Online Torrents News 2016: US Library of Congress Could Be New Torrent Hub
Media industry rebukes new copyright policy; fears it could be hackers' delight.
Recently, the huge underground network of torrent sites had been embroiled in deep trouble. Being that copyright infringement is punishable by law, this family of hackers and online pirates had their legal battles coming.
Several domains had been seized, producers of world-famous torrent site Pirate Bay were imprisoned and other websites with the same agenda are shutting down.
Still, mirror sites are popping up all over the internet, proving that the widely-supported menace had not come to an end. Aside from this, copyright holders have another problem to worry about—a new government policy supposedly vulnerable to online piracy.
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Raiding the Library
The second largest library in the world may potentially be the largest hub for online copyright infringement, following new changes to be enacted by the US Copyright Office. The office is considering an addition to their policies, and it does not bode well for media publishers.
The law may now require publishers to send two copies of their content to the Library of Congress, which can then be accessible to free consumption via a secured system for listening purposes. Even record labels are required to submit online-only music content. This means the Library will now be home to every copyrighted piece, may it be music, video and other file types.
With the policy coinciding with the shutdown of prominent torrent sites, music industry group RIAA complained against the change. They argued that the shutdown may force online pirates to storm the Library and ape the content there.
They said if the copyrighted material are made electronically available to the public, hackers and torrent site hosts may be able to take advantage of them. They can then upload the content on online illicit streaming sites and pirate web sites. This, said RIAA, can cause setbacks in record labels' revenue.
Pirates in shackles
This news comes after a string of mishaps for Pirate Bay and a lot of other torrent hosts. Following the imprisonment of co-founder Fredrik Neij, who had been released last year, the website adopted a "hydra" system. This system makes use of several domains so that if one of them is cut, others will continue to function and the network will continue to thrive—a bit similar to the legendary Hydra's heads. The system had since been stifled, however, as several countries seized the said domains.
Mirror sites of KickAss Torrents (KAT) had also emerged, as the latter was shut down recently and its founder, Artem Vaulin, imprisoned. Moreover, torrent sites 1337x, YTS, RARBG and Extratorrents continue to survive amid the threats.
This generation of "hackers," as RIAA puts it, may be the bane of the state's prized library—depending on how they react.
