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A new website dubbed I Know What You Downloaded on BitTorrent has been set up. The new site secretly collects all the IP addresses of individuals who visit torrenting sites. The website also collates all the data about what individuals do when they visit common torrenting sites in the world. All details about what people illegally download from BitTorrent are then kept and made available to any interested party.
While speaking about the new service, its marketing officer, Andrey Rogov, said that:
‘we have put up this website for the purpose of showing the world that we are capable of tracking all the things that people do when they visit illegal file sharing sites.’
And in what appears as a bid to prove a point, the site released details of individuals who illegally downloaded different types of files from BitTorrent for the last one month.
The results published by the site show that a staggering number of 70 million individuals accessed BitTorrent over the last one month. However, given that this figure is based on the unique IP addresses that were captured on the servers of the file-sharing sites, it is possible that 70 million is slightly exaggerated. Also, the site indicated that individuals downloaded 460,000 torrents over the last one month. The files included software programs, songs, movies and other forms of content.
BitTorrent is a popular peer-to-peer file-sharing site. Users can access all manner of files on the site. However, all users have to cope with the fact that others can view their IP addresses and even see the types of files that they are downloading.
Essentially, torrenting amounts to online infringement. Although there are many grey areas in the law relating to how people can access copyrighted material, many rights groups have been trying to raise awareness about the issue.
Copyright holders, law enforcement agencies and other bodies have been struggling to device methods to stem the rising tide of online copyright infringement. Before the establishment of I Know What You Downloaded on BitTorrent, copyright holders and other rights groups set up a site known as Youhavedownloaded.com. However, the new site seems to be a perfect replacement of youhavedownloaded.com.
According to Rogov, the new site not only provides copyright holders with information about online copyright infringement activities but also helps copyright holders to control access to their content.
‘For example, we recently helped a girl to successfully restrict public access to her sex video that was all over the internet,’ he said.
Although the site collaborates with law enforcement agencies, it remains highly unlikely that it can attempt to take legal action against users of BitTorrent.
