While streaming is all the rage nowadays, torrent sites still remain popular.

The Pirate Bay has long been the undisputed leader in terms of traffic, but if we look at the most visited domains at the start of this year, it’s now surpassed by YTS and 1337x.

TPB’s dip can be attributed to the frequent downtime and connectivity issues over the past months. It remains the go-to torrent site for many when it’s accessible, so it wouldn’t be a surprise if the site regains the lead in the coming months.

This year’s list includes one newcomer. TorrentDownloads is back after a year of absence. The site takes the place of iDope which disappeared from the scene last year.

We traditionally limit our overview to typical torrent sites that are targeted primarily at an English or international audience. This means that RuTracker, Dytt8, EliteTorrent, and Torrent9 aren’t included even though they would qualify in terms of traffic.

Below is the full list of the ten most-visited torrent sites at the start of the new year. The list is based on various traffic reports and we display the Alexa rank for each. In addition, we include last year’s ranking.

Most Popular Torrent Sites

1. YTS.am

YTS.am is the unofficial successor of the defunct YTS or YIFY group. The site typically rebrands third-party releases of popular movies. While these were banned by several other torrent sites, YTS is now more popular than ever.

2. 1337x

1337x has been a stable presence in this list for many years. It has as a dedicated group of uploaders that provide fresh content. Despite ISP blockades in several countries it continues to grow.

3. The Pirate Bay

The Pirate Bay turned 15-years-old last year and is the oldest site in this list. If we counted all traffic from proxy domains it would likely still be on top, but due to frequent downtime and connectivity problems it’s now in third position.

4. RARBG

RARBG has dropped two places compared to last year. The site operates several domain names, but only the one with the most traffic counts for this list. RARBG was founded in 2008 and specializes in high quality video releases.

5. Torrentz2

Torrentz2 launched as a stand-in for the original Torrentz.eu site, which voluntarily closed its doors in 2016. Despite some issues with disappearing torrent links early last year, it’s still going strong.

6. NYAA.si

NYAA.si is a popular resurrection of the anime torrent site NYAA. The site was suspended by Cloudflare last year but found a suitable alternative soon after.

7. LimeTorrents

LimeTorrents has been around for more than half a decade. A few month ago the site’s operator changed LimeTorrents’ domain name and updated its homepage in response to various blocking efforts.

8. Zooqle

Zooqle, which boasts more than 3.8 million verified torrents, kept its spot in the top 10. The site was openly advertised as an alternative to Bitsnoop, which shut down in 2017.

9. EZTV.ag

The original TV-torrent distribution group EZTV shut down after a hostile takeover in 2015, with new owners claiming ownership of the brand. The group remains active, albeit not without controversy. Just a few month ago ETTV accused the group of ‘stealing’ its releases.

10. TorrentDownloads

TorrentDownloads has been around for several years. The torrent site regained a spot in the top 10 this year after a year of absence. It’s a no-nonsense index that provides torrents to millions of users each month.

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Disclaimer: Yes, we know that Alexa isn’t perfect, but it helps to compare sites that operate in a similar niche. We also used other traffic metrics to compile the top ten. Please keep in mind that many sites have mirrors or alternative domains, which are not taken into account here. We don’t encourage the use of any of these sites, the yearly list is published as an informational / news resource.

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A few month ago, BitTorrent and its new owner TRON announced a novel plan to extend the BitTorrent protocol with an “in-client token economy.”

The idea behind Project Atlas, as it’s named, is to add ‘currency’ to the BitTorrent protocol through a series of extensions. This makes it possible to financially reward seeders, or to speed up torrents by paying for faster access.

Earlier this week BitTorrent CEO Justin Sun confirmed the ambition when he announced the new BitTorrent token (BTT) that will be used to pay “to improve network speed.”

While it’s hard to review a product that has yet to be released, the descriptions we’ve seen so far do raise a crucial question. Is the ‘token-economy’ proposed by Project Atlas compatible with Net Neutrality?

