TL Server Costs

[Diiyad]

I've been wondering this for awhile...

If you look at the FAQ on TL it says "TorrentLeech.org is using 14 dedicated servers in the Netherlands. For the moment we have monthly running costs of approximately 6000 euros/month."

How is this possible when sites like ScT have monthly costs of around 1000 euros?

[.:Him:.]

maybe it has something to do with the fact that TL has close to 10x the users that ScT has?

[Scavenger]

TL has about 70k users and Sct about 20k. More users more bandwitch requiered ;)

[t0mmy]

thought there around 180k users? even with those who got disabled

[Diiyad]

Ah thanks, didn't even think about that. Close please.

[krunktastic]

TL has about 120-130k users right now.

[Gish]

yeah I forget how many people they disabled but it was about as many people as most other sites have total.

[limpdickkid]

I was estimating the amount of money they probably make. Its just a guestimate so here goes:

This is monthly donations.

# of users: ~70k
% that donate: 5%, lets say. Its definitely more than that because of the number of people that have bad connections and they only ask you to pay about 8euros so I think its still a fair approximation.

5% of 70k = 3500
3500 * 8 = 28000 Euros!!!

That is some crazy amount of money they're making.

[angryghost]

hehe running trackers is the new business venture! Making 18,000 euros a month is very tempting offer. This is why there are so many new trackers popping up all the time:cool:

[TCD004]

hehe running trackers is the new business venture! Making 18,000 euros a month is very tempting offer. This is why there are so many new trackers popping up all the time:cool:

I wish you to run your own tracker and make a good business ;-) You will change very soon your mind... Oh and more thing. Say hello then to your free time :-P

[JA]

hehe running trackers is the new business venture! Making 18,000 euros a month is very tempting offer. This is why there are so many new trackers popping up all the time:cool:
lol

[varend]

As long as they don't force every user to pay I don't care how much they earn. Good for them and good for me.

[Cheffy]

I dont understand that math. But if that calculation is correct you have to remember that the users donate for VIP, and vip lasts 3 months. So you have to divide that amount in 3. So that dont give such a huge profit, perhaps it goes into a rainy day found for the tracker ?

[FACE_TO_FACE]

hehe running trackers is the new business venture! Making 18,000 euros a month is very tempting offer. This is why there are so many new trackers popping up all the time:cool:

I wish you to run your own tracker and make a good business ;-) You will change very soon your mind... Oh and more thing. Say hello then to your free time :-P
With this amount of money this is no more a hobby man! Is a Job!! :lol:

[fOrUmAs]

hehe running trackers is the new business venture! Making 18,000 euros a month is very tempting offer. This is why there are so many new trackers popping up all the time:cool:

hehe:naughty:

but that dosent mean it will be successful like TL,i have seen many sites going down,so this post of your isnt true:)

[limpdickkid]

I dont understand that math. But if that calculation is correct you have to remember that the users donate for VIP, and vip lasts 3 months. So you have to divide that amount in 3. So that dont give such a huge profit, perhaps it goes into a rainy day found for the tracker ?

The maths is impeccable. I did account for the 3 month thing thats why I said 8euros instead of 24euros (or is it 25).

[Hunim]

TL gains money with pub/ads and donations... the must need lots of money to run lots of users! more than 100k

[angryghost]

hehe:naughty:

but that dosent mean it will be successful like TL,i have seen many sites going down,so this post of your isnt true:)

True and i agree, but what i meant was the people realizing the profits that can be made from starting a tracker all think it comes easy, TL is probably one of if not the most profitable tracker, and these new "aspiring" trackers opening up aiming to reach the same goals ultimately fail.

So technically my post is true:P

[Nemrod]

Business or not, it´s not my problem.
I only know that I´ve never donated, not even was never asked to, and I got a lot of things. Thanks for that.
If they earn money, good for them, at the end of the road they are who are at risk, serious risk, and that deserves whatever they get, as long as they don´t force anybody... thing I´ve never seen they do.
Just my opinion.

[Zaxx]

Business or not, it´s not my problem.
I only know that I´ve never donated, not even was never asked to, and I got a lot of things. Thanks for that.
If they earn money, good for them, at the end of the road they are who are at risk, serious risk, and that deserves whatever they get, as long as they don´t force anybody... thing I´ve never seen they do.
Just my opinion.

