File Sharing Mystery Beginning To Make Sense
The sheer amount of torrents available impressive to behold. Fresh content is added daily, and brand new media is normally available within hours of release. If you’re wanting to watch a movie, listen to your favorite artist, or find a useful guide or tutorial, pull up your torrent client of choice and search for it. Instant access to brand new movies, TV shows, music, games, and programs. Some files are higher quality than others and offer different download speeds, but still, there will be many options at your disposal. A few clicks later and the torrent is on your hard drive, forever! The process is no more complicated than checking your e-mail while or ordering a product from Amazon. It’s fast, easy, and free. Behind the scenes, there are millions of files being shared every day. Who supports this massive amount of sharing?
It’s true that the pirate community is inclusive when it comes to sharing. Some users give back by uploading their own files as torrents, whether the content may be a program, song, movie, etc. For example, ripping your favorite movie, and uploading the files for other to enjoy. However, this activity represents a small amount of the content that is constantly being uploaded throughout torrent communities. Pirating continues to grow rapidly, despite interference by government agencies and corporate lawyers. The large volume of content causes those to ask: who is producing the huge number of torrents being shared around the world? There may be major players lurking in the background, sponsoring these torrent sites to keep them full of content.
Sponsored Torrents
Lately, more and more torrents are discovered to be sponsored by the Youtube conversion website youtubetomp3.uno. This youtube conversion site allows the user to copy-paste the URL to a video (Soundcloud, Vimeo, Instagram and more)and then convert it to a file type of their choice. It’s a simple, fast method known as stream ripping. This site first gained popularity with torrent users, after noticing a ‘sponsored_torrent’.txt file included alongside their download. Opening the text file displays a simple message: ‘this torrent sponsored by youtubetomp3.uno”. The connection between this Youtube conversion website and the sponsored torrent uploads makes sense — the user bases naturally overlap.
Banned and Shunned Admins Fighting Back?
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One reason behind the sponsoring of these torrents could be revenge on behalf of former torrent website owners. US and international government agencies as well as entertainment industry associations continue to fight in court over the legality of torrents and have repeatedly attempted to shut down gigantic Torrent websites like The Pirate Bay, citing DMCA laws. Judges have ruled that a torrented media is no different than recording that media via VHS or CD. Still, powerful corporations have influence and make their voices heard. Giant torrent directories, like Kickass Torrents, have been shut down for periods of time. This site and other torrent sharing websites are visited by tens of millions of users per month creating a high demand, and supply, of torrents. Without warning, these sites can be subject to a shut down at any time to the dismay of its users. While Kickass Torrents made a successful return, others have not been so fortunate. Most smaller, less popular sites don’t have the resources to bounce back from Google or industry restrictions. Therefore, the best way to fight back would be to continue uploading torrents, while also promoting a new, effective stream ripping site. It’s possible the administrators of now-defunct torrent sites have teamed together for the uploading sponsored content en masse as a form of protest against these restrictions. Conversion of Youtube videos to mp3 is a form of ‘stream ripping’ which is not too unlike torrenting and attracts users from the same demographics. By granting more access, these former admins may feel their best weapon is to flood torrent sites with content keeping the community alive. This is one explanation for the people or motives behind youtubetomp3.uno, because many torrent users are familiar with stream ripping.
Conversion Giant Reincarnated
In fact, there are many sites and programs floating around the internet that offer stream ripping, and it is not a new concept. The quality of these vary, some of which having excessive amounts of ads, other which have very slow response times. The most widely known and trafficked Youtube conversion site in recent years as been youtube-mp3.org, which has also been the target of lawsuits and legal junctions by Google and US federal agencies. This site was the most popular youtube conversion tool with over 300 million visitors a month, according to Alexa. Google de-indexed the site and limited it’s capabilities, claiming the site broke Google TOS. Beyond Google and the US government, youtube-mp3.org also received lawsuits from major music distributors Sony Music Entertainment and Warner Music Group.
Is it reasonable to say that youtubetomp3.uno is starting to fill the void left from other youtube conversion websites. After measuring the traffic according to Alexa, the points in that direction. Sponsoring torrents has tapped into a new traffic source and offered a solution for torrent users that needed to find a youtube conversion site. Within the last three months, the site has climbed over two million spots on the list of most popular sites worldwide. Monthly visitors has surpassed 1 million. The site has a clean, responsive design that attracts direct repeat visitors. It attracts similar demographics as its bigger counterpart, drawing most of its visitors from the USA and India. After youtube-mp3.org’s demise, a void was left amongst conversion sites with an enormous amount of traffic suddenly searching elsewhere. The continuously growing pirate community is intertwined with stream ripping which makes this new conversion site popular in the torrent community.
Torrent and youtube conversion are not going anywhere in the near future. If one site is taken down or censored, even a massive one with a few hundred million visitors, another site will rise, usually quickly, to take the traffic. The sponsoring of thousands of torrents is a testament to the passion of the community to fight back against regulation. The constant flow of torrents will continue and increase despite Google and corporate lawyers because the number of torrent users grows daily. The fight between the US regulations and corporate lawsuits will not be over soon, which both sides unwilling to budge. Sponsored torrents will continue to grow.
