Release blogs such as RLSLOG and ZeroSec are popular among online pirates because they announce (via new blog posts) when movies, music, games, applications and other content is leaked online. A regular article on a release blog usually comprises of a brief summary on what the release is about, links to release NFO and most importantly torrent or direct download links so readers may grab a non fake, legit version of the newly announced content. Although many do not know, directly linking to pirated material online can be illegal according to copyright laws in certain countries and even blogs (which do not actually host anything) can get into trouble when this is the case. This is where GetTheNew comes in.
GetTheNew is a new release blog which is only around three months old. Although an infant when compared to the likes of ScceneSource, RLSLOG, ZeroSec, etc, GTN has already made a name for itself with fast release announcement times. It does not index a lot of daily releases but manages to get most of the major leaks onto the homepage not long after they are originally pre’d. The site comes with a customizable homepage (if you want to save preferences, you need to register), customizable RSS feeds, a Twitter feed and also with FaceBook integration.
Anyways what’s interesting about GetTheNew is not its content (which is common) but how they link to pirated releases. Unlike most sites out there, GTN does not directly place RapidShare or torrent links in blog posts. A button appears beneath each release description with the label GetTheNewRelName – when a user clicks this, two more buttons pop up – ‘Torrent’ and ‘Direct Download’. Clicking on either of these buttons will take you to a Google search results page
If you click the Torrent button the following search query is executed:
thepiratebay OR mininova OR torrentreactor OR isohunt OR sumotorrent "RELEASE NAME" filetype:torrent
And for Direct Download, the following is executed:
rapidshare.com OR hotfile.com OR depositfiles.com OR uploaded.to OR megaupload.com OR mediafire.com OR zshare.net OR sendspace.com OR sharebee.com "RELEASE NAME" -rls -warez -forum -blog -scnsrc -sharetera -katz -.cz -.ru -.ar –.org
Both queries are pretty effective and the results are usually spot on. Note that if a release is not uploaded to a BitTorrent tracker (or a one click hosting site) when a user clicks the button, this would not work.
Anyways this is a perfect example of how Google can be used to search for and download pirated content. This may put anti piracy agencies in a real dilemma. When (or if) they want to take down a post on GetTheNew, should they send the takedown notice to GTN itself or to Google (for facilitating copyright infringement or some bs like that)? Or to both?
Site Name: GetTheNew (http://www.getthenew.com)
Registration URL: http://www.getthenew.com/signup.php (Optional)
