The .torrent protocol provided a significant shift in digital sharing technology when it first emerged on the internet in 2003, but today in 2017, there are only a handful places users can go to find quality, verified torrents. Last week one of those sites, ExtraTorrent, decided to shut down its site without warning. The site comes as the latest in a string of file-sharing sites to close due to legal trouble or other issues, and has left a number of imposters and clones in its wake. Despite some as reputable as Forbes reporting ExtraTorrent to be back online, the site remains down and those close the team have suggested it is for good. So in the wake of another .torrent site closing, what does the future of torrent culture hold?
Innovation Sorely Lacking
Over the last decade, torrent culture has taken the internet by storm, expanding from the first bastion of The Pirate Bay to a sprawling culture defined by a host of different websites, however the model has mostly remained the same. Innovations like The Pirate Bay’s downloadable index and the Popcorn Time streaming plug-in, Torrents-Time, have certainly offered users new streamlined experiences, however the model of browse, download, seed, has remained untouched. With the death of ExtraTorrent, the pirate community suddenly seems to be reeling in a more realistic way: one that will have consequences for users across the internet. However, this is not a new issue. Major players in the pirate community have been calling for innovation as far back as July 2016, when leading site Kick Ass Torrents was kicked off the internet.
“I think maybe people now understand that we shouldn’t just have a few sites. Because everything depends on these sites. That’s the thing I always wanted, a large hybrid of lots of smaller sites instead of one big target like KickassTorrents or Pirate Bay.” - Peter Sunde, Co-founder of The Pirate Bay
At its core, pirate culture is one that thrives on the boundless dissemination of information as facilitated by the awesome powers of the internet. Recently however, the innovations surrounding pirate culture have been few and far between, leaving Pirates to rely on outdated technology. Meanwhile competing technologies like streaming services (Kodi, Freetelly) are on the rise, and with new legacy media channels available every week the role of torrents in today’s media culture seems destined to diminish. The only question is, how far, and at what cost to the greater online community?