Written by Janko Roettgers
Posted Saturday, March 3, 2007 at 12:00 PM PT

 

Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents

Bittorrent downloads are either illegal or DRM-infected, right? Wrong. There are plenty of websites out there that offer free and legal Torrent downloads to save bandwidth and make file sharers happy at the same time.

Granted, sites like The Pirate Bay are still the major source for Bittorrent traffic. But legitimate platforms offer enough video goodies to clog your tubes for days. Here are 10 great places to get started:

Legaltorrents.com distributed 90 terabytes of Creative Commons-licensed content in the last seven months alone. The site features lots of music downloads, but also has some good video content like the South African TV show Go Open and the Firefly-Documentary Done The Impossible. All the files are centrally seeded, so your downloads will always have a happy ending.

Public Domain Torrents features hundreds of Torrents from out-of-copyright films in numerous formats. Unfortunately there is no central seeding, so you better stick to the recently posted items.

Legit Torrents is a new site that aggregates freely available Torrents, including video, games and Linux distributions.

Bittorrent has taken a beating for its recently launched download store, but the site still offers lots of freely downloadable content as well. Unfortunately the free stuff gets buried under the rentals and sales, which are for some reason deemed more “relevant.”

SXSW.com features music and video downloads to promote the South by Southwest festival. This year’s film trailers aren’t up yet, but there’s 3 gigabytes of MP3 music to get an idea of what’s gonna go down in Austin this March.

Speaking of music: Etree is hosting live recordings of bootleg-friendly artists in the lossless FLAC audio format.

The soon-to-be-relaunched Azureus home base Zudeo offers a mix of music videos, user-generated content, professionally produced movies and short films. Worth a look because of its extensive list of fan films and HD content. All downloads are centrally seeded.

Torrentfreak is known for its up-to-date coverage of the BitTorrent scene, but the site also operates an own tracker and regularly features legal downloads like the official Bittorrent release of the movie The Corporation.

Revision3.com is technically not a Torrent site, but the online video network utilizes BitTorrent like few others. Every episode page features a multitude of Torrent links, and you can subscribe to each show with an RSS-Feed including proper Torrent enclosures.

Finally, no list of legal Torrent platforms would be complete without a Linux ISO site like Linuxtracker.com. Advocates of the free operating system have been using BitTorrent for a long time to spread the latest releases of their preferred distribution. Linuxtracker lists all major flavors of Linux, including video-specific releases like the open source DVR system KnoppMyth and the multimedia production platform 64 Studio.

 

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Comments & Trackbacks

  1. [...] NewTeeVee.com has put together a list of ten great websites where you can go and download legal, free and DRM free BitTorrent sites. Sphere Topic: The Daily | Tags: BitTorrent, DRM, NewTeeVee [...]

    GigaOM » 10 free and legal torrent download sites on March 3rd, 2007 at 12:06 pm - Permalink

  2. [...] NewTeeVee » Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents [...]

    links for 2007-03-03 at blog.bagaki.com on March 3rd, 2007 at 1:17 pm - Permalink

  3. [...] NewTeeVee have just published a list of free torrent sites. Yes, they do exist! [...]

    Ten Legal Torrent Sites | OneTipADay.com on March 3rd, 2007 at 4:28 pm - Permalink

  4. We’re similar to Revision3. Every podcast at Podcast Spot (http://www.podcastspot.com) has torrent feeds, and every episode has torrent downlads.

    To be more specific, since every episode at Podcast Spot is converted to multiple formats, there are torrent feeds/downloads for each format.

    Mack D. Male on March 3rd, 2007 at 4:45 pm - Permalink

  5. [...] NewTeeVee hat eine Liste erstellt, wo man legale Torrent Files finden kann. Es handelt sich dabei um Filme, deren Copyright abgelaufen ist, Spiele, Linux Distributionen, Indie Music, alles mögliche was so unter Creative Commons Lizenz veröffentlicht wurde usw. [...]

    Legale Torrents - alte Schinken und Schätzchen at franztoo on March 3rd, 2007 at 11:09 pm - Permalink

  6. [...] Sage - NewTeeVee List of 10 free and legal torrent sites. (tags: torrents downloading free legal) [...]

    links for 2007-03-04 at on March 4th, 2007 at 1:20 am - Permalink

  7. 10 Siti torrent legali…

    Legaltorrents.com2 distribuisce 90 terabytes di contenuti rilasciati con la licenza Creative Commons.
    Il sito ha molta musica da scaricare, ma anche video.

    Public Domain Torrents3 ha molti film che non sono coperti da copyright in molti formati.