We ask this question because BitTorrent has been a fierce proponent of an open Internet. It has been a frontrunner in advocating for Net Neutrality, repeatedly criticizing paid traffic prioritization and so-called “fast lanes”.

BitTorrent went as far as creating the dedicated “Internetbetter” website, avenging FCC’s plans to meddle with the ‘Open Internet,’ advertising its campaign on a massive billboard.

“The FCC’s proposed changes to Net Neutrality would create a preferential fast lane for designated traffic,” BitTorrent wrote at the time.

“Those with the deep pockets to pay for this fast lane will have the ability to access and distribute content at higher speeds. Those who lack the purchasing power will be disadvantaged. This moves us towards an Internet of discrimination.”

These efforts didn’t prevent the Net Neutrality rules from being repealed in the US, but it appears that BitTorrent’s own plans may not be in line with an ‘open’ Internet either.

Internetbetter

In FCC’s case, the fast lanes often refer to companies that pay for improved access to consumers, while others are relegated to the slow lane. In other words, those who pay get better access.

This brings us back to Project Atlas, which promises to pay seeders for their bandwidth. While that may sound great to many, there’s also an input side to this token economy; people who pay for faster access or other features.

While details are scarce, it’s clear that with the BTT token users will be able to pay to speed up their downloads. It’s not clear how this will work, but it’s likely that a paying downloader will get priority over others.

That sounds a bit like a “fast lane” and paid “prioritization,” albeit on a different scale. Large companies are not paying for faster access in this case, but ‘wealthy’ BitTorrent users are.

TorrentFreak asked both TRON and BitTorrent about their thoughts on this Net Neutrality argument and if it presents a problem. The TRON team said that it couldn’t comment on the matter, while BitTorrent didn’t respond at all.

How much of an issue this Net Neutrality angle will depend on the eventual implementation. There’s a reason for concern if BitTorrent users can indeed get a bigger chunk of the available bandwidth in a swarm, as that means that others will receive files slower.

That said, the payment incentives may also increase the overall speed of the swarm as people will seed more. That could benefit everyone, which is less of a problem, of course.

Perhaps it’s fitting to end with two cautioning quotes from BitTorrent itself, again taken from the Internetbetter site. They referred to the FCC’s then-looming Net Neutrality repeal, but they may help the Project Atlas team as well.

“We are at a crossroads, and the decisions made in the upcoming months will set a precedent for decades to come. We want to be on the right side of history,” BitTorrent cautioned.

“This is the generation that will decide if tomorrow’s Internet will be a platform for freedom and opportunity, or a tool for control and monetization,” the company added

Wise words…

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Since the turn of the last decade, numerous people have been accused in US courts of illegal file-sharing.

Initially, these lawsuits targeted hundreds or thousands of BitTorrent users per case, but this practice has since been rooted out. Now, most file-sharing cases target a single person, up to a dozen or two at most.

This means that the number of “Doe” defendants have gone down, but the same can’t be said for the number of cases that are on the dockets. In fact, the number of file-sharing cases filed last year was higher than ever.

Data collected by TorrentFreak from court records all over the country show that in the first half of the year, more than 3,300 separate lawsuits were filed. The majority of these cases list a single ‘John Doe’ defendant.

This is more than triple the number of lawsuits in the year before, when 1,019 file-sharing cases were filed according to Lex Machina. And it’s also more than the old 2,887 record that was set in 2015.

Pretty much all of this activity can be attributed to two adult industry companies – Malibu Media and Strike 3 Holdings.

Malibu Media, the Los Angeles based company behind the ‘X-Art’ adult movies, has been one of the most active copyright trolls for years. According to data from court records, it filed 1,231 cases in 2017.

The most active filer last year, Strike 3 Holdings, is a relative newcomer. The company, which distributes its adult videos via the Blacked, Tushy, and Vixen websites, has filed 2,092 cases over the past twelve months.

