These clients use the BitTorrent protocol, a peer-to-peer file-sharing protocol that's used to distribute large amounts of data. Rather than downloading a file from a single source, BitTorrent allows users to join a "swarm" of hosts that can upload and download files in pieces.

The company has released additional statistics about the usage of its clients: There are over 20 million daily active users, and the client is downloaded an average of 400,000 times per day. The software is available in 52 languages, and the clients check in from over 220 countries every day.

Although the P2P protocol has long been associated with digital piracy, BitTorrent made a number of agreements with content creators such as Pioneer One and the Yes Men in order to distribute their works.

BitTorrent essentially works by harnessing unused network capacity on end-user computers. Anyone downloading or streaming a file also distributes the file to other users, which is broken into smaller chunks and reassembled upon delivery. BitTorrent has long used the distributed peer-to-peer approach for file sharing, and the same idea is employed by companies like Joost for streaming media.

DNA's first client is Brightcove, a CDN that powers video streaming for companies like CBS, Fox, the Discovery Channel, Buena Vista (Disney), Reuters, Warner Music Group, Sony-BMG and others. It's mildly amusing that BitTorrent, thought by many in the music and film industry to be an enabler of illegal file sharing, should now be providing a technology backbone for the legit delivery of industry content.

Aram Sinnreich, a media industry analyst with Radar Research, told Forbes that just a year ago dealing with BitTorrent would have been anathema for industry execs, but now they realize that the company can save them money by turning downloaders into distributors.

CNET sees BitTorrent DNA has a competitor to existing CDNs writing, "BitTorrent DNA will square off with industry leaders like Akamai Technologies." But that doesn't seem to be the company's goal. According to BitTorrent, their DNA technology compliments existing CDNs rather than replaces them.

BitTorrent has been taking strides recently to repaint themselves as a legit business. In February, they partnered with companies like Fox, Warner Brothers., MTV, and Paramount to create a download store that uses their P2P technology to deliver paid downloads. Now, with their new DNA service, they're hoping to get cozier with Hollywood and avoid the type of anti-piracy litigation that caused Napster to close down in 2002.

The iControlbits app allows you to control your BitTorrent downloads remotely, with an interface far improved over the alternative - the mobile web version of Transmission.

The app costs $1.99, and Hlastec says he plans to add more features soon, including the ability to add new downloads to your queue.

But a new version of the app would have to pass Apple's scrutiny, and BitTorrent apps have historically faced rejection and removal from the iTunes store. An app with functionality similar to iControlbits made it into the store in October, but was booted just three days later. Like iControlbits, that app avoided the word "BitTorrent" in its name and description, something that only saved it for a short time.

Hopefully iControlbits will have better luck.

How extensive is the alleged book piracy? Demonoid.me users are said to have swapped copies of Photoshop CS5 All-In-One For Dummies more than 74,000 times, according to the lawsuit.

This is a first for the publishing industry, who are following in the footsteps of Hollywood. Most famously, tens of thousands of users who used BitTorrent to download the widely-acclaimed and award-winning film The Hurt Locker were sued by the film's producers. Many of those defendants settled out of court, as is common in cases like these.

Despite the popularity of legitimate e-book marketplaces like Amazon's Kindle Store and Apple's iBooks, digital book piracy has grown in recent years, with some best-sellers being illegally downloaded hundreds of thousands of times.

It remains to be seen how this case unfolds, or if other book publishers follow Wiley in the practice of suing BitTorrent users for copyright infringement.

In an extensive guest post on TorrentFreak, a well known BitTorrent blog, Dan Morrill told his experience with offering his latest eBook, 'Selling Books On Amazon, Tips and Secrets' on popular BitTorrent tracker Mininova. Dan explains that his initial reason for releasing his eBook using BitTorrent was not for marketing purposes, but "to control the release and gather good stats on the process." We don't think he could've picked a better service. Within the first 24 hours, Morrill's eBook had been downloaded close to 700 times.

Based on the stats he received from Mininova, Morrill was also able to pinpoint the countries in which the eBook was being downloaded the most. Africa ranked high on the list, which is understandable because of the relatively large amount of e-commerce businesses that are set-up in Africa. Morrill was surprised to see India contributing to 5.2% of the overall downloads.

Operation BitTorrent a Success

Morrill rated his overall experience as highly satisfying and recommends using BitTorrent as a great content distribution channel for those that don't mind. The expansion of the BitTorrent network will only increase in the next few years. In doing so, we think this may be a tool that publishers will eventually start taking a lot more seriously than they do now. It's undeniable that BitTorrent can prove to be an effective marketing tool for a cheap price when used correctly. Nine Inch Nails concluded the same in March of this year when they uploaded part 1 of their 4 part album Ghosts I-IV to numerous BitTorrent sites. It became the #1 most downloaded album on The Pirate Bay, which helped to increase their sales tremendously for the rest of the album.