Well said. Heh...donations don't mean shit when you get raided by the authorities, your gear gets taken and you go to jail. Then have legal fees staring you in the face as well. And YES! it is a lot of work to run a successful 0day tracker much less a large and popular one. Sooo much goes on 'behind the scenes' to make it all possible..most people have no idea what it takes unless you've served as staff on one. At the end of the day, after the bills are paid...the servers are up to par and the 'emergency' funds are maintained and so on...what they do with the rest is up to them, they've earned it. ;)

[kingrob]

well last check about 10 sec's go showed 154.867 accounts none disabled these are all active accounts

if you also check we have no add's right now

also on top of this most of you know tl has had host probs for the last month due to our new host sucking big time
so we have had to make a move to fix this we have spent alot of euro's on having are own custom servers built these have been built and we are getting them ready to go live we hope with in 1 week any of you who work in the trade know the cost of 1 server to be built shipped and installed can work out how much we have spent on the 16 we have got


NEO

[Medooooo]

Business or not, it´s not my problem.
I only know that I´ve never donated, not even was never asked to, and I got a lot of things. Thanks for that.
If they earn money, good for them, at the end of the road they are who are at risk, serious risk, and that deserves whatever they get, as long as they don´t force anybody... thing I´ve never seen they do.
Just my opinion.
+1:yup:

[Mistral]

Business or not, it´s not my problem.
I only know that I´ve never donated, not even was never asked to, and I got a lot of things. Thanks for that.
If they earn money, good for them, at the end of the road they are who are at risk, serious risk, and that deserves whatever they get, as long as they don´t force anybody... thing I´ve never seen they do.
Just my opinion.
+1:yup:

-1:yup:

Pay2leech scammers are a disgrace to filesharing. Abusing the ratio system, profiting from other peoples work, and you people think this is acceptable? Money should not be involved in sharing at all.

Hopefully the next time the authorities, or indeed "the scene", decide to take down more sites they'll go after these ones first.

:frusty:

[Actatoi]

-1:yup:

Pay2leech scammers are a disgrace to filesharing. Abusing the ratio system, profiting from other peoples work, and you people think this is acceptable? Money should not be involved in sharing at all.

Hopefully the next time the authorities, or indeed "the scene", decide to take down more sites they'll go after these ones first.

:frusty:

Scammers? They don't scam anyone seeing as people fully know what they give their money to. As they make perfectly clear what you pay for.

And please tell me a site that doesn't accepts/have accepted donations
to stay alive. They arn't many in the dozen. Maybe none.

And the scene havn't taken down any site so far. Only fucked with a few.

I don't know that much about running a tracker. But they have 150k users. That sure is a lot of traffic that they need to handle. More then most trackers. And from what I've seen on FST a lot of people respect TL for their great content, scene wise that's. So they surely can't be a bad tracker that only wants money. And if they now makes big money doing this. Why arn't there a lot more people doing this then?

[Submission]

the more money they make the bigger target they are to the authorities.

If you really hate pay2leech, spam everywhere how much money torrentleech makes per month to get the attention of authorities.

[limpdickkid]

you see I dont care how much they're profiting. As long as I get what I'm after I'm happy. And if along the way TL benefits from this, good for them. I just wanted to bring it to attention how much they have the potential to make.

[Mistral]

Scammers? They don't scam anyone seeing as people fully know what they give their money to. As they make perfectly clear what you pay for.

And please tell me a site that doesn't accepts/have accepted donations
to stay alive. They arn't many in the dozen. Maybe none.

Scammers because nowhere in the BitTorrent protocol is there anything relating to buying and selling. Scammers because they're making profit from other peoples work and telling everyone it's to run the site.

I think you should go look up the word "donation".;)

[lostdemon]

Now now children

[Actatoi]

Scammers because nowhere in the BitTorrent protocol is there anything relating to buying and selling. Scammers because they're making profit from other peoples work and telling everyone it's to run the site.