Some of Strike 3’s recent cases

Strike 3’s cases are similar to those filed by Malibu Media. This is no surprise since they are handled by former Malibu lawyer Emilie Kennedy, who now works as in-house counsel at Strike 3.

Together, both companies are good for more than 3,300 new cases last year. In terms of numbers, there’s a gaping hole behind these two, with Bodyguard Productions coming in third place with 70 cases.

To the best of our knowledge, those three are the only filers of lawsuits that targeted alleged BitTorrent pirates last year.

With thousands of new cases, these companies are good for more than half of all copyright lawsuits in the US. According to Justia, there were a little over 6,000 cases in total.

This wave of file-sharing legal action is something that hasn’t gone unnoticed to courts around the country, some of which have become more skeptical.

A high-profile order at the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals a few months ago proves to be a particularly significant roadblock. Referencing the decision, federal courts in districts across the US are now demanding “something more” than an IP-address alone.

For now, however, new lawsuits continue to be filed, also in 2019. In the months to come the wider impact of the appeal court ruling will be felt and whether this will affect the number of new cases this year.

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Back in April 2017, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) announced that Cary Sherman, the industry group’s Chairman and CEO, would be retiring at the end of 2018 after a 40-plus year career in music.

In tandem it was revealed that Mitch Glazier, then Senior Executive Vice President of the RIAA, would be promoted to President of the world-famous music industry group. The plan was for Glazier, who formerly acted as Chief Counsel for intellectual property to the Judiciary Committee of the U.S. House of Representatives, to take the top job in January 2019.

The announcement was met with enthusiasm by a number of industry executives, including the top brass at Universal Music, Warner Music, and Sony Music Entertainment who all celebrated his 19-plus years with the RIAA. During his tenure, Glazier played a key role in some of the RIAA’s most-prominent anti-piracy actions.

“He helped the music community collaborate on multiple issues, from antipiracy and technology initiatives to landmark litigations such as MGM Studios, Inc. v. Grokster in 2005,” the industry group said.

“At a time when piracy was rampant and the authorized music marketplace was in its infancy, that case reshaped the legal landscape for actions against pirate sites and helped level the playing field for licensed music services.”

As envisioned back in 2017, Glazier has now become the Chairman and CEO of the RIAA, representing a “new leadership for a new era”, according to the industry group.

“Music matters. It shapes our culture. It inspires generations young and young at heart. It makes us who we are and binds diverse communities together,” Glazier said in a statement.

“I am honored to lead the RIAA during these exciting times as we fight for a music ecosystem that works for everybody – from artists and fans to labels and publishers and songwriters and music services alike.

“That will require that we both embrace digital music innovations, and protect what has always made music great – keeping the dream alive for the next generation of artists and music creators,” Glazier added.

Also moving onwards and upwards is Michele Ballantyne, who with immediate effect has been promoted to Chief Operating Officer of the RIAA.

A former Special Assistant to President Bill Clinton, Special Counsel to then-White House Chief of Staff John Podesta, and as General Counsel for Senator Tom Daschle, Ballantyne also played key roles in copyright protection.

“As COO, Ballantyne manages the day-to-day operations of the RIAA,” her bio now reads.

“A driving force for updating intellectual property laws for the digital age, she has played an instrumental role in advocating for congressional reforms including the Music Modernization Act, the PRO-IP Act that established the nation’s first Intellectual Property Enforcement Coordinator in the Executive Office of the President, and the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008 that provided colleges and universities with meaningful tools to reduce the illegal downloading of copyrighted works on campuses.”

Glazier is full of praise for Ballantyne’s achievements, declaring that “there is no one better suited to help lead the RIAA and no one I would rather have at my side than Michele.”

I am honored to lead the RIAA during these exciting times as we fight for a music ecosystem that works for everybody – from artists and fans to labels and publishers and songwriters and music services alike. https://t.co/3KaY9YRoo1

— Mitch Glazier (@mitch_glazier) January 2, 2019

https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

While the RIAA became synonymous with aggressive anti-piracy enforcement during the last decade, action against traditional pirate sites during the past few years has been sporadic at best.

