__NOTOC__ TorrentFreak (TF) is a

blog A blog (a Clipping (morphology), truncation of "weblog") is an informational website consisting of discrete, often informal diary-style text entries also known as posts. Posts are typically displayed in Reverse chronology, reverse chronologic ...

dedicated to reporting the latest news and trends on the

BitTorrent BitTorrent is a Protocol (computing), communication protocol for peer-to-peer file sharing (P2P), which enables users to distribute data and electronic files over the Internet in a Decentralised system, decentralized manner. The protocol is d ...

protocol and

file sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...

, as well as on

copyright infringement Copyright infringement (at times referred to as piracy) is the use of Copyright#Scope, works protected by copyright without permission for a usage where such permission is required, thereby infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the c ...

and

digital rights Digital rights are those human rights and Natural and legal rights, legal rights that allow individuals to access, use, create, and publish digital media or to access and use computers, other Consumer electronics, electronic devices, and teleco ...

. The website was started in November 2005 by a Dutchman using the pseudonym "Ernesto van der Sar". He was joined by Andy "Enigmax" Maxwell and Ben Jones in 2007. Regular contributors include Rickard Falkvinge, founder of the Pirate Party. The online publication eCommerceTimes, in 2009, described "Ernesto" as the pseudonym of Lennart Renkema, owner of TorrentFreak. TorrentFreak's text is free content under a

Creative Commons Creative Commons (CC) is an American non-profit organization and international network devoted to educational access and expanding the range of creative works available for others to build upon legally and to share. The organization has release ...

Attribution-NonCommercial version 3.0 license. Their lead researcher and community manager was the Pirate Party activist Andrew Norton, from 2007 to 2022. TorrentFreak is incorporated in the Netherlands, with an office in Groningen and a mailing address in Manchester, United Kingdom.

Specialist areas

According to Canadian law scholar Michael Geist, TorrentFreak "is widely used as a source of original reporting on digital issues". Frequent areas of reporting include: * The

City of London The City of London, also known as ''the City'', is a Ceremonial counties of England, ceremonial county and Districts of England, local government district with City status in the United Kingdom, city status in England. It is the Old town, his ...

's Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit *

United States Trade Representative The Office of the United States Trade Representative (USTR) is an agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government responsible for developing and promoting Foreign trade of the United States, United States ...

and Notorious Markets reports * Anti-piracy web blocking * Torrent tracker news * VPN and seedbox reviews *

File sharing File sharing is the practice of distributing or providing access to digital media, such as computer programs, multimedia (audio, images and video), documents or electronic books. Common methods of storage, transmission and dispersion include ...

website news *

Copyright A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the exclusive legal right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, ...

law news * Warez scene news As well as other news affecting copyright, privacy, file sharing and adjacent topics.

Editorial stance

In a 2021 article, Andy Maxwell outlined TorrentFreak's editorial stance. He wrote: "As a publication entirely dedicated to reporting on copyright, piracy, torrent, and streaming sites (plus all things closely related), here at TorrentFreak we aim to tell all 'sides' of the story. We do not shy away from reports that show that piracy hurts sales and we have no problem publishing research projects that show completely the opposite. It's called balanced reporting and it hurts absolutely no one."

History

On 17 August 2007, TorrentFreak reported that

Comcast Comcast Corporation, formerly known as Comcast Holdings,Before the AT&T Broadband, AT&T merger in 2001, the parent company was Comcast Holdings Corporation. Comcast Holdings Corporation now refers to a subsidiary of Comcast Corporation, not th ...

had begun throttling its upload bandwidth, specifically against BitTorrent users. This made seeding, which is an essential part of the BitTorrent protocol, effectively impossible. It was later determined that Comcast was using Sandvine products, which implement network traffic shaping and policing, and include support for both blocking new and forcefully terminating established network connections.

has denied these claims whenever they have been asked to comment. A guide, for customer service representatives when asked about Comcast's BitTorrent throttling, was leaked to The Consumerist on 26 October 2007. In October 2008 through to March 2011, TorrentFreak ran a short lived video news service titled 'torrentfreak.tv', directed by Andrej Preston, founder of torrent site Suprnova made available for streaming and download on Mininova. On 21 August 2013, Comcast threatened TorrentFreak for writing about publicly available court documents. The underlying document links a Comcast subscriber with the Prenda Law firm. The court case where the document was filed was a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by AF Holdings for alleged infringement of an adult movie. In August 2013, Sky Broadband blocked the site for UK customers after torrent site EZTV pointed its DNS servers to TorrentFreak's

IP address An Internet Protocol address (IP address) is a numerical label such as that is assigned to a device connected to a computer network that uses the Internet Protocol for communication. IP addresses serve two main functions: network interface i ...

and, in July 2014, the site was blocked by the controversial Sky Broadband Shield parental filter system.

References

External links

* {{BitTorrent, state=collapsed News websites File sharing communities BitTorrent Publications established in 2005 Free-content websites Copyright infringement File sharing news sites