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| uTorrent Backs Artist, Bundles Album With New Downloads Posted: 16 Aug 2010 02:01 PM PDT Following in the footsteps of The Pirate Bay and the successful BitTorrent distribution platform Vodo, uTorrent has now embraced an artist of their own. Starting today, all new uTorrent downloads will be bundled with the latest album from PAZ, an up and coming musician who hopes to achieve stardom through BitTorrent.
Although some musicians opt for BitTorrent because they sincerely want to get their music out there, the majority make the choice because its their only option to get recognized. Roughly ten years ago label-less bands were stuck in their garages, but today they can reach out to a global audience by submitting their music to torrent sites and music portals. Despite this new freedom, 99% of these artists only see their album being downloaded by a handful of people. Although quality is probably one of the reasons for this, lack of promotion is probably the number one reason. It’s often said that labels have lost their place in the digital age, but thus far there are few alternatives to the powerful marketing machine they provide. In the past we’ve seen The Pirate Bay adopting the role of marketeer, as they have promoted several artists on their homepage, resulting in thousands of downloads. Other P2P initiatives such as Frostwire’s Frostclick service and Vodo’s BitTorrent distribution platform have been equally successful in marketing independent productions. Inspired by the trends-setters, the people at BitTorrent Inc. have now decided to launch a marketing campaign of their own, promoting the mixtape debut of PAZ, titled Young Broke & Fameless. For uTorrent and its parent company BitTorrent Inc. this is the first step in a new direction, that of actively supporting artists who want to distribute their content using BitTorrent. “We want to continue to build on the successes that we have already seen with Pioneer One and the Yes Men. In both cases, their creations were wildly downloaded and consumers showed their enthusiasm by opening their wallets and donating to these creators so that they can continue to make future content,” BitTorrent Inc. spokesperson Jenna Broughton told TorrentFreak. In the cases of The Yes Men and Pioneer One, uTorrent participated in a campaign that was set up by Vodo, but now they have branched out to music, running their own campaign. For artists, getting promoted by uTorrent is as good as it gets. It guarantees massive exposure, as the client is downloaded by hundreds of thousands of people each month. BitTorrent Inc. on the other hand, is happy to help, and show how musicians can benefit from BitTorrent. “There is a group of creators out there who are interested in using new distribution methods to reach a very large and engaged audience online. So, we are excited to continue working with creators who want to develop business models that work in today's digital age and leverage the power of the BitTorrent platform,” Broughton said. PAZ will be the first artist to pluck the fruits of uTorrent’s promotion service. His unique sound – a cocktail of rock, hip-hop and dance – has not gone unnoticed by music insiders, including LA super-promoter Tommy Alastra who labeled him the “Hottest new act right now, bar none.” Is he really? You can find out for free by downloading a copy of uTorrent, via PAZ’s website, or just grab one of the many torrents out there. Article from: TorrentFreak. |
| Hollywood Targets 8.2 Million Torrents at Bitsnoop Posted: 16 Aug 2010 08:01 AM PDT While Bitsnoop may not have the profile of The Pirate Bay, make no mistake, this site is a major BitTorrent player. The site indexes more than 8 million torrents linking to roughly 9 petabytes of data. In the last few days Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN began threatening the site with the clear aim of bringing its activities to an end.
While BREIN wouldn’t tell us the names of any of the sites, we later discovered the names of a few and although many were very, very small, there were others (admittedly non-torrent sites) with fairly significant traffic. Today we bring news that BREIN have been continuing their aggression – this time against a BitTorrent site with a considerably higher profile. By torrents indexed, BitSnoop is certainly one of the BitTorrent big boys – 8,247,385 torrents linking to a mind-boggling 8.97 PB of data at time of publication. BREIN’s threats follow their usual tried and tested format. Bitsnoop are accused of “providing systematic and structural access to content without the authorization of the copyright and neighbouring rights holders” via a system “which facilitates, enables and participates in the distribution of infringing files”. BREIN indicates the operation of such a site is a crime under Dutch law and warns of the possibility of server seizures, arrests and custody arrangements for suspects. “The maximum punishment for (aiding and abetting) professional infringement is 4 years imprisonment or 67,000 euro fine for natural persons and 670,000 euro for legal entities,” explains BREIN General Counsel Pieter Haringsma. “In addition the prosecution usually claims the proceeds of the criminal activity. At the same time injured parties can join the criminal action in order to obtain damages or file civil action to claim those.” So what will Bitsnoop have to do in order to avoid trouble? BREIN suggests closure. “In the interest of and on behalf of the rights holders represented by BREIN and in order to avoid civil action and/or criminal prosecution, we request you and your organization to cease and desist immediately the above mentioned unlawful activities and to provide us immediately with the official name and geographical address of the entity or person(s) providing the website and tracker services,” Haringsma concludes. The owners of Bitsnoop acknowledge receipt of the threats, but don’t appear to be particularly fazed by them. Instead they have have chosen to neutralize BREIN by putting a backup plan into action which unsurprisingly doesn’t involve voluntarily handing over their names and addresses as requested. “Today we’ve got a long letter from BREIN, demanding to shut down the site, bend over and take it up the arse,” Bitsnoop told TorrentFreak, while adding that the site has now seamlessly moved to Spain – an established file-sharing safe haven. “Of course [BREIN boss] Tim Kuik will trumpet his victory – but this is just ridiculous, he obviously does not care about copyrights, he just wants to suck on MPAA/RIAA funding – hundreds of ‘closed’ torrent sites look good in corporate reports.” “All this caused Bitsnoop to be offline for a whopping 10 minutes, which is surely a glorious victory for Kuik!” Tim Kuik told TorrentFreak that he has no comment to make on specific cases but took the opportunity to clarify terminology. “We are not issuing 'threats' but instead summons to cease and desist illegal activity. In the event they persist in such illegal activity appropriate legal measures will be taken.” Article from: TorrentFreak. |
In the last year alone, thousands of artists have given away their music for free, distributing their work via various BitTorrent sites and specialized music portals such as Jamendo.
Last month, with a hint of tongue in our cheeks and doubt in our minds, we | You are subscribed to email updates from TorrentFreak To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now. | Email delivery powered by Google |
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