
Torrentz Shuts Down, Largest Torrent Meta-Search Engine Says Farewell - dacm
https://torrentfreak.com/torrentz-shuts-down-largest-torrent-meta-search-engine-says-farewell-160805/
======
Svenskunganka
Torrents and copyright infringement is related, we can all agree on that. But
I believe that pirating is related to a very fuzzy legal system regarding this
topic and unfair treatment by the major movie studios & music labels. I'll try
to explain as good as I can.

Being a european citizen, it is very frustrating knowing that pirating is
illegal even though being a Netflix, HBO & Spotify customer. Pirating is a
much bigger trend in EU & AUS than it is in the US, and I think that it mainly
boils down to the US-based movie studios restricting and delaying access to
content to non-US citizens. Some may think that this is acceptable, but I
can't see how treating one customer differently from another is acceptable
just because they have different nationalities. I'm paying exactly the same
amount of money as the next US-citizen for the content, yet I am treated
differently.

One other thing that troubles me is that there are higher quality content
available via torrents than via the legal alternatives. Having invested in a
7.1 surround system and a 4K 3D Android TV, you would expect that the legal
alternatives would have content available for such hardware, but they rarely
do.

Personally I think it's absurd that the movie studios expect to be on the
european market but treat those customers as second-hand customers, and I
don't understand why the EU isn't doing anything about it. The EU and US
relies on eachothers markets, yet music labels forces the Swedish-invented
Spotify to restrict access to certain songs for non-US citizens.

I do acknowledge that some people are pirating because it's free, but I don't
think that the general public does so. I'd be the happiest Netflix & HBO
customer if I had the same content library as my fellow US friends.

~~~
mikegerwitz
The term "piracy" doesn't help the problems any---it's a smear term that tries
to put downloading and sharing on the same level as murder and kidnapping.

[https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-
and-t...](https://torrentfreak.com/mpaa-banned-from-using-piracy-and-t..).

I prefer the term "sharing".

As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying. Some people may want
backups, may have lost their copy after paying for it, may be frustrated by
DRM-laced copies that don't work on their PC/devices, the reasons you
mentioned, etc...

~~~
andrepd
>As you mention, intent is not always to avoid paying.

Yeah, not always, but very often. Everyone here is trying to downplay this,
but I would say >80% of people (disclamer: pulled from my behind) torrent
simply because it's free and if they can easily obtain it free rather than
paying, then they will. The argument that people pirate because the paid
options are shit, and if they were as convenient as torrents people would just
pay for them, is rendered moot with the Steam counterexample. Content
distribution is much more well advanced and convenient in games compared to
movies, and people still pirate en masse.

Of course, all of us are really just talking out of our collective asses until
we can cite figures from a study.

~~~
digler999
Stop talking "out of your ass". I pirate an occasional movie for a friend, but
I spend more time watching shows on Netflix. Why would I even pay for Netflix
when I could get anything I want for free ? Because they have a really
convenient UI and easy access to their content.

I recently purchased a Google Play Music subscription, despite having 10^6
"pirated" songs on my HDD. Why ? Because they have a reasonable price, cool UI
and artwork, convenience of listening anywhere, and the AI bot that helps me
find _new_ music I might be interested in. All of those things dont exist in
pirate land.

~~~
andrepd
Good for you. There are 6,999,999,999 other people in the world. It's not
reasonable to assume everyone else thinks the same as you.

~~~
digler999
why are you suddenly using facts when your initial position used total guesses
?

------
sktrdie
Please have a look at this pull request I submitted some time ago to
Bittorrent.org:
[https://github.com/bittorrent/bittorrent.org/pull/35](https://github.com/bittorrent/bittorrent.org/pull/35)

It's about updating torrents via DHT mutable items. Meaning that torrent sites
could share their public key and simply seed an .rss file containing their
indexed torrents (a mapping of infohash -> descriptions). When they want to
share new torrents, they simply update their torrent to a new .rss file and
consumers will hop on that new swarm.

We need more support to get this into a standard BEP and also into torrent
clients.

I know there are other networks (IPFS, I2P, Freenet, ZeroNet, etc..) that do
this, but BitTorrent is the most widely used and I think implementing
functionality in the torrent ecosystem itself would have much more effect.