I think you should go look up the word "donation".;)

I don't know if they make a profit of it, do you have any inside information regarding this or? And a lot of people in this world makes money on others peoples work, it's just that that is accepted by those doing the work. But in filesharing an agreement like that would never be made. Most people seems to believe that TL are worth it though. Some people pay for seedboxes, some for upload credit and some for TL's vip privileges.

And it's well known that donations goes to running a site. Not? I don't see the difference here. TL also have donations available and I'm sure they get donations.

[Nemrod]

Yeah, right... because "sceners" don´t take advantage of other peoples work.

In this filesharing world of us everybody take some advantage, like admit it or not.

[iam1337]

They put their lives on the line, they can go to jail anytime and your bitching about they're making a profit? They are on the website ALOT of the time fixing things....


If you have a problem ,maybe you shouldn't use their website...but of course you will complain and still use it :)

[Diiyad]

They put their lives on the line, they can go to jail anytime and your bitching about they're making a profit? They are on the website ALOT of the time fixing things....


If you have a problem ,maybe you shouldn't use their website...but of course you will complain and still use it :)

Well said. I don't think they can go to jail though, since all of the files aren't actually hosted on their servers.

[Nemrod]

They put their lives on the line, they can go to jail anytime and your bitching about they're making a profit? They are on the website ALOT of the time fixing things....


If you have a problem ,maybe you shouldn't use their website...but of course you will complain and still use it :)

Well said. I don't think they can go to jail though, since all of the files aren't actually hosted on their servers.

Of course they can. If authorities prove their are the owners of the site, to jail, if they live in a country where that is punished, of course.
But they have a risky life, and they deserve what they get, as long as they don´t demand payments, and until now, they don´t.
It´s very easy and cool to complain of TL or whoever meanwhile you are downloading the last movie or episode from their servers.

[ernestina]

what is the best???sct or f******.net??

[jam0980tr]

what is the best???sct or f******.net??

search and you will find few things posted about them both site

[tweakz]

I was estimating the amount of money they probably make. Its just a guestimate so here goes:

This is monthly donations.

# of users: ~70k
% that donate: 5%, lets say. Its definitely more than that because of the number of people that have bad connections and they only ask you to pay about 8euros so I think its still a fair approximation.

5% of 70k = 3500
3500 * 8 = 28000 Euros!!!

That is some crazy amount of money they're making.

Holy shit!!!!
I would die just to be a part of that money making!

[Zaxx]

what is the best???sct or f******.net??

Off topic spam....yummy!!! :dry:

[Mistral]

And it's well known that donations goes to running a site. Not? I don't see the difference here. TL also have donations available and I'm sure they get donations.

So why do they need pay2leech?


Yeah, right... because sceners don´t take advantage of other peoples work.

I guess if someone else is doing something wrong it's alright for others to do it then? Great logic.:blink:


They put their lives on the line

LMAO :lol:


but of course you will complain and still use it

Wrong.


It´s very easy and cool to complain of TL or whoever meanwhile you are downloading the last movie or episode from their servers.

I'll take your word for it.:ermm:

There sure is a lot of support for ripping people off in this thread.:(

[Torn]

They put their lives on the line

LMAO :lol:


What's so funny? If caught, and prosecuted, you can wave "bye, bye" to your life.

[Cheffy]

Its not ripping people off. Mind im not totally ok with profiting form other peoples work.
But the ammount of time that goes into running such a huge site demanding. You cant just cheak the page once a day, its tons of work.

They have managed to make one of the best torrent sites on the net. You can find just about anything there, torrents that have died of months ago on other trackers still have 100+ seeders here. So you max out your connection just about anything you try to download.

But i have to admit they are over charging their users if the number that was posted here was correct. id say they could easy ask people to pay half for VIP and still have more than enough to go around.

[Mistral]

What's so funny? If caught, and prosecuted, you can wave bye, bye to your life.

Oh sorry, I didn't know selling warez was punishable by death now.:O
I mean I know it's wrong but that seems a bit extreme.:unsure:


Its not ripping people off. Mind im not totally ok with profiting form other peoples work.
But the ammount of time that goes into running such a huge site demanding. You cant just cheak the page once a day, its tons of work.

I see. So staff are paid a salary then?:w00t:

I wonder what the interview process is like...

