It’s a sad day for those in the US who use TorrentSpy or ISOHunt, two of the world’s largest public trackers sites, to find movies, music, and more to download for it seems the party’s nearing an end.

TorrentSpy and ISOHunt plan to use a hash-based system called FileRights to automatically filter BitTorrent trackers that link to pirated content from its search results to help satisfy a suit brought against them by the MPAA for the illegal facilitation of copyrighted material.

The site says it works as follows:

FileRights.com maintains a large database of copyrighted works managed by the content holders themselves. This database forms a master list of copyrighted materials that should be removed from BitTorrent sites. When a content holder uploads information about the works they have found on a bittorrent site FileRights then distributes this information to our website subscribers so that work can be removed (filtered) from their search results. The entire process is automated to minimize the effort required by both the content holder and website operator.

“With FileRights we used the community networking power of the Web to automate and aggregate the entire copyright filtration process,” said Justin Bunnel, one of TorrentSpy’s founders and CEO of FileRights. “Torrentspy now uses the FileRights cooperative filtering process to filter search results on its popular search engine.”

“No longer will site by site DMCA affidavits be required for copyright owners to remove links to allegedly infringing files. With FileRights we used the community networking power of the web to automate and aggregate the entire copyright filtration process,” he continued.

Ira Rothkin, TorrentSpy’s attorney, also notes that ISOHunt, the subject of an MPAA lawsuit as well, will so too be using FileRights to filter copyrighted material from its search results.

Jacqueline Chooljian, a federal judge for the Central District of California in Los Angeles ruled on May 29th that TorrentSpy must begin tracking users’ activity on the site, a ruling which TorrentSpy is still appealing but, which will most likely stand due to the fact that the US Govt has gone to great lengths to ensure copyright protection despite the costs to the privacy of consumers and to the neutrality of the internet as a whole.

If TorrentSpy and ISOHunt do start filtering pirated content as stated, it will most likely simply mean more traffic for those file-sharing Swedes at The Pirate Bay and to increased usage of Newsgroups and private BitTorrent tracker sites instead. As is always the case with a crackdown on a specific file-sharing program or site, it merely means that users turn to alternative sites and programs but, never do they usually throw in the towel and go legit.

So far I haven’t notice any filtering of either site’s search results but, it’s hard to believe they would do this instead of merely blocking access to US visitors and stand up for the principles of user privacy and net neutrality. By eliminating copyrighted video content as requested by the MPAA they will only lose traffic to competing sites like the Pirate Bay and others and merely be reduced to glorified porn and PC game hubs.

**UPDATE:
ISOHunt has posted a response in regards to filtering copyrighted content
First of all, we do filtering on links that’s been identified for various reasons. It maybe virus infected files in torrents, it maybe copyright owners requesting takedown of links to their material. For copyright takedowns, we’ve long had a copyright policy and procedure for it. This is not censorship on content, this is filtering for identified abuse. Although DMCA has often been used as a way to censor, that’s a problem with the DMCA and the “request and takedown” regime itself, and the way some websites blindly accept takedown requests.

While I claim to be no saint, we do random sampling on requested links and verify against the identity of the owner requesting their takedown. We have on occasions rejected requests due to situations like music companies requesting takedown of torrents that looks like porn. That also goes into problems of how do you know whether torrents are what they claim to be by their filenames, but that’s another issue.

On the recent news of our partnership with FileRights.com, some clarification on a lot of misinformed reporting and comments. We haven’t started using their database yet, the system is still being developed. The idea is to take some pain away from the current “email takedown request, verify links, respond” process to “establish identity as copyright holder or its agent once, use API’s to automate the requests, and we random sample the legitimacy of the requests”. Nothing more or less is done to our copyright policy for filtering based on identified, unauthorized links to copyrighted works. It’s not DRM and it’s not censorship. It’s to automate the process so it’s easier for content owners (request once instead of 100 different BitTorrent trackers and sites), and easier for us (verify and process once for multiple sites, and no need for legalese in emails).

If you don’t like it, take it up with your congressmen about the DMCA if you are in the US. Or, seed torrents of stuff that you produced, and no problems for any of us. Bram Cohen did say something about BitTorrent not designed for piracy, and I think he’s right.

