Torrent Latest News & Update: How People Use Youtube and Google Drive to Distribute Copyrighted Content

Torrent sites are still prevalent to this day even though numerous governments and Internet Service Providers (ISP) are putting up restrictions left and right. One of the most – if not the most – prominent sites out there is Piratebay.

Through the years, Piratebay has time and again been brought down but the people running the torrent domain aren’t one to simply lay down and vanish into obscurity. It has even temporary replaced its pirate ship logo to a menacing Hydra in 2014 when the original domain of the site was taken down by Swedish authorities.

Indeed, after the raid, multiple torrent domains sprouted on the web similar to how a Hydra’s head would grow each time someone cuts it off. Earlier this month, The Piratebay suffered yet another setback although it has since recovered from the minor inconvenience.

But it isn’t just The Piratebay that is the problem of copyright holders and anti-piracy authorities handling these cases as the whole internet seems to be in on it. In fact, even the popular streaming service like Youtube and file-sharing means like Google Drive have been used as an alternative for torrent sites.

Although both these methods aren’t exactly designed to effectively distribute copyrighted content, people found a creative way of employing them as piracy vessels. Over 5,000 Google Drives has been taken down by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act in a single month last year. As for how exactly people use them as an alternative means to share files other than uploading them to torrent sites, Youtube plays a key role in this regard.

Apparently, people would upload copyrighted content on Youtube and placed them as unlisted so it isn’t easily found by the original creators. They then gather these links and compile them on a particular Google Drive where people can then access these links and consume them as they see fit. Even porn sites like Pornhub has been used in the past to share Kanye West’s album “The Life of Pablo.” So even if Piratebay one day succumbs to the relentless pursuit of copyright holders, other torrent sites would only replace this popular domain.

What’s more, people would only turn to other means in order to successfully share copyrighted files as has been observed with Google Drive and Youtube. To put it shortly, torrent sites aren’t the problem but the people who want to pirate these files are.