel free to add your own in the comment section below, while clearly noting which category they fit into.

Radiohead Leak Their New Track To BitTorrent

Written by enigmax

During the last few days a new Radiohead song was mysteriously released onto the Internet. The track is called “These Are My Twisted Words” and until today it was unclear where it had come from. Now, thanks to a post on the band’s blog, it seems the boys could’ve had it planned all along, as they are now linking to the song on Mininova.

Radiohead are no strangers to BitTorrent after the well-documented pay-what-you-like “In Rainbows” album unofficially racked up many thousands of downloads using the protocol.

Late last week the band’s BitTorrent link was revitalized after a new Radiohead track leaked onto the Internet. After this advance release of “These Are My Twisted Words,” rumors began to grow that Radiohead themselves might be behind the ‘leak’.

Speculation grew on the back of comments made by Thom Yorke of the band to The Believer: “We’ve actually got a good plan, but I can’t tell you what it is, because someone will rip it off. But we’ve got this great idea for putting things out”.

Today, on the band’s Dead Air Space blog, Jonny Greenwood (lead guitar and keyboard) seems to solve the mystery:

So here’s a new song, called ‘These Are My Twisted Words’.

We’ve been recording for a while, and this was one of the first we finished.
We’re pretty proud of it.

There’s other stuff in various states of completion, but this is one we’ve been practicing, and which we’ll probably play at this summer’s concerts. Hope you like it.

At the bottom of the post are two links to downloads, one directly from Waste and the other the original torrent uploaded to Mininova a few days ago. In fact, it was uploaded twice.

An enthusiastic commenter on Mininova exclaims: “OMFG! This torrent is being redirected from the radiohead official store, so there’s no album, just this song finished, this is very edgy, i mean thom yorke is way ahead from any other artist, at least we know he’s not doing his music to get some profit, at least not anymore, this is history being made, again, GREAT!”

Sounds like the first of many happy listeners.

Mininova is happy with Radiohead’s move also. The site’s co-founder Erik Dubbelboer told TorrentFreak: “It’s great to see that artists use Mininova to distribute and promote their content for free. We encourage everyone to do this, which is why we provide our Content Distribution service.”

Radiohead uploaded the torrent the old fashioned way though, seeding it themselves. Apparently they are well aware of the latest developments in the BitTorrent community, as they used the newly founded OpenBitTorrent tracker.

Tags: radiohead, These Are My Twisted Words

Download a Copy of The Pirate Bay Before It’s Gone

Written by Ernesto

In just a few days The Pirate Bay will be passed onto its new owners, marking the end of an era but not the end of BitTorrent. The nostalgic torrenters among us might want to download a copy of the site for archival purposes. It never hurts to have a backup of important data in place, especially when it’s free.

In common with music and movies, it’s not that hard to copy a website. It might take some serious server power to serve torrents to millions of people every day, but all the torrent files and site code don’t take up that much space.

In fact, every TorrentFreak reader can easily store a backup of The Pirate Bay on his or her hard drive. Everyone can download it straight from The Pirate Bay, conveniently packed into a massive torrent amounting to 21.3 Gigabytes of data.

The anonymous uploader who compiled this huge torrent told TorrentFreak that he wanted to have a backup of the site in case all torrents mysteriously disappear after the site is sold. “I suppose I want us to have assurances. If the TPB deal disappoints us, we can just put it up again,” he said.

The backup includes a mockup site and all of the 873,671 torrent files hosted on The Pirate Bay’s servers. As the uploader also notes, not all of the 2 million torrents tracked by The Pirate Bay are hosted on the site itself.

With this backup everyone can have their own Pirate Bay up and running in a few minutes. “The basic website supplied in the torrent is a working site, where you can browse the index. You just need a lot of hardware to run a database of this size at a decent speed. And thanks to openbittorrent.com, you don’t even need a tracker,” the uploader told us.

Those interested in grabbing a copy of the site have to be warned: patience is required. It might take a few days before the download completes with the seeder’s limited upload capacity, but good things come to those that wait.

Windows 7 Ultimate activation cracked with OEM master key (Updated)

Windows 7 Ultimate has been cracked and activated via OEM instant offline activation. Other editions of the operating system have yet to get the same treatment.

By Emil Protalinski | Last updated July 29, 2009 10:20 AM CT

Windows 7 Ultimate has been cracked. The pirate milestone, reached almost three months before Windows 7 is set to hit General Availability on October 22, 2009, was achieved via OEM instant offline activation that passes Windows Genuine Advantage validation and keeps the operating system permanently activated. Previous cracks weren't as solid: while they may be working now, they can easily be disabled by Microsoft. This one won't be so easy.