    Leg…

    pligg.com on March 4th, 2007 at 2:32 am - Permalink

  8. [...] de bajar archivos de forma ilegal. Sin embargo,  la lista de torrents legales y gratuitos de NewTeeVee demuestra claramente que esta tecnología puede utilizarse para bajar archivos de dominio público [...]

    Sitios de torrents legales y gratuitos on March 4th, 2007 at 5:34 am - Permalink

  9. [...] There are a few gems in the list. [...]

    The Completely Evil Blog » Blog Archive » NewTeeVee presents - Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents on March 4th, 2007 at 6:30 am - Permalink

  10. [...] Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents fron NewTeeVee.com [...]

    BIG Distractions » Archive » For you download freaks on March 4th, 2007 at 8:01 am - Permalink

  11. [...] NewTeeVee ___________________________________________________________ [...]

    Glúon /blog » Arquivos torrents gratuitos on March 4th, 2007 at 9:07 am - Permalink

  12. There is one host missing in this list :

    http://www.jamendo.com/

    5000+ free & legal music torrents.

    alex on March 4th, 2007 at 9:28 am - Permalink

  13. [...] completa, aquí via [...]

    arturogoga » Descargas por bittorrent gratuitas y legales on March 4th, 2007 at 9:32 am - Permalink

  14. funny , my brain did`nt register legal torrent . hehehe

    kucau on March 4th, 2007 at 10:17 am - Permalink

  15. What about the Creative Commons licensed albums at Jamendo (http://www.jamendo.com/)? They’ve published more than 2,500 (two-and-a-half thousand!) albums, and legal BitTorrent downloads there are actively encouraged.

    Baxter Tocher on March 4th, 2007 at 10:33 am - Permalink

  16. If you want to start your own legal bittorrent tracker, you can find all the scripts (php or php/mysql) here:

    http://www.borget.info

    Easy to install, ready to use !

    SqrtBoy on March 4th, 2007 at 10:49 am - Permalink

  17. [...] NetTeeWee [via Download Squad] Arkivert under: Freeware, ProgramGrad av popularitet: 1% [?]Del innlegget med [...]

    Leif Dalands blogg - IT & Annet » Bittorrent: 10 gratis og lovlige nedlastningessider on March 4th, 2007 at 1:13 pm - Permalink

  18. [...] [fonte] [...]

    Video Monte Ceneri » 10 siti Bittorrent legali e gratuiti on March 4th, 2007 at 2:33 pm - Permalink

  19. [...] read more | digg story [...]

    Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents « Life is best lived. on March 4th, 2007 at 3:20 pm - Permalink

  20. Wtf does “legal” mean?

    kanonFive on March 4th, 2007 at 4:48 pm - Permalink

  21. Legit torrents is not legal: the movie icon in it is the copyrighted iMovie icon from Apple.

    Phoenix on March 4th, 2007 at 5:48 pm - Permalink

  22. You must always know the law before you download!

    Andrew Hillman, Andrew Hillman on March 4th, 2007 at 7:51 pm - Permalink

  23. thepiratebay.org surves most, if not all, legal tottents, among the other stuff.

    spankbot on March 5th, 2007 at 12:45 am - Permalink

  24. [...] NewTeeVee has an article rounding up 10 sites where you can get free and legal torrents. [...]

    Ten websites for free and legal torrents - rekkerd.org - royalty-free samples, free VST plug-ins, and audio software news on March 5th, 2007 at 1:48 am - Permalink

  25. Legal BitTorrent Downloads…

    Janko reports a list of Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents. Be sure to check it out! I didn’t know all of them but I knew Etree: full bootleg recordings of concerts delivered with lossless compression, with the blessing…

    VIPeers on March 5th, 2007 at 5:20 am - Permalink

  26. [...] Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents NewTeeVee » (tags: bittorrent blog download free publicdomain p2p music) [...]

    Metaverse Territories » links for 2007-03-05 on March 5th, 2007 at 8:26 am - Permalink

  27. [...] Ten sites for free and legal torrents. Via p2p Blog. [...]

    musikdieb.de » Linkübersicht on March 5th, 2007 at 12:26 pm - Permalink

  28. [...] Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents (tags: Torrent) [...]

    All in a days work… on March 5th, 2007 at 1:44 pm - Permalink

  29. [...] | newteevee Ver más de: Software Trackback a este post Esta entrada fue escrita el: Martes 06 de [...]