"Are you a greedy bastard that likes selling other peoples work to morons too stupid to tell the difference between a donation and a sale?
You are?
You're hired!"

[Cheffy]

Oh look we have a troll here.
I dont think anyone is taking out a salary.

But i do believe that some of the staff have to be unemployed to give the site the time it requires. You have no idea, Most of the fls and forum mods are burned out in under 3 months. Might have become better in the last months after stoped accepting new members. It was nuub station number 1.

And they are not greedy, the site needs money to run. Without p2l i doubt tl would be able to raise that sort of cash just on donations. They would have to make the site a lot smaller then. And then the speed and lifetime of torrents would go down. Thus destroying what makes the site so grate.

Do you just have an problem with TL or is it all sites that p2l? SCT,FL,SCC,ST++++ Im guessing you are a member of some sites that have p2l.
And btw if it were not for users not being able to seed back whats needed and contribute to the site in some other way it would be almost impossible to keep a ratio over 1, As the math would not work out.
Sites needs money, p2l may not be morally correct. As they are selling users BW. But when it comes down to it, sites needs cash to run, they dont need users Seeding. Someone have to pay the bill in the end!

And as a last not, how many sites have you donated to and how often do you donate?

[Mistral]

Nope, not a troll, only reason I keep replying is people keep asking me stupid questions.:happy:

And no, I don't have a problem specifically with TL , just pay2leech in general. Nor do I have any personal problem with any individual member or staff of such sites.
I am not a member of any pay2leech sites, not anymore, and I don't want to be.

Of course sites need cash to run, which should naturally come from members donations (not sales). Donating to keep a site alive should always be kept separate from the filesharing aspect of the site, otherwise it's not sharing is it?

How often I've donated and to how many sites is my business, but yes, over the last 5 years I have donated to many torrent sites, some of them multiple times and I will continue to do so on sites that aren't out to make a quick buck from the gullible, as and when cashflow allows. Not because I want anything in return, but because I like the site, the staff, the community, and I want to see the site continue.

Enough about me!

So you're saying that a large site could not survive, and indeed prosper, on donations alone?
That's horseshit. Other sites seem to do just fine.:yup:

[horiZen]

@mistral,,stop mouthing about what you know nothing about!!! a site like TL requires huge amount of time/effort/money to keep running, i've seen many sites over the last 3-4years die from purely a lack of donations(i'm talkin big sites similar in size to TL)

these(TL) guys have been around for some time offering the BT community reliable,consistent,fast releases and deserve every penny they receive, the same applies likewise for other top-tier/rated trackers

[Actatoi]

So why do they need pay2leech?

Beacuse they get in money from it that helps them running the site. You still havn't answered if you know anything more about it then we others do, so why think that they get an extra ammount of money into their own pockets?

It's also a nice way for those that don't have that good bandwidth to be able to get their movies and music and not having to bother. And maybe they don't share their files, but they share money which helps TL staying on track.

Until proved that the ones running TL can live on the money that they get I think we shouldn't make any conspiracy theories about it.

[Zeus]

There are no conspiracy theories, kingrob's admitted on several occassions that the TL sysops make money from the site. It would be pointless hiding it seeing as its so obvious.
The funny thing is that the way TL is at the moment its seems much more likely that TL sysops will be pursued for tax evasion rather than copyright infringement (assuming they dont declare all that money coming in)

[Zeus]

There are no conspiracy theories, kingrob's admitted on several occassions that the TL sysops make money from the site. It would be pointless hiding it seeing as its so obvious.
The funny thing is that the way TL is at the moment its seems much more likely that TL sysops will be pursued for tax evasion rather than copyright infringement (assuming they dont declare all that money coming in)

[t0mmy]

how is TL pay2leech, it just simply accepts donations, its not like its selling GB's like some other trackers

[Zeus]

how is TL pay2leech, it just simply accepts donations, its not like its selling GB's like some other trackers
Becuase if for so long as you continue paying you keep vip status which means you can leech as much as you want without worrying about your ratio.

