Five BitTorrent Predictions for 2010

[nsane.forums]

The last year has been one of the most hectic in BitTorrent’s short-lived history. While the three largest BitTorrent sites – The Pirate Bay, Mininova and isoHunt – all faced setbacks in court, the number of BitTorrent users continued to steadily grow.

The new year starts without The Pirate Bay tracker, which was closed in November, and also without Mininova, which saw its site being censored and stripped down by a Dutch court. To counter these losses, several public tracker-only services have made a comeback along with multiple torrent-only storage sites.

Where do we go from here? Let’s make some predictions.

Prediction 1: The Pirate Bay will cease to offer torrent links

After closing its tracker in 2009, The Pirate Bay will further evolve by removing all torrents from its index in the new year. The site will be reduced to a BitTorrent platform that no longer stores torrent files. Users will still be able to submit torrents through a third party service such as Torrage, but instead of linking to these torrent files, The Pirate Bay will list only Magnet links.

During the second half of 2010, The Pirate Bay four will appear before the Appeal Court. They will be found ‘not guilty’ and walk away free. Shortly after this victory in court, Pirate Bay’s YouTube killer The Video Bay will be released to the public.

Prediction 2: A BitTorrent client will be dragged to court

In 2009, the entertainment industry and authorities took legal action against various BitTorrent users and numerous sites. They left BitTorrent clients alone, but this will change in the new year. A coalition of copyright holders will file a lawsuit against one of the major BitTorrent clients, in an attempt to stop the ever increasing piracy rate.

The copyright holders will argue that BitTorrent clients play a vital role in downloading and uploading copyrighted files, and that the software is assisting in copyright infringement. They will demand that the torrent client implements a filtering mechanism to prevent users from downloading movies, music or games without the permission of the copyright holder.

Prediction 3: More people will use BitTorrent anonymously

2010 is the year where copyright holders gain more control over the Internet. Three-strikes legislation will be rolled out in various countries and global trade agreements such as ACTA will result in humongous fines for casual downloaders.

As a result of this newly founded Internet police state, millions of BitTorrent users will take measures to hide their identities online. By the end of the year, a quarter of all BitTorrent users will use a VPN service or similar anonymity software, with another quarter looking to do so in the following 12 months. This will make new legislation ineffective, and lead to further lobbying by the entertainment industry for even harsher anti-piracy measures.

This cycle will repeat itself until the entertainment industry decides to innovate.

Prediction 4: BitTorrent (live) streaming will take off

Advances in technology and growing broadband penetration have brought us to a point where BitTorrent-powered streaming solutions have become reality. BitTorrent inventor Bram Cohen is working on a streaming implementation and experiments have shown that it is possible to stream high definition content.

In the second half of 2010, the first BitTorrent-powered YouTube competitors will be launched. These new BitTorrent sites will mainly offer streams of pirated movies and TV-shows. Live BitTorrent streaming will gain worldwide traction during the 2010 soccer world cup in South Africa. In the second half of the year, commercial implementations will follow, allowing broadcasters to stream live content at zero cost.

Prediction 5: uTorrent will become a resource hog

In 2010, uTorrent will be transformed from a lightweight BitTorrent application into a media portal similar to its nemesis, Vuze. Unlike Vuze, BitTorrent Inc. will continue to offer a lightweight uTorrent version for the the people who don’t want to make this switch, preventing a revolt among conservative uTorrent users.

The new uTorrent will be a resource hog, featuring a full blown search engine, video conversion, iTunes integration and a video player. The browser interface will allow uTorrent to be put on set-top boxes, which opens up the possibility for BitTorrent Inc. to reopen a new and improved version of their video store that can be easily hooked up to TVs.

Due to the changes, uTorrent will obviously have to remove its tagline ‘a (very) tiny BitTorrent client.’

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Happy new year to all of you from TorrentFreak. Let us know what your predictions are for 2010 in the comments below. We will feature the best on our side-blog FreakBits during the coming days.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

View: Original Article

[Bizarre™]

Predictions 1, 2 , and 5 are way off the chart :s

[shought]

Prediction 2: A BitTorrent client will be dragged to court

In 2009, the entertainment industry and authorities took legal action against various BitTorrent users and numerous sites. They left BitTorrent clients alone, but this will change in the new year. A coalition of copyright holders will file a lawsuit against one of the major BitTorrent clients, in an attempt to stop the ever increasing piracy rate.

The copyright holders will argue that BitTorrent clients play a vital role in downloading and uploading copyrighted files, and that the software is assisting in copyright infringement. They will demand that the torrent client implements a filtering mechanism to prevent users from downloading movies, music or games without the permission of the copyright holder.

Suing the road because people speed? That's a good one, remind me to use that one when I get caught speeding(I will :rolleyes: ).