Both 32-bit and 64-bit Windows 7 Ultimate can now easily be activated, according to My Digital Life. For Windows 7 Professional, Windows 7 Home Premium, Windows 7 Home Basic, and Windows 7 Starter, the OEM-System-Locked Preinstallation (SLP) keys haven't been leaked, so they cannot be OEM-activated yet. It won't be long before easy-to-use Windows 7 activation toolkits start appearing in the wild.

The story begins with a Windows 7 Ultimate OEM DVD ISO from Lenovo leaking to a Chinese forum. The boot.wim file was then used to retrieve the OEM-SLP product key and OEM certificate for Windows 7 Ultimate. The SLP is a procedure used by Microsoft to preactivate the Windows operating system for mass distribution by major OEMs. Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 use SLP version 2.1, which is backwards-compatible with version 2.0, the version Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008 use. As such, after the OEM certificate and OEM product key were extracted, it was discovered that Windows 7 uses the same digitally signed OEM certificate, which has an .xrm-ms extension, that Vista uses.

The extracted Windows 7 Ultimate OEM-SLP product key can be used to activate an installed Windows 7 Ultimate system, and since the product key appears to be a master OEM-SLP product key for Windows 7 Ultimate, it can activate Windows 7 Ultimate from any OEM. Furthermore, even if the user already has a retail version of Windows 7 Ultimate installed, it can be converted to an OEM version with two simple commands, and then activated.

This is a major breakthrough for the Windows piracy world and a huge blow to Microsoft. Even if it was imminent, the fact that it has occurred so soon means pirates will have activated copies of Windows 7 a good week before even MSDN and TechNet subscribers get their hands on the RTM build on August 6, not to mention all the other groups Microsoft plans to give the build to. The Windows 7 RTM and Windows Server 2008 RTM build was compiled on July 13, 2009 and the official announcement was made on July 22, 2009.

Update

"We’re aware of reports of activation exploits that attempt to circumvent activation & validation in Windows 7, and we can assure customers that Microsoft is committed to protecting our customers and partners from counterfeit and pirated software," a Microsoft spokesperson told Ars. "Microsoft strongly advises customers not to download Windows 7 from unauthorized sources and downloading Windows 7 from peer-to-peer Web sites is piracy, and exposes users to increased risks - such as viruses, Trojans and other malware and malicious code—that usually accompany counterfeit software. These risks can seriously harm or permanently destroy data and often expose users to identity theft and other criminal schemes."

Windows 7 RTM Leaked to BitTorrent Last Week

By GREGG KEIZER of Computerworld, IDG

Published: July 22, 2009

Although even the best-connected users can't get their hands on Windows 7's final code until Aug. 6, people willing to pirate the new operating system can download it today from several file-sharing sites, searches show.

Build 7600.16385, which Microsoft declared as Windows 7 RTM, or "release to manufacturing," earlier Wednesday, leaked to the Internet almost a week ago. On the BitTorrent tracking site Mininova.org, for example, that build first appeared July 16.

According to the filename on Mininova, the build was compiled July 13.

Not surprisingly, the first edition of the build to hit BitTorrent was a 64-bit Chinese edition. That same day, English-language versions of the 32- and 64-bit popped up on Mininova. Since then, other language editions have appeared, including German, Hungarian and Italian.

Microsoft has not been able to plug the leaks of Windows 7. Last October, just hours after the company unveiled the first public build to attendees at its Professional Developers Conference, the alpha hit BitTorrent. Since then, the OS has leaked repeatedly, including prior to the public beta of January 2009 and the release candidate of May.

But while pirates grab the final bits -- more than 5,000 copies of the English editions posted on Mininovalast week have been downloaded -- legitimate users must wait two weeks for the new operating system.

According to the roll-out schedule Microsoft announced yesterday, developers and IT professionals who subscribe to the MSDN or TechNet services will have first dibs on Windows 7 RTM only on Aug. 6.

Consumers, on the other hand, must be even more patient: They won't receive their pre-ordered copies of Windows 7, or be able to buy new PCs with it pre-installed, until Oct. 22.

Windows 7 retail prices run from $119.99 to $219.99 for upgrades, and from $199.99 to $319.99 for full-package editions.

Miramax Rewards Would-Be BitTorrent Pirate With Free Ticket

Written by enigmax

It’s normal for BitTorrent users to be a tiny bit paranoid, since their activities aren’t always popular with everyone. But imagine musing via Twitter that your favorite movie isn’t on torrent sites yet and the next thing you know the studio is in direct contact with you, asking you not to pirate the movie - and giving you a free ticket in return.