[t0mmy]

when i donated i was well over 2.0ratio i figured for now 2 years i have been TL it was great, so i figured to donate, i have seedboxes which maintain my ratio even better now, my intention wasnt to pay2leech but through appreciation

[Actatoi]

There are no conspiracy theories, kingrob's admitted on several occassions that the TL sysops make money from the site. It would be pointless hiding it seeing as its so obvious.
The funny thing is that the way TL is at the moment its seems much more likely that TL sysops will be pursued for tax evasion rather than copyright infringement (assuming they dont declare all that money coming in)

Alright, if you're speaking the truth it sounds fair enough.

[Charles Lindbergh]

Hi people !!!

It was much trolling here. I'll post my opinion:

If TL sysops are earning 100.000 or 1.000.000 per month I don't realy care. They are not forcing to anyone to pay or donate. They are doing their job great with best scene releases. I don't see there nothing that can be wrong.
They deseverve every single dollar because they are working hard to offer to them who donate and them who don't. Most valuable thing that you can sleep in peace, but they sometimes watch throw the window, remmember feds are watching always. They are good and big, interested for us and for feds of course. Watching some stories like "so what if they go to jail" makes me realy mad. Usually that's are stories of people who never been there. I know what is freedom and there's no price for that.

I can only tell that that I'm missing their invite.

Great job and keep going TL mates!!!


Regards !!!

[Zeus]

I was estimating the amount of money they probably make. Its just a guestimate so here goes:

This is monthly donations.

# of users: ~70k
% that donate: 5%, lets say. Its definitely more than that because of the number of people that have bad connections and they only ask you to pay about 8euros so I think its still a fair approximation.

5% of 70k = 3500
3500 * 8 = 28000 Euros!!!

That is some crazy amount of money they're making.
Actually TL has twice that many users, so its more like 50,000+ euros each month. 600,000 euros a year isnt bad is it?.

I can see why some of you dont care that there are people making money this way, but personally I think its wrong to make that kind of money from other people work. I would rather see the money go to the hands of the artists, writers, developers etc who put the time and effort in to bring us these things and who come up with the ideas in the first place (or even to the record labels and production companies without whose investment none of the things we download would exist). If anyone deserves to make money from their work is them. Im not against filesharing, but downloading something for your own use is one thing and making huge amounts of money from other peoples work is quite another. I stopped using TL a long time ago due to its blatent profiteering and I honestly think it would be a good day if the site got shut down. The site gives filesharing a bad name and just gives organisations like the MPAA fuel for their publicity campaign against filesharers generally. I dont just target my remarks at TL, there are plenty of other sites out there headed in the same direction. You wont find many others out there making as much money as TL at the moment though.

[Actatoi]

I would rather see the money go to the hands of the artists, writers, developers etc who put the time and effort in to bring us these things and who come up with the ideas in the first place (or even to the record labels and production companies without whose investment none of the things we download would exist).

I don't think 600 000 euros would make the slightest difference to the ammount of things that are free on TL, if people bought things instead that means.


But I do understand your point, well written.

[Nemrod]

Very well expressed what you say Zeus,and I must agree with you in many things, but I´d like you read this (http://www.stormymondays.com/home/courtney.htm) (if you haven´t yet), just to let clear some things that are not the way they look like. ;)

[parrot]

+ I can't even imagine the amount of knowledge and money it takes to actually start a working successful tracker.. Wouldn't try it, but appreciate that it's free for most!

[stoi]

I have to cringe at threads like this, full of presumptions and accusations, that are giving bittorrent and filesharing a bad name.

On our tracker i can say with hand on heart, we get about 0.2% of members donating to VIP (probably a bit less than that actually, and thats on a good month) and 0.5% donate anything at all even $1 (which paypal takes 30cents of at least).

the point im trying to make is, even with 100,000 members we got the same donators. so with 100,000 members we got 0.1% VIP and 0.25%.

Problem is whatever i say, someone who doesnt run a tracker will still come up with presumptions and add 2+2 and come up with 20,000 somewhere along the line.