~~~
rakoo
The real value of sites like TPB and KAT is the community upvoting/downvoting
torrents to only keep the correct torrents, and people commenting about actual
quality, pointing the problems of encoding or language... This can't be
provided by your proposals or anything that relies around an RSS feed,
unfortunately

~~~
sktrdie
Trusting the entity that they're not updating the torrent with spam is the
first step. Discussions about the quality of torrents is a different matter
which I think neither TPB and KAT have solved - spam accounts could invade
such centralized services and downvote quality content. In my opinion a
"community" is better built out of a network of trusted public keys.

------
dineshp2
The reason piracy is so popular is because it is free and because it's
incredibly convenient, in that order.

The convenience factor is basically, if you want some content (movie, game)
it's a simple search and download away (streaming torrents seem to be gaining
traction). No legal alternative offers this level of convenience.

I suspect piracy will become harder for the average user due to three letter
agencies making life harder for pirates, but it won't stop the determined
ones.

Speaking of determined torrenters, Peter Sunde, the founder of TPB had
something interesting to say about torrent aggregators being shut down [1].
The idea is that even though downloading torrents itself is p2p, finding the
magnet links is still centralized and that is an area that needs to be
decentralized.

[1] [https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-piracy-scene-
nee...](https://torrentfreak.com/pirate-bay-founder-piracy-scene-needs-
innovation-160726/)

~~~
naviehuynh
It can be free but not that convenient. Pirated content needs to be checked to
make sure it's not fake nor malicious, not to mention the technical downsides
of the torrent protocol (large bandwidth consumption, insecure, easy to block,
slow speed on non port-forwarding routers etc)

It's much easier to buy and download games on Steam or watch movies on Netflix
nowadays.

~~~
tempestn
For movies you can find on Netflix that's absolutely true. The difference is
that effectively anything can be found via torrent or nzb, while the catalog
of any single paid provider, even netflix, is relatively limited. You might
get reasonable coverage (although still not as complete) by combining a number
of subscription services, but the 'ease' advantage quickly disappears.

I would happily pay a significant multiplier on what I pay for Netflix in
order to legally stream any reasonably popular movie released within the past
few years, plus a decent selection of older ones. IE, roughly what you would
find at your average Blockbuster 10 years ago. (A similar selection of TV
shows would be nice too.) Things may be improving, but they're definitely not
there yet.

~~~
josho
In this thread why are the rental options like iTunes not being discussed?
Those distribution channels have the convenience of streaming, and a deep
catalog. Is it because everyone wants all the movies for $10/mth or less
rather than $5 a show?

~~~
tempestn
I'm honestly not that familiar with iTunes' offerings. $5 for a new release
movie rental sounds ok if the selection is there.

~~~
josho
Yeh, iTunes and similar options have a pretty good selection, in both SD and
HD. It doesn't suffer from the same pains that DVDs had (ie. no advertisements
before the movie starts). It is more convenient than torrenting.

So, it strikes me as odd that people here only consider pre-pay streaming
options and ignore other viable options as they rant about their
rationalization for torrents.

------
justrossthings
>TFW your children won't experience having access to all the software, music,
and other content they could ever want just by knowing how to use a computer
better than most people

Feels bad man. Having access to a cracked version of Photoshop at 13 years old
changed my life.

~~~
ceeK
Same here. I wonder whether this experience with the free cracked version
helped make Photoshop any more popular. If it was only used in the legal
sense, costing hundreds, would it be so popular?

~~~
analog31
At one point, I developed a hypothesis that for a big software vendor, turning
a blind eye to piracy was like a form of "dumping" on the market. Consider a
vendor like Microsoft. They could make their money selling legit copies to
businesses, and through package deals on new computers.

