Suprnova Torrent Site Relaunched

One site has always had a special place in the hearts of long-time Bittorrent users. While Piratebay.org may have been more newsworthy in recent months, the hugely successful Suprnova.org was as popular, if not more, in its heyday. It was shut down in 2004, not with a bang, but with a whimper, after it received word of threats from the Motion Picture Association of America, the MPAA.

The Swedish anti-copyright group, the Pirate Bay, announced last month that they would resurrect the famed site, with even more expansive features and attention to the large user community. The launch saw a steady build up of anticipation, culminating in a counter which ticked down the final hours somewhat erratically. In conjunction with the relaunch, the Pirate Bay admins, sloncek and brokep, announced the launch of the Suprbay forums, spanning both the Pirate Bay and Suprnova. The forums saw over 500,000 registrations in two weeks, and a welter of articles ranging from how to download streaming Netflix films to debates on the new XBox 360 game, BioShock.

Aficionados joined the Suprnova IRC channel to count down the penultimate minutes, and debate the promise of waffles, before the timer was replaced at T+1 with yet another timer and wails of frustration on the channel. Soon enough, though, people had refreshed their pages, hacked around and discovered the new, final URL of the reborn Suprnova. The site exploded on the Internet landscape with a tantalizing message to 'non-Internet loving companies':

This is how it works. Whatever you sink, we build back up. Whomever you sue, ten new pirates are recruited. Wherever you go, we are already ahead of you. You are the past and the forgotten, we are the internet and the future.

That might sound egomanical, were it not for the groundswell of 'true believers', copyright anarchs, and leechers who've made Bittorrent clients some of the largest consumers of Internet bandwidth. It must be said, however, that every new distribution model or channel has been opposed by those who are wedded to the status quo, and change in our world can come in the blink of eye, even though the transformation be years in the making.

The site is well-designed, but could do with some finishing touches. At launch, it tracks over one million torrents, and 19 million plus peers. Categories range from games, videos, TV Shows, to anime, audio, apps, Mac, and miscellaneous torrents. In the Misc section, one found the latest issue of Le Monde, Dorothy Sayers' Whose Body, and a sure shot system to beat Roulette. The TV Shows were presented somewhat differently, and most of the popular ones were represented. There were 86 SACDs available, while some rare Anime was on offer too. A flashy advertisement for human pheromones takes center stage for now, with a somewhat breathless blonde blown away by the molecular effusions.

The beta test period will likely see the first legal challenges as well as a flood of curious visitors. Quality control will be a key differentiator, and given the rich user base, should be easy enough, with comments, etc., but the variety of content may not be too different from most other torrent trackers.