    BitSignals » 10 Sitios Torrents legales y gratis on March 6th, 2007 at 10:11 am - Permalink

  30. [...] NewTeeVee » Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents (tags: Bittorrent List) [...]

    links for 2007-03-05 at DeStructUred Blog on March 6th, 2007 at 1:31 pm - Permalink

  31. [...] NewTeeVee » Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents 十个免费且合法的BT资源站点。 (tags: torrents) Related: Diglog It « Twingly–有趣的Blog屏幕保护程序 links for 2007-03-07 » [...]

    The sky of Daemon! » links for 2007-03-06 on March 7th, 2007 at 8:47 pm - Permalink

  32. [...] y un buen método para poder acceder libremente al conocimiento. Así, nunca está de más conocer sitios de torrents donde los contenidos que podemos encontrar no están bajo Copyright y por supuesto libres de [...]

    Kernel Source » 10 sitios de torrents libres on March 9th, 2007 at 12:57 am - Permalink

  33. [...] Lizenz und natürlich auch kontemporäre CC und Open Source Werke. NewTeeVee hat eine Liste weiterer rechtlich einwandfreier Peer-2-Peer Torrent Suchseiten [...]

    datenschmutz.net » Blogistan-Panoptikum Woche 10 2k7 - ritchie pettauer schreibt über web 2.0, medien.kultur.technik und objects trouvés im www on March 11th, 2007 at 10:53 am - Permalink

  34. [...] σαλόνι να κάνει όλες τις βρομοδουλειές, να κατεβάζει torrents, να κάνει τον FTP Server, τον File Server αλλά και την τηλεόραση [...]

    Μα καλά… » Ένα Mac Mini να με υπηρετεί! on March 22nd, 2007 at 2:39 am - Permalink

  35. [...] = illegal? - Nein, nicht immer. NewTeeVee stellt zehn Legale Torrent Seiten vor (inkl. freien Spiele, Filmen, (Audio-)Bücher und [...]

    Lost in Programming » kurz & bündig on April 2nd, 2007 at 3:00 pm - Permalink

  36. [...] Free-content torrents Filed under: Uncategorized — 0ddn1x @ 2007-04-06 21:37:15 +0000 http://newteevee.com/2007/03/03/ten-sites-for-free-and-legal-torrents/ [...]

    Free-content torrents « 0ddn1x: tricks with *nix on April 6th, 2007 at 2:37 pm - Permalink

  37. [...] NewTeeVee » Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents (tags: bittorrent torrents legal p2p music) Post a comment — Trackback URI RSS 2.0 feed for these comments This entry (permalink) was posted on Monday, March 5, 2007, at 9:23 amby delicious and categorized in mio delicious. [...]

    carlo beccaria - blog / links for 2007-03-05 on April 9th, 2007 at 4:45 am - Permalink

  38. Check out FreeLegalTorrents.com. It is a fantastic up and coming site, and torrent tracker for legal and 100% free torrents.

    Harry Banner on April 18th, 2007 at 1:30 pm - Permalink

  39. You missed out http://www.freelegaltorrents.com

    Alexis on May 4th, 2007 at 8:35 pm - Permalink

  40. this free and legal great site for BollyWood files

    Amit on May 9th, 2007 at 4:55 pm - Permalink

  41. http://bollytorrents.net its free and best site for bollywood

    Amit on May 9th, 2007 at 4:56 pm - Permalink

  42. Plz Help me, if anybody have desitorrent id. and the want to help me, then Plz invite me, i want an id. in desitorrent.

                                                       jitraj
    jitraj on May 14th, 2007 at 8:34 am - Permalink

  43. I have just finished up a website called PeerIt.com. This is a legal torrent site where you can sell torrents of stuff you own. Along with how much you are selling your torrent for, you list how much of the proceeds you are willing to share (payout). For each sale, you payout what you have listed as your share amount, to those who helped distribute your file, according to how much they have helped. For more details, checkout http://www.peerit.com/learn/

    Brian on May 15th, 2007 at 10:16 pm - Permalink

  44. come join our growing site bollytorrents.net its free to join download free mives music nad much more

    Bollytorrents.net on May 19th, 2007 at 8:48 pm - Permalink

  45. You the Best!!

    Axel on May 22nd, 2007 at 12:58 pm - Permalink

  46. I offer legal BitTorrent downloads of music licensed under Creative Commons and similar licenses at http://www.oggfrog.com/music

    I invite artists looking for an affordable way to get their music downloads hosted to email me at torrents@oggfrog.com There’s no charge to host your torrents.

    Rippit the Ogg Frog on July 30th, 2007 at 6:10 pm - Permalink

  47. I couldn’t understand some parts of this article , but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.

    Daniel on August 11th, 2007 at 6:19 pm - Permalink

  48. [...] NewTeeVee: Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents [...]

    neunetz.com » Übersicht über BitTorrent on August 19th, 2007 at 5:15 am - Permalink

  49. http://www.gameupdates.org

    Torrent site with all legal gaming material as demos, patches and games. All torrents are seeded with dedicated seeders.