Meanwhile, anybody who tried to sell a simpler or even better product at a
lower price was forced out of the market by the "free" copies of Microsoft
that were widely available.

The same "free" software gave Microsoft an advantage in the platform wars
(e.g., Windows vs Mac) as well. Though most of the mainstream software was
available for both platforms, people would buy a computer that could run the
software that they could get for "free," often by copying the disks at work.

I remember a conversation with a friend. He was buying a new PC. I suggested
getting a Mac (around 1996). He said: "The Mac doesn't run AutoCAD." I
suggested that he couldn't afford AutoCAD anyway, and he just gave me a wink
and laughed.

I don't know how this applies to movies and music, i.e., what a "cheaper
alternative" looks like. When I was a kid, we would never see a first-run
movie. Instead, we'd have to wait until it showed up at the discount theater,
where we could see it for a buck. Today, there may be no reasonable business
model for providing a lower priced channel for content, because content
competes with pirate content.

~~~
pandler
> At one point, I developed a hypothesis that for a big software vendor,
> turning a blind eye to piracy was like a form of "dumping" on the market.
> Consider a vendor like Microsoft. They could make their money selling legit
> copies to businesses, and through package deals on new computers.

I have anecdata to support this, actually, though I won't name names. The
company in question prided itself on the fact that bootleg copies were being
sold for something like $5USD in (I think) Romania, whereas their competitors
software was being sold for a few dollars less. For comparison, a single
commercial license could set you back over $1000-$4000.

The way I see it, it's the same as offering free or next-to-nothing licenses
to students. Not only can students not afford the software, you're competing
for the mindshare and the number of people who put "I know how to use this
software" on their resume.

~~~
digi_owl
Heh, i have a lovely anecdote about those student discounts.

The only guy i knew that had heard anything about Apple before the iPod craze
was a hobby musician i grew up alongside. Once he reached college the first
thing he did was buy himself a Macbook using the student discount.

------
dyml
What would it take to build a secure & resilient torrent site?

I'm guessing fully decentralised and I've seen mentions of

* ipfs ([https://ipfs.io/](https://ipfs.io/))

* zeronet ([https://zeronet.io/](https://zeronet.io/)

* Riffle (anonymous communication)

Couldn't we leverage bits of the blockchain technology?

Since it's a fully distributed shared database where writers don't trust each
other and no middleman is trusted either?

(edit:formatting)

~~~
comboy
What do you need a blockchain for? Storing millions of no more seeded
torrents?

There are already magnet links and DHT which is distributed shared database.
The only issue is a search function, which is much easier to implement and
works much faster when it's done in a centralized form.

~~~
stubish
For distributing all those magnet links of course. Yes, it will be a huge
morgue of dead magnet links but not being able to remove them is a required
feature. And more importantly it needs to store ratings and not be gameable,
or it will be taken over for malware and spam and die a quick death. Which is
going to take some thought.

~~~
comboy
I still don't see how blockchain helps with distribution and what incentive
would be to store huge loads of this type of data locally.

Ratings are important indeed, but blockchain doesn't make them not gameable.
For this you need some working web of trust and oh how I wish we had one
already (yes yes I know the technology is there and it 'works', but it must
work like an e-mail works for an average user to really be popular, I want to
be warned not to buy from given ebay seller because friend of my friend of my
friend had a bad experience and because I assign high weight to this friend
opinion, well that went OT a bit..). On torrent sites there's a thin web of
trust of website owners moderators and then trusted uploaders, we could do so
much better.

Not to make a separate post, small ask HN: any interesting active projects
trying to build such user friendly distributed WoT?

~~~
Canada
In the context of something like the warez scene the ratings system can be
read only to end users.

When releases are made to the decentralized torrent repository they are signed
by the release group.

Whether or not a particular signer is an official member of The Scene is
decided by consensus of The Scene. The web of trust is very small. Everyone
involved is tech savvy, motivated, and already knows each other.