People will believe whatever they want to believe, but i just have to say that Kazaa back in the day you had to pay for, until kazaa lite came out, Usenet the vast majority of us have to pay for (ISP Usenet is usually crap), Private FTP access you usually have to pay for. and these are "Paying For" not Donating so completely different to what most torrent sites do, and all of the above are "filesharing".

so why torrent sites are getting such a bum deal these days, i havnt a clue, and most torrent sites are faster than Usenet/Kazaa/FTP (some dump sites anyway).

also you say not to pay2leech, but how many of us subscribe to Usenet and not use torrents exclusively, you do not have to "Upload" so if that isnt pay to leech, i dont know what is, also the files are actually on their servers somewhere, torrent sites (if the owners have any sense anyway) do not and should not keep files on the servers the tracker runs on at all.

thats my 2cents anyway, there are a lot worse filesharing money making schemes out there than torrents imho.

[Mistral]

Why are you comparing pay2leech to Usenet/Kazaa/FTP? For Usenet you're paying for access, Kazaa you're paying for an application, FTP you're paying for access. In each case you're buying something.

With pay2leech you're paying for staff to fiddle with stats and in comparing them to the above you're saying that pay2leech is also a sale. Then you call it "donating". Which is it?

Donating is giving something freely, getting something in return is a purchase. There's a clear difference.

Pay2leech apologists continually try and spin the truth in order to justify their point of view but it doesn't matter how you dress it up, it is what it is.

If a community can't sustain itself on donations or other fund raising activities then obviously the site isn't valued by it's members and should be allowed to die.


@Zeus, Thanks for the back up m8, I appreciate your input and it warms my heart to see there's still people around that believe sharing shouldn't come with a price tag. I especially agree with your point that pay2leech sites give "filesharing a bad name and just gives organisations like the MPAA fuel for their publicity campaign against filesharers generally."

These sites are damaging to the BitTorrent community as a whole.
I can only hope the next time the authorities decide to crack down they go after the pay2leech scammers and leave proper sharers alone(unlikely).

:(

[ersatzp]

I love the ethical debates regarding piracy. It's almost as comical as the sat hacking scene. People bitch about clones and how it's not fair to steal someone's work. It's so funny when the shoe is on the other foot. You just have to appreciate the irony of the entire matter.

[stoi]

so which trackers out there do not offer anything at all for donatations.

as in you donate for the good of the site and you get 0 in return, no gigs, no special perks like free leech, VIP, Star. no extra slots to seed/leech with. basically you donate and you have exactly the same influence and perks as you had before you donated.

Im not saying they do not exist, but i bet they are very few and far between.

and i mean Private sites, like TL, BCG, etc etc not public sites with a shit load of ads like TPB or Mininova, BTjunkie.

and so your saying that paying for access is ok, but donating for a perk isnt.

I bet if NG suddenly said you dont get full access, you dont get full speed, you only get XX gig per month and you have to seed back, most if not all users will tell them to stick it.

and i do not know anyone that pays for NG for the community spirit (just the text files rooms).

to me if you dont like them dont use them, its that simple, yes i agree some P2L schemes that some trackers do is just plain wrong, but then if they are in a pickle and need funds quickly, then i cant see anything wrong with doing anything for a month just to try to keep the tracker ticking over and surviving for another month.

but again, whatever i say here wont influence you in any way, as it looks you have already got your presumptions wether they are right or wrong.

[Mistral]

Yes there are private sites where you donate and receive no perks or influence and I'll gladly support such sites.

"and so your saying that paying for access is ok, but donating for a perk isnt."

Now you're just putting words in my mouth. No, paying for access or invites to BitTorrent sites isn't ok. But you're talking about newsgroups which isn't the same thing.

Donating for a perk isn't donating, it's a purchase. That isn't a presumption, it's a fact.


"then i cant see anything wrong with doing anything for a month just to try to keep the tracker ticking over and surviving for another month."

Here's a quote from an article I read recently regarding Sweden's biggest ongoing filesharing case.

"Of additional interest is that this case reflects other file-sharing situations around Europe as it wrestles over the legal status of non-commercial file-sharing cases. Currently, illegal file-sharing is treated as a civil law issue in most of Europe, (there are exceptions) but the pressure from organizations such as the IFPI suggests they would love to bring it into the criminal domain. A conviction in this case resulting in prison time and financial penalties opens up the possibility that police searches could be carried out in search of evidence against petty file-sharers, something which is forbidden at the moment."