Most people sharing files on the Internet are aware that at any time they could be being monitored by any number of anti-piracy companies, investigators or lobby groups. There can be little doubt that file-sharing forums and sites around the world are being watched to a greater or less extent for the purpose of keeping tabs on piracy. And you can safely bet that the RIAA, IFPI and MPAA will read this article, just as you are.

But what if a throwaway comment about torrents via Twitter was enough to put a movie studio in direct contact with you in a matter of minutes? This is what happened to photographer, writer and Twitter user Amanda Music, as she wondered;

Ugh WHY IS ADVENTURELAND NOT ON TORRENTS YET?

Amanda told TorrentFreak, “My friends and I usually wait to download cams of movies. We have yet to find one for Adventureland. So I was Tweeting about it. My friends were too though, but I guess they didn’t put torrent & Adventureland in the same sentence.”

It seems these keywords were being monitored by Hollywood studio Miramax, presumably to find out quickly when their movie hits the web. But instead, Miramax actually responded to Amanda and asked her not to use BitTorrent to get the movie;

Cmon Amanda, don’t do it. #adventureland #fbi

“Miramax found my Tweet through a search and told me not to do it. In a nice way,” Amanda told TorrentFreak. “I had already looked for the torrent and didn’t find one so I decided to reply and say that I wouldn’t download it. I was joking in a way.”

Amanda replied to Miramax, “Okay I won’t, JUST FOR YOU,” but to her surprise they responded again.

And Miramax were true to their word - almost. They provided Amanda with a code for a single free ticket and since Amanda is currently in New York City, she will go see Adventureland today.

“I was pretty surprised about it,” explained Amanda. “I couldn’t find a working Adventureland torrent anyway.”

thanks to iheartmovies

What the Wolverine Leak Means for the Future of Piracy

By Michael Dance

Twentieth-Century Fox was the butt of a big prank this April Fool’s Day, when news broke that a copy of X-Men Origins: Wolverine was leaked onto the net. Movies get leaked habitually, sure, but the circumstances combined to make it feel like a first: It was a DVD-quality copy. Of a massive, big-budget superhero movie. Online a full month before the movie’s release.

The bootleg spread like wildfire, and by some accounts there were over one hundred thousand downloads on the first day alone. That’s a lot of conceivable box office revenue.

It felt like a first, but it also might be a last. Because the way I experienced it, April Fool’s Day marked the end of piracy’s glory days — the day piracy stopped being casually tolerated by everyone but studio heads.

This goes beyond Fox’s you-messed-with-the-wrong-people response to the incident (they put out a statement which went something like, and I’m paraphrasing, “we’re working with the FBI to make sure whomever was responsible will spend the rest of their life worrying about dropping the soap”). And it goes beyond the firing of FoxNews.com’s Roger Friedman, who won the Stupidest (Ex-)Columnist in the World award for writing a review of the bootleg and encouraging people to watch more movies online illegally. (Seriously, man. Twentieth-Century Fox and Fox News are sibling companies, what kind of false sense of job security did you have?)

It also goes beyond whether the movie was any good or not. I’ve read good and bad things; the majority of responses haven’t been promising, but then again, we’re talking about the internet. Do the disparagers really think watching it on a fifteen-inch screen with unfinished special effects will provide the same experience sitting in a movie theater will? No, they just like being negative.

What it really boils down to is that the online fan community itself condemned the leak. Universally.

Ain’t It Cool News, the granddaddy of online movie spoiling and fanboy bitching, ran a story called “We Don’t Want your Wolverine Movie Reviews,” explaining, “the only way you’re seeing it right now is through illegal channels, and we’re not going to condone that.”

JoBlo.com downplayed its potential effects, saying that “while there will always be a percentage of internetizens who actively seek pirated/bootleg/camera copies of movies, it’s probably safe to say that the average consumer still prefers the theater experience.”

TheBadandUgly.com said they stopped watching the bootleg after a couple minutes, in order to get the better theatrical experience: “Just because you can watch a rough-sketch and go somewhere on the internet to read the entire plot,” the article says, “does not mean you, I or anyone knows what X-Men Origins: Wolverine looks like. Because it isn’t done.”

And DarkHorizons.com summed things up by saying “It’s an act that cruelly robs thousands of people of not just months of hard effort, but their potential livelihood as well.”