From time to time updates to the list of known groups and their keys may be
posted, authenticated by a multisignature scheme.

Then clients can automatically discover who's trustworthy and filter on that.
No technical skill or effort required of the general public.

------
antoineMoPa
The first thing that got me to pirate movies was that DVDs did not work
because of their DRM after I installed Linux. I had plenty of legally bought
movies that just did not work on my computer until I found the right Gentoo
packages (libdvd-css or something)... I never tried Netflix because it took so
many years for it to work with Linux. Being a free software user, it is easier
to pirate stuff than to buy the content. If companies just gave me access to a
DRM free .avi/.ogv download for a decent price, I would buy the damn movies.

~~~
phairoh
> If companies just gave me access to a DRM free .avi/.ogv download for a
> decent price, I would buy the damn movies.

A million times this. The music industry figured out how to sell DRM free
music files years ago and ever since then I haven't pirated a single album. If
the video entertainment industry would do the same, my torrenting days would
be over.

------
aerovistae
The thing that gets me is that everyone's fine with libraries and used book
stores, as well as sales of second hand games and DVDs, _none_ of which send
profits back to the creators or rights-owners.

But _digital piracy_ , that's amoral. Sigh. I like seeing the contortions of
logic people pull off to try and explain how these things are different.

~~~
habitue
But it is different! Used bookstores wont let you walk out with the book for
free, they charge you :P

~~~
loader
so more like libraries?

------
Fiahil
With the recent shut down of KAT, we're kind of in a "low phase". It always
has been a game of cat and mouse, but now, we've sadly lost two big mouses. I
hope someone will quickly take up the torch.

~~~
Freak_NL
> mouses

Mice. :)

~~~
KenM
It's not really set in stone, from here[0], for instance - "Technically, since
"mouse" is an acronym for "manually-operated user-select equipment," it could
probably be pluralized as "mouses." But since hardly anyone is aware of the
word's etymology, and because it sounds less awkward, most people pluralize it
as "mice.""

[0] -
[http://painintheenglish.com/case/534](http://painintheenglish.com/case/534)

~~~
Freak_NL
You are correct when talking about _computer mice /mouses_, but for the animal
referred to here (figuratively) the plural is mice.

------
derefr
Oh wow, what's going on with torrent sites lately? I feel like we're "running
out" of them somehow.

~~~
Svenskunganka
It's a tricky business running a torrent site. Unless it is fully
decentralized, it can be shut down fairly easily.

Starting a torrent site using the HTTP & DNS protocols is a lost cause. HTTP
can be worked around, but DNS is very problematic. I think we'll see more and
more torrent sites show up that leverages IPFS[1] or ZeroNet[2], but the
second the main browser vendors adds support for something like IPNS
(decentralized alternative to DNS), torrent sites will have won the battle
with MPAA, RIAA and other IP and DMCA enforcers. Considering the grip that the
movie studios has around the vendors, it is very unlikely that it will happen.

[1] - [https://ipfs.io/](https://ipfs.io/)

[2] - [https://zeronet.io/](https://zeronet.io/)

~~~
jjn2009
DNS appears to have a decent amount of decentralization, otherwise what use
would it have been to switch around TLDs for the pirate bay?

~~~
Svenskunganka
Yes it is decentralized, but it relies on central authorities to work, which
in turn relies on a stable, cross-border legal system - which many believes is
currently not in a good state (see Freak_NL's response for example:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12230903](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12230903)
).

People have different views on this of course, but I think we all can agree
that it needs a major overhaul to make the majority happy (the legal system
that is).

------
ENGNR
The largest torrent search engine? No way, Google is still working fine for me

~~~
jjn2009
The double standard is incredible. Google would be well served defending the
open web by supporting sites such as torrentz (via legal resources or
otherwise), its unfortunate that the PR aspect prevents such a thing.

~~~
72deluxe
How would assisting copyright infringement benefit the open web?

I see the mention of double standards but it seems very odd to me that someone
would support copyright infringement (grabbing films etc.) and deem it
acceptable yet we'd balk at someone either:

a) not paying for software we were selling, or b) not paying for a software
service we were selling.

It doesn't add up.

