a guide to private trackers

there are three types of torrent trackers:

• public trackers: the most popular torrent websites, available to everyone, mostly general trackers: The Pirate Bay, 1337x, RARBG (now dead), etc. (these URLs may be blocked in your country, in that case use Unblockit or proxies found online)
• semi-private trackers: not an official term, basically trackers that requires signing up to either download or upload. the two main examples are RuTracker, where you need to sign up to download content, or Nyaa, where you need to sign up to upload content. since there's no seeding requirement or ratio, and you can download from both without signing up (if you don't have an account on RuTracker you can still download but with magnet links instead of torrent files), they are basically considered public trackers. some trackers are also considered semi-private because you can sign-up freely to download files, but they have seeding/ratio requirements, like the (shady) french tracker YggTorrent.
• private trackers: invite-only torrent websites, often specialized in something (tv, movies, music, games, books, etc.). they have strict rules on how to download and seed content, for how long, what kind of content you can upload, what you can't do, etc.

advantages of private trackers over public trackers include:

• download speed: private trackers encourage their members to seed for a long time; if not they would get warned or banned for hit&running (the act of leeching a torrent without seeding it after). plus, since the private tracker ratio requirements model is very competitive, a lot of people use seedboxes (servers with a lot of storage and high network speeds) to seed faster than anyone with a home connection and get more points, since the BitTorrent protocol prioritizes higher seeding speeds.
• torrent retention: since private trackers enforce rules that encourages long-term seeding, you'll find seeders for pretty much everything including obscure content, whereas on public trackers like TPB there are a lot of obscure torrents that are considered "dead" as they have no seeders.
• content: like said before, private trackers contain a lot of obscure content that you wouldn't find (or find dead torrents) on public trackers, ensuring that they never get lost from the internet.
• quality control: on specialized trackers, they have very strict rules on the content quality, format, etc. this makes sure you get good transcodes on music trackers, good encodes on movie/tv trackers, retail quality books on ebook trackers, etc. members and staff review every torrent so shit content gets deleted, and trumping rules make sure you get only one good, approved-source of content.
• security: since private trackers are pretty obscure, and copyright trolls or public authority focus on popular public sites rather than private ones you can be sure you won't get a letter from your ISP after downloading a popular movie.

before reading anything, please ask yourself this question before starting with private trackers:
why should i join a private tracker?

you should join private trackers if:

• you search for (or have) obscure content, that cannot be found on public trackers or even in ddl sites.
• you want superior and consistent encodes/transcodes/rips compared to those on public trackers.
• you have a lot of free space on your hard drives and a good internet connection: superior quality comes at a price of needing more space and more bandwidth to seed.
• you acknowledge that your IP, email, snatchlist, maybe your password (because some sites store it in clear) could fall into the wrong hands.
• you don't want to get fucked in the ass by the RIAA or public authorities fighting piracy.

on the other hand, you shouldn't join private trackers if:

• you have mainstream tastes; everything you need can be found easily on public trackers, DDL, Soulseek, DC++, eDonkey, deemix, etc.
• quality of content doesn't bother you (especially with tv/movies), you don't want to bother searching everywhere for a clean encode, you just want to watch a movie.
• you are here just to download, not seed (maybe because you don't have good bandwidth nor a lot of hard drive space).
• you don't want your IP, email, etc. handled wrongly by fat russians.
• you use a VPN so you don't get fucked by public authorities or enterprises.

there are two types of trackers: specialized and general. general trackers will serve the majority of your needs, and the bigger, the more niche content there should be. the most popular trackers are general, for example: The Pirate Bay, 1337x, RuTracker, etc. but because of their broad scope they will never match niche trackers in their particular area of speciality. the majority of private trackers are specialized, but some are general, meaning that they're like 1337x but more private, better quality and maybe contain a lot more niche content since a lot of content from specialized trackers are often mirrored on those.
the following table is a general consensus on what is considered the best tracker in each specialized field:

(ms) means mainstream content, (obs) means obscure content.
trackers marked with an asterisk (*) means they are the best in their category by a significant margin.
green trackers are the cabal, the holy trackers: HDB, PTP, BTN and RED. they are the objectively best and most reputed trackers in the torrent community. they rule the torrent world, literally. fuck up with one of them and they will gang up on your ass and permaban you everywhere.
yellow trackers are trackers affiliated with the cabal: if the cabal decides to ban you, you're also getting permabanned on these trackers. they don't get as much exposure compared to the cabal trackers.
red trackers are shady trackers, essentially the IPT mafia. they are known for shitty practices like trading accounts, DDOSing other trackers, encouraging pay2leech and storing passwords in clear. they are the cabal worst enemies, so don't expect using your ratio proofs on those trackers to enter cabal-associated ones. they're useless if you're already in cabal trackers. if a tracker proposes you to pay around 15 bucks to enter, it's probably associated with IPT. don't give them any money.
trackers with no color aren't known to cooperate with the cabal (this can change), but aren't known for shitty practices either.
trackers with a † sign means they are dead.

here's a list of connected trackers (of the same family):

IPT Mafia: Deildu, IPTorrents, SceneTime, Speed.CD, TorrentDay
AvistaZ family: AnimeZ (now AnimeTorrents), AvistaZ, CinemaZ, ExoticaZ, PrivateHD
.click Network: TheEmpire, TheGeeks, TheOccult, ThePlace, TheShow
HD-Torrents: Gay-Torrents (do not open this in front of people), HD-Torrents, PlayBits (dead), SportsCult

now, the question is "how do i get into private trackers?". here are the main ways you can get into those:

• open registrations: this is the easiest way. either to start a decent userbase or to get more people to access those websites, some trackers open their registrations, meaning everyone can come in and start their way up. out of all trackers that propose open registration, some are permanent, like RuTracker, but the rest of them are temporary, either for events or for other reasons. the most notable trackers with temporary open registrations are the AvistaZ family (except PrivateHD), TorrentLeech (there is one currently following the death of RARBG), and TorrentSeeds. you can check for open trackers on r/OpenSignups, or OpenTrackers.
• pay2pirate: some trackers can invite you for a fee (around 15 bucks). this is done to prevent potential cheaters from abusing the system, since breaking the rules will delete their account, and their money will be lost. all trackers with pay2pirate are low tier, especially IPT which is really shady. no tracker is worth paying to enter, all of them can be accessed easily with user invites.
• applications: some trackers have an application form, accessible for either new people to the tracker scene or people already in some trackers. they have different requirements: good ratio proofs on other trackers, what you can provide to the tracker, or actual interest if you are new.
• interviews: a few trackers have an interview system, basically you need to go on an IRC channel and answer questions to a staff member. this is a way to prevent banned members to just pass the interview again and get a new account, since they require you to be on your home connection, and to provide a Ookla Speedtest link.
  
  • Redacted.ch/RED interview: the most popular, and the best way to get into private trackers. the interview is extensive and is about technical audio stuff. they require you to study prep material before passing. it's easy to fail if you don't take it seriously. and you only have 3 tries.
    
  • MyAnonamouse/MAM interview: this isn't as complicated as RED, they have open interviews every weekend, and questions are mostly about the rules. you won't pass or fail so don't worry.
    
  • BakaBT/BBT interview: kinda like MyAnonamouse, it's a 3 minute chat about the rules (see here).
• invite forums: once you've established a good standing on some trackers, you will be able to access more restrictive ones via invite forums. you'll need a high enough user class like Power User or Elite to access the invite forums, meaning uploads, account age and upload ratio requirements.

introducing Redacted/RED: the best private tracker to start

Redacted.ch, also known as RED, is the most popular and best music tracker since the death of What.CD. it's the fourth cabal tracker. this is the tracker you need to join if you're starting with private trackers. the only way (other than invite forums on other trackers) to enter RED is to pass the interview. it's conducted like an online exam: you need to study the prep material beforehand. they will ask you to provide an Ookla Speedtest link so they can have your IP, then to close everything except IRC and screenshot your desktop before starting. the prep site is monitored, so if you access it during the interview, they'll stop the interview and ask you to admit to cheating. don't lie, otherwise they will permaban you. if you want to cheat, just save the interview prep as a pdf and open it just after sending the screenshot (or print it). don't fuck up the spectrums and transcode questions, these are the most important.

if you take more than 3 minutes to answer a question, they will ask you if you cheated. whether or not you did cheat, just say yes. don't try to argue with them, otherwise they will permaban your IP.