That was the reigning sentiment: even if you don’t care about hurting a big studio, you’re hurting the hundreds of hardworking crew members who spent months on the project. If piracy translates into lost revenue, that’s going to translate into smaller budgets and fewer jobs.

If you really want a nail in the coffin? Even some pirates are speaking out against the leak. The New York Times ran a story called “Some Pirates Won’t Watch Illegal Wolverine”, while Gizmodo came out with a “Pirate’s Code of Conduct”, which contained gems like “save action flicks…for the big screen” and ” if you really like it and can afford to do so, buy it.”

Does this mean everyone in the world has suddenly found a stringent set of morals? That’s pretty doubtful. But the tide of public opinion has turned. And I am sure about one thing:

The fourteen-year-old who stole the copy of Wolverine from his dad’s postproduction and posted it online thinking he was cool is totally crapping his pants right now.

O aXXo, Where Art Thou?

Written by Ernesto

In what must appear like a lifetime to his loyal fans, the popular DVD ripper aXXo hasn’t uploaded any torrents for three weeks. As always, rumors surface that claim to explain the hiatus. Has aXXo been arrested, or transferred to one of the MPAA’s covert detention facilities? Did BitTorrent’s favorite uploader fall off a cliff?

The most recent torrent uploaded by aXXo dates back to March 11. In the days that followed, millions have been waiting anxiously for fresh content, performing their daily aXXo search on their favorite torrent sites in vain.

The aXXo brand has achieved cult status and for some has become synonymous with quality. Over the years aXXo has grabbed the attention of scammers, the mainstream press and even documentary makers. So, when he goes silent it is quickly noticed and the demand from his fans for news or an update quickly grows.

This isn’t the first time that aXXo has taken a break from releasing. Last year there were no new releases for a full four months but eventually aXXo made a glorious return with the topical release of “I Am Legend.” Little is known about the reasons behind aXXo’s current absence, although he has not disappeared completely.

We can confirm that aXXo has been logging into his account at Mininova, which means that we can safely conclude that aXXo is still among us. When he plans to surface again is unclear, but time will tell.

It is fascinating to see how aXXo has gathered a following of millions of people in the years after he started uploading his first torrent. As always, opinions differ and controversy always surrounds aXXo. He is God to some, while others despise him for his lack of crediting ‘The Scene’ but it’s difficult to criticize his commitment or appreciate the pressure he is undoubtedly under on a daily basis.

Fact is, however, that every aXXo upload is good for a guaranteed entry in our movie download charts, adding up to millions of downloads in a few weeks. It may be Hollywood’s worst nightmare, but many independent film producers will dream of having their films ripped by aXXo, ensuring that they are associated with a global brand with an unprecedented reach on BitTorrent.

NIN Launches BitTorrent Tracker for New Release

Written by Ernesto

Nine Inch Nails released their new tour sampler NIN/JA on their website a few hours ago. While the regular quality MP3s can be downloaded straight from their server, the band has set up their own BitTorrent tracker for the higher quality ‘lossless’ downloads.

Trent Reznor, the frontman of Nine Inch Nails has always been pro-filesharing and admitted to downloading music using BitTorrent. Unlike others in the music biz, the NIN members are no stranger to BitTorrent.

“We use torrents ourselves, and we know that most NIN fans are tech-savvy and familiar with file-sharing, so we want to experiment with ways to use that to our advantage, instead of making the mistake of trying to fight or ignore it, as so many artists and labels do.” NIN’s Art Director Rob Sheridan explained to TorrentFreak last year.

In fact, when they released the album ‘Ghosts‘ for free last year their server couldn’t handle the high traffic numbers and downloads, so the linked to the torrents they had uploaded to The Pirate Bay instead. Thanks to The Pirate Bay, many fans didn’t have to wait till the server recovered, and the torrent quickly became one of the most downloaded files on the tracker.

With the release of their tour promo NIN/JA today, NIN decided to prevent similar server troubles, and the band now offers .torrent downloads for the higher quality (and size) downloads. The tracker used for the torrents is hosted by the band itself on the tracker.nin.com subdomain. The tracker is already being used by thousands of fans just hours after it went up.

Self-hosted BitTorrent trackers may become a new hype. Two weeks ago, the government-owned Norwegian Broadcasting (NRK) had set up its very own BitTorrent tracker to distribute some of their TV-shows.

Thus far, we haven’t spotted NIN’s tour sampler on any of the public torrent sites, but it won’t take long before it spreads. The official website requires people to submit their email address in order to get the links to the DRM-free downloads. It’s well worth it though.

Update: Apparently the tracker at nin.com was also used for some of the previous releases, we were not aware of this.