We can only wonder when others will catch on to the effectiveness of using BitTorrent sites to market and distribute content. You can download Dan Morrill's eBook 'Selling Books On Amazon, Tips and Secrets' here.

Derek Kepner, app developer, tweeted news to that effect earlier today, and the app is indeed unavailable at this time. "Just got a call from Apple," said Kepner. "They're taking IS Drive down. I'm seeing what I can do. I have a feeling I won't be able to change their mind."

On one hand, Apple's decision isn't a shock as the company has rejected other BitTorrent apps before, claiming they violate the developer guidelines.. And Kepner admitted in earlier interviews about the app that it was likely the absence of the phrase "BitTorrent" that helped secure the app's approval in the first place. The press coverage that the app received, however, probably prompted a second look by Apple.

But in an interview with Macworld, Kepner says he plans to appeal Apple's decision, noting that not all BitTorrent downloads are illegal. " "There are many legitimate uses for ImageShack Drive. I don't think it's fair to punish legitimate users for the actions of morons who think my app will help them pirate."

BitTorrent releases SDK for set-top-boxes and other devices: BitTorrent, the company behind the popular peer-to-peer file sharing technology, has announced the availability of its Software Development Kit (SDK) for consumer electronics devices. Perhaps the most enticing part is the chance for licensee’s products to become officially BitTorrent certified.

Microsoft rebrands its IPTV plaftorm, adds PC to TV functionality: This week Microsoft announced the availability of Microsoft Mediaroom, a re-branded version of its IPTV software platform that enables service providers to deliver interactive IPTV services into the home.

Subscribe to last100 for more digital lifestyle news on a daily basis.

Even though Apple loosened some of its guidelines for the iOS Developer Program in early September, the policy still reads that your app cannot break the law or infringe on copyrights. And that's the reason why there have been no BitTorrent apps to date, according to an Apple spokesman who claimed last year when another BitTorrent app was rejected that "this category of application is often used for the purpose of infringing third party rights."

It was a surprise, then, to see the approval of IS Drive, now available in the App Store.

In an interview with TorrentFreak, app developer Derek Kepner admitted, "I'm on dangerous ground here." Insisting that the app is not designed to break the law, Kepner says, "I always had the thought that if I didn't call the app a "torrent client", Apple would probably let it through the review process. After all, there is no real torrenting happening on the client side. It's not a torrent client. It's an ImageShack Drive client."

Whether it's a question of semantics or a question of luck that got the app past the Apple reviewers, IS Drive is - for the time being - available in the App Store for $4.99.

It's not a complete picture of all torrents, of course, but KickassTorrents is one of the top 10 torrent sites in terms of visitors, and the searches are probably fairly indicative of what people are searching for on BitTorrent.

Also among the top 10 search terms: porn and xxx. Windows 7 is the first software-related search term in the list, in 20th place. Despite music industry brouhaha about filesharing, music searches do not rank highly. Eminem is the first music mention, at number 47.

Here's the top 20, but you can find the full list of 100 here:

1. inception
2. iron man 2
3. 2010
4. xxx
5. french
6. avatar
7. dvdrip
8. despicable me
9. porn
10. clash of the titans
11. toy story 3
12. glee
13. salt
14. twilight eclipse
15. dexter
16. the sorcerer's apprentice
17. axxo
18. robin hood
19. prince of persia
20. windows 7

BitTorrent-focused blog TorrentFreak tells us that the big-screen hit has finally hit the Internet and it's set to be one of the most pirated movies of the year.

According to the folks at TorrentFreak, though, we haven't seen anything yet.

This is just the beginning though. Usually, the greatest download boost for a pirated movie occurs with the release of a DVDrip copy, and that has yet to come for The Social Network. If this happens in the next month, the film about Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and friends might have a shot at ending up in the list of top 10 most pirated films of this year.

A dubious honor, but not necessarily a financial disaster.

So far, it looks like the pirated copy has been most popular in the U.S., with the U.K., Canada, Australia and India following.

Red Swoosh claims to offer the most efficient P2P file-sharing system on the internet. One of the investors behind the company is Mark Cuban, who recently wrote a long post about why BitTorrent is doomed (via TorrentFreak). His point was that the bittorrent protocol is actually no more efficient in terms of bandwidth than the client-server setup. Incidentally Cuban doesn't mention his affiliation with Red Swoosh in that post (he may've done so before, I'm not sure). But Cuban's post is clearly aimed at pumping up Red Swoosh over BitTorrent, albeit indirectly, so a disclosure would've been in order.

"Bandwidth is a bottleneck. That didn't matter to much when we were just sending and receiving pictures and music, but video is going to break the camel's back."