As soon as sales are being made it's a commercial enterprise and the situation becomes many times worse. Pay2leech is adding fuel to that fire.


"but again, whatever i say here wont influence you in any way, as it looks you have already got your presumptions wether they are right or wrong."

Right back atcha. :frusty:

@ersatzp, Whether or not filesharing is stealing is another matter entirely and a discussion for another thread.

:huh:

[SgtMajor]

Black is black, & white is white, 90% black & 10% white is 100% grey, 10% black & 90% white is also 100% grey, not everyone will agree in what shade of grey is the best, and you can't please all of the people all of the time with your shade of grey.

You can only do your best given what you have been given, and if some don't like it, then so be it, and then there will be some that do like like it, then be happy with those that do, There will always be detractors in all walks of life, we just have to learn to live with them and get on with the rest of our life. The more you fight back, the louder the minority will shout and one thing I learned is never to get into a gutter fight with them, just walk on by and best to ignore them. If they don't like what's on offer, they don't have to hang around, there are plenty of other options on offer to satisfy their needs.

[stoi]

well im actually a tracker owner with 54,000 members, and ran a tracker for the best part of 5 years, and i know from my personal experience that these quotes from the media when a site gets busted and they claim they are making £30,000 a month is a load of crap. im lucky to have taken that in 5 years of running a tracker (and all of that is on server costs btw).

At least i have experience in this and not just hearsay and presumption.

btw you have to pay that little bit extra for anominity and being in a country that doesnt give a shit. everyone could run a tracker on $70 a month if you hosted in the USA, but that is just folly and you wont last 5 minutes if your a big tracker, even if your a small tracker its still folly.

yes we did use to have £ for gigs on the site, but in all honesty we probably get more donations now after we have taken that off than when it was on, so Pay2leech doesnt always work.

also i am trying ads on my site atm, because i do want to get rid of perks for donations like you said, but ads do not pay that well as i am experiencing (and we will never go the donate and you dont see them route) so ads are not the answer.

I am also going to try out a no perks for donations very soon, so no star/VIP nothing. and see how it goes, but i dont think we will get 1/2 the donations we get now.

BTW the things donators get for donating on my site are.

VIP
Star
More downloading slots.
Bonus on the Seed point system (if your not a member its far to detailed to go into in this post).

but trackers do need funds to survive, no funds = no trackers period, no trackers = no bittorrent, No bittorrent = back to kazaa and emule.

My main point is though, posts like this and your replies, are not helping trackers, not just those that have pay2leech systems in place but all trackers that are out there, and just giving more fuel to the fire for the mpaa saying they were making XXXXXXX amount per month.

Mud sticks and usually its realy hard to get off.

[Mistral]

Obviously I already know you're a tracker owner m8. That doesn't change my position on pay2leech but your post does make me think I perhaps misjudged you slightly.

Clearly you're putting the effort into not relying on "pay2leech" and not out to make a quick buck, that's to be commended. I do appreciate the dedication it takes to run a torrent site and the problems that come with it, I've also been involved with BitTorrent for 5 years in one capacity or another. Not as a site owner, but I do pay attention to these things.

I do believe however that the very fact pay2leech systems exist at all on so called filesharing sites is potentially far more damaging than any post on the subject.

You're right about the crap in the media. Now just imagine the size of that crap when they actually do take down profit making sites.
We're already tarred with the same brush to some extent, but at least at the moment saying that you didn't sell anything for profit is a reasonable defense.

Tip: In my experience/opinion, increasing awareness of funding problems on torrent sites is usually enough. You inform the userbase that the site won't be around unless everybody chips in and generally that's enough for a large portion of the membership to cough up. Nobody wants to lose a site they care about. Honesty and openness is key.

Best of luck anyway.;)


@SgtMajor, Thanks for the advice. I'll keep that in mind in future, but when all is said and done it looks like stoi is an alright bloke after all.:P


:whistling

[colombianino]

well they got the content, the seeds and the leechers. what else you might ask for?
very easy to keep ratio there, its because most torrents have good # of seeds and leechers.

but cant deny they're making money out of it........they gotta pay the server costs and leaseweb aint cheap.

edit:its true what you guys say, the RIAA and other anti-pirate organizations try almost anything to take the site down.