    Tomas on September 2nd, 2007 at 11:56 pm - Permalink

  50. I notice that http://www.legaltorrents.com/ is a dead link!

    freewaydog on October 17th, 2007 at 12:33 pm - Permalink

  51. I really had no idea that there were any truly “legit” torrent sites in existence. All the crackdowns on illegal sites must finally be paying off.

    trademark registration on November 27th, 2007 at 10:39 am - Permalink

  52. [...] זכויות יוצרים! ישנם גם אתרי טורנט חוקיים להורדה, ראה: Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents זיהוי וחסימת שיתוף קבצים. אם היו אומרים לכם הספק [...]

    המדריך המהיר לטורנט והורדות « AudioPill Hebrew on December 12th, 2007 at 3:45 pm - Permalink

  53. [...] Ten Sites for Free and Legal Torrents by Janko Roettgers, published March 3 [...]

    NewTeeVee’s Top Posts of 2007 « NewTeeVee on December 31st, 2007 at 4:01 pm - Permalink

  54. visita este sitio… ===>>> http://www.dante19.es.tl

    dante19 on January 19th, 2008 at 1:45 pm - Permalink

  55. [...] Tricks to Access BitTorrent in the Office Getting your favored Creative Commons-licensed movies via BitTorrent is much more fun if you use your company’s T1 line instead of your slow-poke [...]

    5 Tricks to Access BitTorrent in the Office « NewTeeVee on January 26th, 2008 at 12:00 am - Permalink

  56. [...] your favored Creative Commons-licensed movies via BitTorrent is much more fun if you use your company’s T1 line instead of your slow-poke and [...]

    Mind Matters » 5 Tricks to Access BitTorrent in the Office on January 28th, 2008 at 7:34 pm - Permalink

  57. [...] your favored Creative Commons-licensed movies via BitTorrent is much more fun if you use your company’s T1 line instead of your slow-poke and [...]

    5 Tricks to Access BitTorrent in the Office — internetpitt on February 1st, 2008 at 5:56 am - Permalink

  58. Good list, also don’t forget that http://www.wortharchiving.com has legal torrents too.

    missedon on February 3rd, 2008 at 7:42 pm - Permalink

  59. This is not a torrent site but it offers family-friendly vinyl recordings from the mid forties through the early fifties in legal torrent zip files.

    http://www.kiddierecords.com

    Cathy on February 6th, 2008 at 1:59 pm - Permalink

  60. [...] sort of sites substance jural torrents seems to be ontogeny and growing: Recently launched Wortharchiving.com aims to deposit open field [...]

    Wortharchiving: Another site for legal torrents | Fresh Web 2.0 News on February 8th, 2008 at 10:58 pm - Permalink

  61. wow, thats a massive list. I didnt knew that torrents can alos beomce legal and free

    Advanced Torrent Search Engine on February 18th, 2008 at 10:30 pm - Permalink

  62. legal schmeagle, I want illegal

    legal shmealge on February 21st, 2008 at 11:07 am - Permalink

  63. General Torrents. Movies, music, tv shows, games, ebooks,software, etc.

    Packetoid.com on February 22nd, 2008 at 8:59 am - Permalink

  64. quickly please

    ihlamur altinda on March 20th, 2008 at 8:49 am - Permalink

  65. [...] kann man noch hier mehr darüber lesen und Links finden - auf [...]

    Sonnenwald » Torrents mal ganz ohne Bauchschmerzen… on March 27th, 2008 at 3:04 am - Permalink

  66. This one is great http://MeTorrents.com , I just recently found it and subscribe to it everyday

    Sonny on March 27th, 2008 at 4:49 pm - Permalink

  67. [...] Legaltorrents.com, one of the oldest and most prominent destinations for legal BitTorrent downloads, is relaunching today, and its new version offers a bunch of new features for users and content [...]

    More Free and Legal Torrents: Legaltorrents.com Relaunches « NewTeeVee on March 31st, 2008 at 1:00 am - Permalink

  68. [...] NewTeeVee: Legaltorrents.com relaunches, now get more free & legal torrents. [...]

    GigaNET AM: Green Homes & Open Source Branding - GigaOM on March 31st, 2008 at 8:25 am - Permalink

  69. [...] NewTeeVee: Legaltorrents.com relaunches, now get more free & legal torrents. [...]

    - GigaNET AM: Green Homes & Open Source Brands on April 7th, 2008 at 1:54 pm - Permalink

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