Instead, the industry group has tackled the thorny issue of stream-ripping, shutting down YouTube-MP3 in 2017 and following up against similar platforms in 2018.

The industry group still has torrent sites and cyberlockers on its radar (and at times even Cloudflare) but at least for now seems more interested in generating better revenues from sites like YouTube while preventing unauthorized downloads from similar platforms.

That’s when it’s not trying to undermine ISPs’ copyright ‘safe harbors’ in repeat infringer cases (1,2,3).

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While the vast majority of BitTorrent users will simply visit their favorite pirate site for a list of what is available, very often content hasn’t been released online yet. From simply trying to soon to waiting for a delayed release, checking sites can be a bit hit and miss.

For those looking for more information on whether content has hit the Internet yet, it’s possible to use a so-called PRE Database, or PreDb for short. These sites, which can be automatically or manually maintained, contain lists which detail release names, when they became available online, and other relevant information.

While some PreDb sites sometimes contain links to torrents or NZB files, for example, most toe the line from a copyright perspective. They are simple archives of information that cannot be claimed by copyright holders. That, however, doesn’t stop them from trying.

Recently, TorrentFreak had a discussion with the operator of SweTracker, a PreDb/tracer service that focuses on providing information for Nordic releases.

“As a Nordic user I wanted to see where all the Nordic releases are, where to find them, and who had them first,” he explained.

“Swenews.info [another release tracking site] still existed back then, but it didn’t say in plain text which specific tracker had the content, so you had to visit all the possible trackers. So then I decided to create my own version of Swenews but detailing the specific tracker. This was about two years ago.”

While many PreDb-style sites monitor for ‘Scene’ releases using information culled from IRC, SweTracker monitors BitTorrent trackers and publishes information on who won the ‘race’ to put content online first. It does not link to any pirate content whatsoever but anti-piracy companies regularly report the site to Google.

No infrining content but the complaints flood in

As the image above shows, SweTracker has been reported to Google many hundreds of times this year alone by anti-piracy companies who clearly cannot tell the difference between reporting news and offering pirate releases for download. SweTracker’s operator says he’s become used to the problem.

“My personal experience with [anti-piracy companies] is that they don’t really know how stuff works. They often state that users can download or stream movies directly from SweTracker, but that’s simply not true,” he explains.

“But, I try to make life easy and do remove the releases they ask me to remove.
They have contacted me via email several times.”

As far as we can tell, this level of cooperation really isn’t needed. However, SweTracker’s operator says that he’s had serious problems in the past when loose-cannon companies erroneously targeted his site.

He reveals that one company took its complaints about his site to Cloudflare and then to his own web-host, which responded by taking down his entire site until all of the files on it could be checked for infringement. This effort took almost a day during which the site was rendered completely inaccessible.

The problems facing SweTracker are not unique, however. There are perhaps a dozen similar sites online currently, with PreDb.org, PreDb.pw, and Pre.Corrupt-Net.org being among the most respected and visited.

PreDb.org states clearly on its main page that “There are absolutely NO downloads of copyright-protected works, hyperlinks to downloads, torrent files, magnet links, nzb files or similar content on any part of this web site” but that doesn’t prevent complaints.

Google’s Transparency Report indicates that at the time of writing, PreDb.org has had 2,204 URLs reported by content and anti-piracy companies, with Google removing the links from its indexes approximately 65% of the time.

A similar situation is faced by PreDb.pw, which has had 1,103 of its URLs reported to Google with requests that the company removes them from its search indexes. At the time of writing, Google has cooperated almost 85% of the time.

Quite why these sites are aggressively targeted isn’t clear, but it seems likely that simply having a release name on the site is enough to classify it as a full-on piracy resource. As we’ve pointed out dozens of times in the past, a simple whitelist could provide a very simple solution to this problem.

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