Thread: what's up with the torrent sites?

EZTV and demonoid have been down since yesterday.

Not a Thai issue.
They won't open in proxies either.

Is there something sinister going on.

I can't bear the thought of having to subscribe to UBC again.

oh, so its not just me! good.

I just tried Demonoid using Tor and it doesn't show.

Something funny is going on...

Yes, some of them are working.
mininova and isohunt are ok.
I love eztv and demonoid though.

bad news on the way

TorrentSpy begins weeding out copyright content
http://dw.com.com/redir?edId=3&destU...1&tag=nefd.top

TorrentSpy begins weeding out copyright content
Posted by Greg Sandoval

TorrentSpy, the torrent-file search engine accused by Hollywood of aiding copyright violators, plans to remove links from its search results to pirated content using a new filtering system.

FileRights is an automated filtering system created by some of TorrentSpy's founders, including Justin Bunnell, according to a statement released Monday. The technology uses "hash" values to automatically remove links to infringing works from search engines that subscribe to the service.

The move comes as TorrentSpy fights a lawsuit brought against it last year by the major film studios. TorrentSpy suffered a legal blow earlier this month when the judge hearing the case ordered the company to begin tracking user activity.

Jeez, don't you guys read this forum
https://teakdoor.com/computer-news/15...er-threat.html

Their hosting provider has been busted!

TorrentSpy begins weeding out copyright content
Posted by Greg Sandoval

TorrentSpy, the torrent-file search engine accused by Hollywood of aiding copyright violators, plans to remove links from its search results to pirated content using a new filtering system.

FileRights is an automated filtering system created by some of TorrentSpy's founders, including Justin Bunnell, according to a statement released Monday. The technology uses "hash" values to automatically remove links to infringing works from search engines that subscribe to the service.

The move comes as TorrentSpy fights a lawsuit brought against it last year by the major film studios. TorrentSpy suffered a legal blow earlier this month when the judge hearing the case ordered the company to begin tracking user activity.

The privately held company has appealed the decision. Should it lose, Ira Rothken, TorrentSpy's attorney, has said the company would likely shut down access in the U.S. before giving up information about users.

In an interview, Rothken acknowledged that using hash marks to identify copyright content is not foolproof. If a file is altered then the system may not recognize it.

Filtering doesn't necessarily mean an end to the hostilities between Hollywood and the torrent search engines. In 2001, file-sharing system, Napster, launched a filtering system that failed to thwart illegal file sharing enough to satisfy the music industry or the courts. U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel called their efforts, which according to some accounts only caught half of the illegal files being shared, "disgraceful." The judge eventually ordered Napster to stay shut down until it could block all infringing materials.

It should be noted that illegal file doesn't occur at TorrentSpy or the other torrent engines. People use these sites to locate torrent files that can be downloaded via the file-sharing program BitTorrent. In the lawsuit filed by the film industry in Feb. 2006, TorrentSpy is accused of being a powerful tool for those who pirate intellectual property.

FileRights works like most video filters. Copyright owners handover information about their films or TV shows and the system detects any files containing unauthorized copies. Links to those files are automatically removed.

Any copyright owner, Web site or search engine is welcome to subscribe to the service for free, according to the company's statement. According to Rothken, one of TorrentSpy's competitors, IsoHunt, has agreed to use the filtering system as well.

"With FileRights we used the community networking power of the Web to automate and aggregate the entire copyright filtration process," Bunnell said. "Torrentspy now uses the FileRights cooperative filtering process to filter search results on its popular search engine."

Topics:
Media

............

Double post as the first one sank into oblivion.

BitTorrent Sites Safe Haven Under Threat
Written by Ernesto BitTorrent Sites Safe Haven Under Threat | TorrentFreak

On June 23, 2007 Leaseweb, the ISP of some of the largest BitTorrent sites like Torrentspy, BTjunkie and Demonoid was forced to take down everlasting.nu, a relatively small BitTorrent site. The outcome of the lawsuit initiated by the Dutch anti-piracy outfit Brein could spell trouble for some of the key players in the BitTorrent landscape.

In response to this decision (Dutch link) several BitTorrent admins, who prefer not to be named, already announced that they have plans to leave Leaseweb. Others are setting up backup locations in case their site s are targeted. An admin of one of the bigger BitTorrent sites said:

“It looks like we’re not going to be very safe anymore on Leaseweb, we are putting backups in place on another location, just in case.”
This Thursday, the Amsterdam court concluded that everlasting.nu structurally facilitated copyright infringement by allowing their users to download copyrighted content via torrents hosted on their site.

Leaseweb’s lawyers argued that there was no evidence that these torrents really pointed to copyrighted works. They referred to the fact that rights holders often upload fake files themselves and that the name of a .torrent file is not sufficient to prove that copyrighted works are being distributed. Brein responded to this argument by stating that everlasting.nu then would be a very customer unfriendly BitTorrent site if this was the case, and the judge agreed with this.
At the end of the hearing the court decided that Leaseweb has to take down everlasting.nu and hand over the name and address of the owner. Additionally, Leaseweb is obliged to take down everlasting.nu, in case the site returns in the near future.
It still remains unclear what made the judge decide that everlasting is facilitating copyright infringement and how this will affect the position of all the other BitTorrent sites hosted by Leaseweb. The fact that everlasting has their own BitTorrent tracker was not used as an argument in the decision. So does this mean that hosting .torrent files is illegal now?
Brein sure thinks so, they already announced another lawsuit against Leaseweb to take down another BitTorrent site. At this point it is not sure whether this is one of the big players like Torrentspy, BTjunkie and Demonoid, or yet again a smaller BitTorrent site.
To be continued.

Originally Posted by DrB0b

Double post as the first one sank into oblivion.

It has something to do with the popularity of the OP.
You can ask me to post something for you next time Doc.

oh, i see. bye bye.

This is dreadful news though.
I get 90% of my entertainment through the torrent sites.

They are a Godsend when you don't have any decent foreign tv.

^I'm sure there will be other ways, don't start crying yet

Originally Posted by DrB0b

Jeez, don't you guys read this forum

That still doesn't tell me why I have to use Tor to get access to lots of sites today.

piratebay and most others are open for business, and utorrent's still downloading so the trackers are up and running, whatever relevance that has if any...