[DKT27]

Suing the road because people speed? That's a good one, remind me to use that one when I get caught speeding(I will :rolleyes: ).

:lmao:

These guys will make fool out of themselves. :lol:

[i-con]

Lol. Nothing is impossible it seems but really, some of them are really absurd.

[Bizarre™]

Lol. Nothing is impossible it seems but really, some of them are really absurd.

Indeed... I hope predictions 1, 2 and 5 doesn't come true :bag:

[HX1]

Prediction 2: A BitTorrent client will be dragged to court

In 2009, the entertainment industry and authorities took legal action against various BitTorrent users and numerous sites. They left BitTorrent clients alone, but this will change in the new year. A coalition of copyright holders will file a lawsuit against one of the major BitTorrent clients, in an attempt to stop the ever increasing piracy rate.

The copyright holders will argue that BitTorrent clients play a vital role in downloading and uploading copyrighted files, and that the software is assisting in copyright infringement. They will demand that the torrent client implements a filtering mechanism to prevent users from downloading movies, music or games without the permission of the copyright holder.

Suing the road because people speed? That's a good one, remind me to use that one when I get caught speeding(I will :rolleyes: ).

You know, funny thing is that then the road itself will probably either be non-maintained as it should, or be destroyed itself.. You should all remember the court cases and drama over the 'gnuettla' networks, they may have not been completely successful, BUT it still went to court. I mean technically you can take anything to court, paying money and going through the judiciary process, but final decisions come down to reality and fruitfulness, on top or (usually) the efficiency and correctness of taking an action.

Prediction 1: More than likely to come true as TPB has already urged other sites to do the same thing and already have been moving in that direction. The next steps would include it. Besides I think we all need up to date versions of everything anyway..LOL

Prediction 5: This as well as websites and their counterparts will more than likely become more rampant, as these changes come to pass. Offering new services and trying to stay competitive will be harder and harder to do in this field. However anyone with any common sense will still change with the times to retain their 'more efficient way of doing things'. No matter how many developers it takes to write programs and OSes that take so much power to run it .. essentially makes all previous obsolete.. there will be those who know how to get the most out of what they have and those who know how to keep it minimal with only the things they need. I personally am one of those people. I don't like and hate the fact that everyone starts changing to do what the other guys are doing. I mean is it really necessary to turn every website into MySpace? ..or some media ridden social network? The coming generation and several past, just like the gaming consoles.. Have developed and evolved with these things by their side. It is going to only be natural that it resounds with appeal to them in it facade, and how it is used.

I think we have to keep hope in the inventors and innovators, not the copy-cat who is looking to make as much out of it as the other guys did... I mean when are we really going to wake up and sign on to something that is so good, it doesn't need this type of thing... They don't have to try to sell it to you like a used car salesman, stream media and flash ads...and flood you with needy bots to lure you in to paying a fee, or get you hooked.. (Sounds like an old school drug-pusher or hooker) I mean its a great business plan.. but I live for something that is the real deal, and IS worth it..

The rest of these predictions: I would believe it and change is inevitable for all things.. I hope for the day when it become public domain, the charges for media and things of the like are no longer under control by greed, and laws are created to prevent it. Every time you turn around.. money is determining the gloomy future. Instead of recovering and constantly stagnating in a sickening cycle of doing the same things the same way... I actually wish sometimes for a complete collapse, and the replacement of the even the thought process that drives it with a new system. The thing is that nobody will cut their losses and take less, while a balance in inflation and value is ever achieve. The climate is too aggressive, (which it takes to ever be successful)... Simply put.. its like a malfunctioning robot vacuum, backing up and running into the wall, over and over.. a skipping record. Like the guy in the straight-jacket in the asylum .. mumbling the same things over and over.. They know nothing else to do, but should be innovating a better tomorrow today. What can anyone do, does anyone do, I mean to even be heard you have to sell-out just to climb the ladder.. to be remotely close enough to an ear to be heard...

So.. eventually I would just say .. 'Predict this ... :fist:' (so.. 'underling' .. but you get it) Much respect BUT... tired of the roller coaster.. There are people out there responsibly effecting change, and I keep hope that predictability perishes..(being that it comes from everything that happens today and the days before).. it's the only hope we have.

[AndromedaAnima]

First prediction seems plausible, but I don't see users going for it as they're used to downloading .torrent files. I can't see the second prediction happening either since there are legitimate uses for using BitTorrent clients such as downloading files (like OO.o, Ubuntu, etc.). The third prediction seems like it will most likely happen as people are concerned about their privacy (except for new/unexperienced users). The fourth prediction could happen, but I don't see many people/companies switching to BitTorrent streaming compared to traditional streaming. I can see why the fifth prediction could be of some concern, but I don't really care thought since I don't use uTorrent.

Just spewing my thoughts out there.