BitTorrent News via Torrent Freak

The good folks at Torrent Freak caught my attention this morning with news of the possible resurrection of Demonoid, of one my favorite BitTorrent trackers, for stats. They have been tracking the fate of Demonoid since it was taken offline last year. The site seems to have gained a new host in the Ukraine and its torrents are working again. Ernesto of Torrent Freak speculates that it could come back online in the next few weeks. In other BitTorrent news the fall of Torernt.is, an Icelandic BitTorrent tracker which accounted for 50% of Icelands internet traffic seems to be nearly complete. I really do love that 10% of the population and 50% of the Internet traffic on the island nation was accounted for on one site.

Battlestar Galactica Razor 3 Weeks Early. Thanks NBC.

If your not watching the geek greatness that is Battlestar Galactica then you are missing one of the greatest male soap operas on TV. Yesterday, while perusing my favorite Bittorent sites to get caught-up on the latest episodes of Avatar, Weeds and Dexter, I saw an entry for Battlestar Galactica Razor. “This couldnt be the highly anticipated 4th season premier”, thought I. I joined the crowd leeching the file and sure enough, in about an hour, I had all 87 minutes of the yet-to-be aired season opener, complete and commercial free. Oh and its back to its original, tension filled, beautifully shot glory!

The official Battlestar Galactica site says the show will premier on November 24th at 9pm… A full 3 weeks from now. Why? Its been shot, its been edited, its been pre-sold to advertisers and you can even order the DVD. So why arent our good friends in TV land acknowledging that online distribution is another release window with its own rules, and value chain?

Why is Hollywood still fighting this losing battle? The early release of Razor means I wont be watching its premier on TV and NBC Universal has lost another opportunity to advertise at me. Where is Hulu, NBC’s vain attempt to replace YouTube, in all this? Its out there struggling to attract a user base with a silly name and few shows you can get a bunch of other places, without the weird commercials interruptions.

Judge Orders TorrentSpy to Spy on Users For MPAA

CNET.com is running an article about a secret order issued by Armenian dictator US Magistrate Judge, Jacqueline Chooljian. The order would require TorrentSpy to log all user activity on the site and turn the logs over to the MPAA, for review in their ongoing witch hunt battle against Torrent sites. The order was issued and sealed on May 29th but on Friday Hon. Judge Chooljian stayed the order giving TorrentSpy until June 12 to file an appeal. In the CNET article a TorrentSpy representative says that they will block US access to the site before they allow users to be tracked. They have also posted a short message on their site about the court case and how they plan to tackle it. US courts have wrestled with the issue of websites being held responsible for files/material they neither distribute nor control and only point to several times, and I’m pretty sure generally these sites cant be touched. Lets hope it stays that way. But just in case you might want to get familiar with Anonymizer and check here, here and here for simple ways to change your MAC address.