~~~
dalore
Torrentz.eu provided links torrents but also provided a takedown feature where
copyright holders could remove the torrents.

Whose to say that all the torrents were copyright infringement. Or even that
copyright infringement laws applied equally in all parts of the world.

Google also provides links to torrents. That's the double standard.

~~~
thinkloop
The law is not stupid, if 90%+ of what you do aids illegal activity you're
going to feel the heat. Google's proportion is much lower. It's not a double
standard as much as a subjective demarcation. No one would take down a torrent
site with 90% legal material and processes to remove offenders.

------
balladeer
Are they going to come after the private trackers after this? The numbers are
relatively very small though. I would hate if that happens.

I pay for content whenever I can but those trackers provide me with stuff I
mostly never get anywhere else (and in the format and size I want) even if I
want to pay.

------
sschueller
I hope we get a nice implementation of Riffle[1] sometime soon.

[1]
[http://people.csail.mit.edu/devadas/pubs/riffle.pdf](http://people.csail.mit.edu/devadas/pubs/riffle.pdf)

------
kyriakos
so if you are running a torrent aggregation service its illegal.. but if you
are running a torrent aggregation service along with a regular web search
service it becomes legal? maybe there is an opportunity for pirates here...

looking at google (and any other web search engine)

------
intended
It's amazing that even on HN, the conversation is no longer moored to the
past.

Copyright in America has been extended beyond reasonable restriction, driven
by the MPAA and RIAA who began chipping away at the net as we knew it, and
continue to do so today. All of this at the behest of firms which continue to
use the most interesting of accounting techniques to show losses, while
simultaneously doing everything in their power to make it harder for people to
comfortably and easily access media (starting from the time of CDs to today).

All this on top of the fact that studies show that torrenting movies don't
indicate lost sales and actually working as a signal to indicate the
popularity of a product.

all this on the forum where it's reasonable to expect people to know the value
of the network effect.

~~~
youngButEager
Here's an interview question I might pose to candidates (for a coding job):

"Which torrent site with access to popular songs and movies over the past 5
years has been the best, meaning the one you use most?"

My candidate responds and says "Pirate Bay" or "Kat".

If I have several candidates, this guy will be the last possible choice if
every candidate is qualified because I'm assuming he's okay with using
copyrighted works without paying.

Consider these scenarios -- stealing in your opinion?

\- go to a restaurant, eat a meal, then leave without paying (you enjoyed
something you were supposed to pay for but you did not pay)

\- use public transit and not pay for the ride

\- hail a taxi then run away when you arrive at the destination and not pay

If I asked a candidate "would either of these 3 scenarios above be okay?" \--
would they expect me to hire them if they said one or more would be
acceptable?

If I asked the candidate "how many times have you enjoyed a copyrighted film
or recording -- and not paid?" \-- 99.99% sure that every candidate would say
'never' even if they'd done so dozens of times.

Why would they lie to me about that? "If I tell the hiring manager I watch,
listen to copyrighted stuff without paying, he _might_ think that was wrong
and not hire me, so I have to lie."

"It's not stealing, I just disagree with copyright laws/distribution
channels/etc."

No it's stealing.

~~~
intended
Even as a hypothetical, it is an example so laden with meaning and implication
that the only true measure of your argument will come when you actually apply
it during a recruitment drive. Please go ahead and discuss this with a
recruiter and see what they say.

------
tener
Could it be it has suddently became illegal due to some novel interpretation
of existing laws?

~~~
Svenskunganka
Could be, but it doesn't seem likely considering torrents themselves are not
illegal, it's what they point to that _might_ be illegal.

