June 22, 2008 by sharky
Ever wondered if it could be possible to determine the value of the "warez" found on a private tracker? In actuality, the answer is simple! Zip, zero, nil. "No files you see here are hosted on the server." - it is you and I who host those files, not the tracker. However, if you were to look at it through the warped lenses of MPAA / RIAA goggles, perhaps a value could be ascertained.
Truth be told, there’s no accurate way to conduct this without actually looking at the cost of each and every individual torrent listed - I’m not about to do this. But if we can derive the average cost of each item for each category, a tracker’s net worth could be simulated. The data shouldn’t be taken seriously - it’s meant to be fun; furthermore, it’s probably not even close to being accurate.
The Warez
Movies — $20
To derive the average cost of a movie we took a look at BestBuy.com, and averaged out the total number of available releases and the mean cost of each. This includes ‘bargain bin’ specials, Blu-Rays, HDs, DVD-Rs and BoxSets - all of the same things found on any tracker. We determined that the average cost to be somewhere around $20 - no surprise here.
TV Shows — $2
Again, we headed back to BestBuy for these stats. To calculate the average cost of a single TV episode, we needed to find the average price of a TV Season, and divide this by the average number of episodes. We found that the mean cost of one Season to be around $40. Now, if we factor in that there’s an ‘average’ of 20 episodes per season (sometimes higher, sometimes lower) then we could suggest a price for one episode is $2. This is the same price as a single episode purchased at iTunes.
Software — $167
This is much more difficult to determine. Software prices range from $5 to $5,000 (or more) and depending on the tracker, a median cost of the offered torrents may tend to lean towards the higher end of the spectrum. We tried a Google search for "average software price" and "average cost of software" but there’s just no data to be found. So to conduct our own median software cost, we used the data from NewEgg.com which presently lists 2,867 available applications for sale. By exercising some basic mathematics, we multiplied each mean price category by the number of results in each, and then divided the total cost of all software by the number of results (2,867). We calculated an average software cost of $167. Remember that this is completely arbitrary; however, we needed some sort of benchmark.
Games — $45
This includes PC games & console games. The average cost of a PC game is about $35, while console games tend to be a little higher at $55. We averaged this out to $45.
Music CDs — $12
If you went out and purchased 100 music Compact Disks at HMV, you’d probably be hard pressed to find an average price of $14 each. However, CDs at Amazon are usually less expensive, and most full albums on iTunes are just $10. We ballparked this to be about $12.
An Example - TorrentLeech
Here’s a look at the torrents listed at TL. This is the model in which we used for all trackers:
- — Movies include DVD-R, DVDRips, XXX and Music DVDs. Movie ‘packs’ were counted separately as 4 movies.
- — TV ‘packs / boxsets’ were counted separately as 20 episodes each, assuming an average TV pack consists of one season.
- — Music ‘packs’ were calculated to contain an average of 60 songs (or 5 albums) and counted separately from Music CDs.
| Category | # of Torrents | Avg. Cost | Total Cost |
| Movies | 3,757 | $20 | $65,140 |
| Movie Packs | 77 | $80 | $6,160 |
| TV Episodes | 3,695 | $2 | $7,390 |
| TV Packs | 687 | $40 | $27,480 |
| Software | 1,449 | $167 | $241,983 |
| Games | 1,466 | $45 | $65,970 |
| Music CDs | 1,007 | $12 | $12,084 |
| MP3 Packs | 100 | $60 | $6,000 |
| Total Worth: | $432,207 |
There you have it: The total value of all the warez in TL’s 12,600 torrents is calculated at $432,207 USD. We figure this is graciously low-balled, as we didn’t include miscellaneous things such as ebooks/mags, audiobooks, PDA apps.
ScT
This should prove to be a little more fruitful - ScT has many more torrents and packs than TL. The 0Day software packs were arbitrarily counted as $1,000 (although this is absurdly low). ScT Movie packs were counted as 6 movies each. Music packs contain an average of 215 songs, or 20 CDs.
| Category | # of Torrents | Avg. Cost | Total Cost |
| Movies | 6,748 | $20 | $134,960 |
| Movie Packs | 77 | $120 | $20,760 |
| TV Episodes | 8,290 | $2 | $16,580 |
| TV Packs | 621 | $40 | $24,840 |
| Software | 1,704 | $167 | $284,568 |
| 0Day Packs | 36 | $1,000 | $36,000 |
| Games | 976 | $45 | $43,920 |
| Music CDs | 2,464 | $12 | $29,568 |
| MP3 Packs | 205 | $240 | $49,200 |
| Total Worth: | $640,396 |
$640,396 for ScT - not bad for one tracker!
SCC
We were surprised by the lack of monetary value at SCC. For a tracker that attempts to remain in the shadows, they sure don’t have much to hide!
| Category | # of Torrents | Avg. Cost | Total Cost |
| Movies | 1,152 | $20 | $23,040 |
| TV Episodes | 3,249 | $2 | $6,498 |
| Software | 44 | $167 | $7,348 |
| Games | 261 | $45 | $11,745 |
| Music CDs | — | — | — |
| Total Worth: | $48,631 |
XtremeZone.ro
A decent tracker with a little bit of everything, including some great packs.
| Category | # of Torrents | Avg. Cost | Total Cost |
| Movies | 2,901 | $20 | $58,020 |
| Movie Packs | 105 | $120 | $12,600 |
| TV Episodes | 265 | $2 | $530 |
| Software | 839 | $167 | $140,113 |
| Game Packs | 20 | $450 | $9,000 |
| Games | 1,009 | $45 | $45,405 |
| Music CDs | 1,033 | $12 | $12,396 |
| MP3 Packs | 30 | $200 | $6,000 |
| Total Worth: | $283,744 |
What.cd
What.cd would seem to be easy to calculate - it’s mostly just music. But there are so many CD Boxsets to add to the equation (which we averaged out to 50 CDs each), and everything is duplicated in V0, FLAC etc. (which we aptly counted multiple formats as separate torrents).
| Category | # of Torrents | Avg. Cost | Total Cost |
| Music CDs | 126,780 | $12 | $1,521,360 |
| Boxsets | 250 | $600 | $150,000 |
| Total Worth: | $1,671,360 |
Who would have thought there’d be over $1.6 million worth of music at What.cd! Assuming you were able to download every torrent available and blank media CDs cost around $0.25 each, it’d cost you $34,820 USD to burn all 139,280 CDs. Not including the cases.
Other Trackers
Here’s a simplified look at the values of some other prominent trackers:
| Karagarga | 24,820 movie torrents | $496,400 |
| Waffles.fm | 150,000 music torrents | $1,800,000 |
| TehConnection | 1,200 movie torrents | $24,000 |
| iPWN Music | 837 music torrents | $10,044 |
| Cinemageddon | 11,000 movies | $220,000 |
| TheDVDClub | 1,315 movies | $26,300 |
| Blackcat’s Games | 6,537 games | $294,165 |
| BitShock Games | 333 games | $14,985 |
| RoDVD v3.0 | 362 movies | $7,240 |
| Libble | 9,118 music torrents | $109,416 |
| STMusic | 36,860 music torrents | $442,320 |
| TranceBits | 2,800 (including ‘packs’) | $33,600 |
| TennisTorrents | 318 torrents | WTF who cares |
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