In the post they looked at Apple's iTunes store and calculated how much money is spent on bandwidth for the millions of songs, movies, and TV shows being transferred. They believe that $15 M is being "wasted" by Apple not converting to p2p.

The Red Swoosh team seems very confident of their chances in the P2P and video file transfer business:

"At Redswoosh, we're commited to making the best p2p system on the web. We're already hitting akamai numbers, and that's in small tests where the network effect of p2p hasn't really kicked in.

If you think BitTorrent is fast, just wait till you try Swooshing."

What do you think of the technology - does it have as much potential as BitTorrent?

Although as we reported yesterday, Netflix now surpasses P2P Internet traffic - in North America at least - but this doesn't mean that this isn't a popular avenue by which many people access movie entertainment. Rather than fighting BitTorrent, the makers of The Tunnel are embracing it.

The plot of The Tunnel, according to the film's website:

In 2007 the New South Wales government suddenly scrapped a plan to utilise the water in the disused underground train tunnels beneath Sydney's St James Train Station.

In 2008, chasing rumours of a government coverup and urban legends surrounding the sudden backflip, investigative journalist Natasha Warner led a crew of four into the underground labyrinth.

They went down into the tunnels looking for a story - until the story found them.

This is the film of their harrowing ordeal. With unprecedented access to the recently declassified tapes they shot in the claustrophobic subway tunnels, as well as a series of candid interviews with the survivors, we come face to face with the terrifying truth.

This never before seen footage takes us deep inside the tunnels bringing the darkness to life and capturing the raw fear that threatens to tear the crew apart, leaving each one of them fighting for their lives.

Eek.

You can download the official torrent or find the film in the BitTorrent's new App Studio.

But now, Renolds has returned and this time he's expanded on the original concept to create what appears to be a full-on App Store replacement application.

It's that last one, "Store," where all the shopping will take place. And unlike the official App Store, nothing is rejected. That's right - there's no approval process whatsoever and all apps will be added to the store within one week. The only exception to this rule will be releases not made free by their developers, says Alec. That means that appDowner isn't about to become a resource for sharing cracked copies of games that you would otherwise have to pay for.

But even without the illegal goods (a rule we're happy to support), appDowner has a lot of potential to compete with the other popular repositories/stores for jailbroken apps like Cydia and Icy. Because it uses BitTorrent technology, apps will always be available for download with no need for developers to worry about hosting issues. In addition, the technology will be able to be used for more than downloading just apps alone, if you're so inclined.

To kick start the launch, appDowner will include several popular apps like Steven Troughton-Smith's killer Stack application and Lights Off game. They'll even have some exclusive content from Nullriver, Inc., promises designer Miles Lorry, who teamed up with Renolds to work on the app.

No word yet on an exact release date, only that it will be arriving "very, very soon."

Stack for iPhone

In my testing, westream worked perfectly with nary a hiccup. I was able to quickly stream any track, start to finish (I picked a torrent with an ample amount of seeders from Legit Torrents for my tests). Of course, the quality of audio and level of gaplessness you experience will be totally dependent on the health of the torrent you're trying to stream.

The volume control seemed a bit wonky (going from very soft to very, very loud without much in between) and it would be nice to have the option to download the torrent straight away if you like what you're hearing. But in general, westream performs very well.

Westream is a useful BitTorrent innovation that lets users essentially "try before they buy." Presumably, the same idea can be applied to video -- imagine: streaming video distribution over BitTorrent. Very cool.

In December, Google said it was taking steps towards "making copyright work better online." Among other things, it promised that "terms that are closely associated with piracy" would no longer appear in autocompletes.

Forbidden from Autocomplete Arbitrarily?

Part of the problem with this new implementation, as TorrentFreak noted when it broke the story, the list of banned terms is "seemingly arbitrary." No version of the word "torrent" will work for instant search - neither the software "uTorrent," nor "BitTorrent," the name of a protocol and a San Francisco-based company. But while the cyberlockers RapidShare and Megaupload are now forbidden, other sites like HotFile and MediaFire are not. Furthermore, you can still find the names of other popular torrent sites, including The Pirate Bay.

TorrentFreak cites a response from RapidShare, who say that "We knew about Google's plans for quite a few weeks now. We embrace that certain search suggestions will not put a wrong complexion on RapidShare anymore, but we are concerned that at the same time the legitimate interests of our users will also be affected."

The company adds that "RapidShare is one of the most popular websites worldwide. Every day hundreds of thousands of users rely on our services to pursue their perfectly legitimate interests. That is why Google has obviously gone too far with censoring the results of its suggest algorithm. A search engine's results should reflect the users' interests and not Google's or anybody else's."

For now, you can still search for torrent information. While your search queries won't autocomplete, the results aren't censored. Yet.

Image credits: TorrentFreak