But then again, I wonder why trackers are seen as illegal? They're nothing
more than what a router is.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Technological reality doesn't matter in law. What matters is whether you
facilitate crime or not.

~~~
Svenskunganka
I agree, but the case with torrents and trackers is such a gray area.
Shouldn't routers be illegal since they help facilitate crime? If not, why
should trackers?

I'm just playing with thoughts, interested in seeing what people think.

~~~
pjc50
This question was actually addressed in the EU copyright directive:

 _Article 5

Exceptions and limitations

1\. Temporary acts of reproduction referred to in Article 2, which are
transient or incidental [and] an integral and essential part of a
technological process and whose sole purpose is to enable:

(a) a transmission in a network between third parties by an intermediary, or

(b) a lawful use

of a work or other subject-matter to be made, and which have no independent
economic significance, shall be exempted from the reproduction right provided
for in Article 2._

.. explicitly exempts the copies made by routers in the course of their
operation.

------
amariyappa
any alternative aggregator ??

~~~
kinleyd
[http://www.idope.se/](http://www.idope.se/) looks pretty decent.

~~~
moretrees
I haven't found anything on the internet regarding idope.se but it seems to be
pretty nice.

I suppose you're the admin? How sure are you that "servers never go down"?

~~~
idope2016
No @kinleyd is not the admin, I AM :p This project was developed the next day
after we knew KAT was taken down, it's very very new, and we are a very small
team, so you won't find anything about it on the Internet, especially when we
never promoted it decently We only intended to make simple products that
everyone can enjoy, we don’t make bucks out of it, and thus we promise no
annoying pop-up Ads. Regarding the server-never-go-down thing, the server
provider we chose will protect our servers even from hurricanes, earthquakes,
nuclear bombs…Honestly idk how they are capable of that, sounds pretty badass.

~~~
aorth
Not bad. Y u no HTTPS?

~~~
idope2016
we did adopt HTTPS :p pls try [https://www.idope.se](https://www.idope.se)

------
rplnt
Just few years back torrentz was still serving magnet links (just the hash,
without trackers embedded), so you didn't even have to visit the torrent
sites.

Is even that illegal? Publishing hashes of copyrighted material?

~~~
DugFin
In jurisdictions friendly to the US anti-pirating effort, they've largely
adopted a legal standard of "I know pirating when I see it" rather than
following the strict definition outlined by the law. "Making available" has
come to be interpreted as "telling someone who to ask about what a pirated
(whatever) looks like so you can find it yourself".

------
elcct
I still find Google to be the best search engine in terms of content in
question. But they are too big to fall...

------
Kenji
Does anyone know of a good alternative? Are there good torrent sites behind
TOR, that is, .onion addresses?

------
neelkadia
Where are the mirrors?

~~~
cocotino
It was a dynamic website, mirroring it wouldn't be a trivial task, and a
snapshot of a site that adds new stuff every day will become useless with time

------
celticninja
oh look a troll, using a brand new account too, what a great way to add to the
conversation.

~~~
spriggan3
> oh look a troll, using a brand new account too, what a great way to add to
> the conversation.

Calm down, we're not on reddit. Having a different opinion doesn't make one a
troll.

~~~
omginternets
His handle is literally "provoc".

He's outright _telling_ us that he's a troll.

------
unixhero
dAMn

------
doubleorseven
Where would i find me a Russian bride now?

------
cmdrfred
Damn. Used this site everyday since in arrived on the scene.

------
youngButEager
GOOD RIDDANCE. The example of Zuckerberg stealing the idea for Facebook and
getting rich has contributed to the foolish belief that it's okay to "enjoy
the benefit of something that was SUPPOSED to be paid for -- and NOT PAYING".

"I didn't steal any copyrighted material, my site just helped people who
WANTED to enjoy the benefit of copyrighted material that was SUPPOSED to be
paid for but didn't pay. So I'm in the clear!"

NO. Torrentz "Drove the getaway car", taking thieves to where the crime was
committed.

~~~
alanwatts
All that's left is for us to ban roads, that way no one can drive their get
away cars.