>> This reply by ISOHunt brings up some interesting questions and responses, not the least of which is the statement about “BitTorrent not being designed for piracy”(Say what?).

In a response to this posting on ISOHunt a Canadian has the gumption to note how insane the whole affair is, that as a CANADIAN visiting a CANADIAN SITE why is it that it is allowing an AMERICAN LOBBYING GROUP to tell it what to do?

Perhaps the real blame lies in us, the American people, for consistently allowing by default our corporations and our country to tell others what’s best for them and how to run their show. Net neutrality may just be a pipe dream after all if we’re allowed to scare the whole world into complying with our own self-interests.

Also, it seems I’m not alone in my disdain over this turn of events with Brokep over the Pirate Bay making clear his hatred for this new FileRights scheme writing that “F—k filerights,” and I too “Thank god that technology is smarter than some of it’s users.”
***READ MORE
digg_url = ‘http://digg.com/tech_news/Bye_Bye_TorrentSpy_and_ISOHunt_Both_to_Filter_Copyrighted_Content’;

Looking for more stuff to watch or download?
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The .BIN / .CUE CD image format was made popular by the CDRWin software. Afterwards many programs have started supporting or partially supporting it, including: Nero, Blindwrite, CloneCD, FireBurner. The .CUE file contains the track layout information, while the .BIN file holds the actual data.

.ISO is also a CD image format, but is sometimes used for ‘ISO9660 format’ (standard, recognized by all applications) and sometimes for unique Easy CD ISO format.

When you talk about images you must think in terms of SECTORS not DATA SIZE.

The rules are:

• 1)A standard 74 min CD is made by 333,000 sectors.
• 2) Each sector is 2352 bytes big, and contains 2048 bytes of PC (MODE1)Data, 2336 bytes of PSX/VCD (MODE2) Data or 2352 bytes of AUDIO.
• 3) The difference between secor size and data content are the Headers info and the Error Correction Codes, that are big for Data (high precision required), small for VCD (standard for video) and none for audio.
• 4)If you extract data in RAW format (standard for creating images) you always extract 2352 bytes per sector, not 2048/2336/2352 bytes depending on data type (basically, you extract the whole sector).

This fact has two main consequences:

• a) You can record data at very high speed (40x) without losing information, but if you try to do the same with PSX or Audio you get unredable CD (for PSX) od audio CD with lots of clicks because there are not error correction codes (and error are more likely to occur if you record at high speed.
• b) On a 74 min CD you can fit very large RAW images,up to 333,000 x 2352 = 783,216,000 bytes (747 Mb). This should be the upper limit for a RAW image created from a 74 min CD. Remember that if you store standard data (backup files), you can burn only 333,000 x 2048 = 681,984,000 bytes (the well known 650 MB limit).

Please note that an image size is ALWAYS a multple of 2352 bytes (you extract SECTORS), if extracted in RAW mode.

How to Use DVD Decrypter

First of all be sure to select “ISO -write mode” from the “MODE” menu at the top of the program window before you proceed..

Then, load the BIN, or ISO file in the “source” location. For DVD Decrypter you don’t have to worry about the CUE, file, all you need is the data itself.

Now for the nitty gritty. For video related data, CD-R’s seem to come out best when using no more than a 16x burning speed, as in my opinion it seems to make for a better quality product.

Some may disagree, but on many occasion I’ve exeperienced what I call “screen flutter,” in that the video image breaks apart periodically into its basic color cells and thus ruining your viewing experience. So don’t be caught off gaurd, protect yourself and your eyesight, use 16x. So, after you’ve dragged and dropped the file you want to burn, and selcted the desired speed as shown below, burn, baby burn

For DVD-R’s it never seems to matter, so depending on the disc capacity speed, any rate comes out just fine. When it comes to burning backup discs for
your XBOX or PS2, burning speed is critical! I repeat critical!

Early on I wasted many a blank DVD-R because I was not fortunate enough to have such words of wisdom from places like here at ZEROPAID.They demand speeds of no more than 4x, in fact, the slower the better. An easy trick for the less than tech-savvy is to simply buy DVD-R discs of 4x or 2x speed, so you can cut out all margin of error. In any event, first drag and drop the game backup file,

Next, select the speed as shown below, then, of course, burn, baby burn.

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