now that you're on RED, you'll need to reach the Elite user class to access the invite forums. the requirements for the Elite user class are 50 uploads, 3 months account age, and 100GB of upload. the first two are easy, just upload FLACs from Deezer using deemix. having 100GB is hard, since RED is very competitive and a lot of users have seedboxes to get priority seeding, so you'll be stuck with 1.00 upload ratio on all of your trackers. completing requests can also grant you a few GBs of upload ratio.

the goal now is to join the trackers you need using the invite forums. here's a graph that shows you the pathways between two trackers, just choose RED in first and whatever you want next. accessing other cabal trackers (HDB, PTP and BTN) via RED is possible but hard. the first one you should target is PTP. if you can't, try joining other good Movies/TV/HD trackers.

now, here rules you should respect if you want to survive in private trackers:

• do not cheat: most cheaters on private trackers end up banned along their entire invite tree. cheating basically means throttling your connecting while seeding a lot of torrents to farm bonus points or using plugins that manipulate the torrent swarm (for example the Premiere plugin on Deluge). if anyone notices one of those you'll be in trouble.
• do not beg for invites: a lot of people (especially on 4chan /ptg/ threads) will report to tracker staff all people giving their email addresses while begging invites. plus, a lot of tracker staff watch those threads everyday and will ban anyone who gets or gives an invite. if you accept an invite you begged for, you will lose any chance of ever having a legitimate account. same on Reddit, and tracker-related forums.
• do not buy/trade invites: like begging, but worse. tracker staff hate this. if they catch you buying or trading invites, you and your entire invite tree will be banned from all associated trackers and even others (because trackers communicate). you'll lose your money and your chances of getting in legitimately.
• keep a low profile: you're here to download, not chat with other people. never interact with anyone on the forums, not even on the presentation threads.
• don't confront staff: always assume they are right, never try to argue with them, even if they're wrong.

notable private trackers:

Movies/TV/Anime

• AB - AnimeBytes: anime, manga, live action, soundtracks, etc. the best of its kind by a wide margin. ASSOCIATED
• AT - AnimeTorrents: anime counterpart of AvistaZ. open signups sometimes.
• ANT - Anthelion: general movies. shit tracker but easy to join.
• ACM - AsianCinema: untouched disc images and remuxes of asian content.
• AZ - AvistaZ: asian movies/TV content. the best tracker for this kind of general content. open signups sometimes.
• BBT - BakaBT: old anime/manga tracker. has IRC signups. good for old content to complement Nyaa.
• BTN - BroadcasTheNet: ratioless general TV tracker, the best of its kind so far. CABAL
• CG - Cinemageddon: movies with no IMDB pages, or < 1000 reviews. sister site of TVV.
• CZ - CinemaZ: obscure cinema counterpart of AvistaZ. open signups sometimes.
• KG - Karagarga: a tracker for obscure movies. very large archive, couple this with PTP. ASSOCIATED
• MTV - MoreThanTV: ratioless tracker for Movies and TV. a good alternative to BTN.
• NBL - Nebulance: sister site of ANT. still shit.
• PTP - PassThePopcorn: general movie tracker, the best of its kind so far. CABAL
• SC - SecretCinema: ratioless tracker for obscure or weird movies and TV. users often fill with other content from other trackers.
• TiK - Cinematik: untouched releases of obscure content. very difficult to join. ASSOCIATED
• TVV - TV-Vault: TV-only content that finished airing at least 5 years ago. has a lot of content not found elsewhere. no recruiting.

HD

• BHD - BeyondHD: very good HD tracker. very fast to get remuxes. good for 4K content.
• BLU - Blutopia: similar in quality to BHD. has a lot more obscure content.
• HDB - HDBits: general HD tracker with movies/TV and porn. the best tracker of it's kind. the biggest HD archive and largest population of good encoders. CABAL
• HDT - HD-Torrents: low quality HD tracker, easy to join. ran for profit, has download requirements (or ban).

Music

• EXIGO - ExigoMusic: ratioless autism music tracker. joined for e-peen mainly, avoid.
• JPS - JPopsuki: music tracker for asian content. invites are given out like candy.
• OPS - Orpheus: music tracker with a friendlier economy than RED. archive is smaller than RED but doesn't have the junk uploads RED users upload for userclass.
• RED - Redacted: the successor to WCD. the best music tracker. controversial seedbox economy. has +2 million torrents. CABAL

Other

i'll finish this shit later.