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TorrentBits.org and SuprNova.org Go Dark 1260

Numerous people wrote in with similar stories: "Without providing a reason, both of these sites have shut down: SuprNova.org and TorrentBits.org." We mentioned a few days ago that the MPAA was going after Bittorrent sites.
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TorrentBits.org and SuprNova.org Go Dark

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  • Exeem (Score:4, Interesting)

    by gunpowda ( 825571 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:50PM (#11130933)
    Exeem [slashdot.org], anybody?
  • by tkr2099 ( 656707 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:51PM (#11130947)
    But I just bought my suprnova.org t-shirt!
  • Suprnova Mirror (Score:5, Informative)

    by Faust7 ( 314817 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:53PM (#11130956) Homepage
    Bi-Torrent.com [bi-torrent.com]
    • Re:Suprnova Mirror (Score:4, Informative)

      by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19, 2004 @02:56PM (#11131832)
      Unfortunately, without the suprnova.org site to generate the torrents, I doubt that will stay alive for too long. I also doubt it will get any new torrents, and the ones it has will probably go stale.
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:53PM (#11130957)
    Suprnova.org itself says:

    Greetings everybody, As you have probably noticed, we have often had downtimes. This was because it was so hard to keep this site up! But now we are sorry to inform you all, that SuprNova is closing down for good in the way that we all know it. We do not know if SuprNova is going to return, but it is certainly not going to be hosting any more torrent links. We are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything. Thank you all that helped us, by donating mirrors or something else, by uploading and seeding files, by helping people out on IRC and on forum, by spreading the word about SuprNova.org. It is a sad day for all of us! Please visit SuprNova.org every once in a while to get the latest news on what is happening and if there is anything new to report on. As we wish to maintain the nice comunity that we created, we are keppig forums and irc servers open. Thank you all and Goodbye! sloncek & the rest of the SuprNova Team

  • by NightWulf ( 672561 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:55PM (#11130978)
    Is it possible they brought their web pages down on purpose in order to create a little hype and maybe some panic amongst Torrent users. Then in a week or two they will release that new P2P file sharing program the have had in beta for a while? Seems like a good enough marketing campaign as a lot of Torrent users are students, or kids, and Slashdot may not be their source of information, though this story did find itself on the front page.
  • by mcnut ( 712202 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:55PM (#11130982) Homepage
    You'll read that they have both given up and shut their doors to torrent hosting. I don't want to jump to conclusions, but when two of the biggest torrent link sites go down very close in time to one another, I'm guessing there was a sweep of cease and decist letters. Guess its true about the "The bigger they are" hypothesis
  • Reply from Admin? (Score:5, Informative)

    by vossman77 ( 300689 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:56PM (#11130988) Homepage
    Taken from here [dslreports.com]
    -------
    AT LAST!
    I've got a chance to reply to some of these rumours and wild speculation!
    (YES - this is going to be one of the Puppy's long boring posts,
    but if you don't read it all, don't bother replying - NO CRIB NOTES AVAILABLE)

    Firstly, I have to say,
    I am extremely dissapointed with the response from some of the members of the TB community.
    Scare-mongering and spreading rumours is not the most helpful thing to do in a situation like this!
    I know everyone is unhappy about it, but don't burn your bridges with insults or by playing the blame game!

    Secondly,
    I am extremely delighted with the reponse form some of the members of the TB community.
    Members like DeeJee, and Warlok, who are trying to keep us all together,
    to get the correct information out. There are probably more that I don't know about yet....
    and all those working behind the scenes.... Thanks guys

    OK lets get down to it.
    A few facts:-
    - I am extremely sad to report, that I have just found out that, TB, as we know it, is DEAD.
    - The full reason why Rb choose to close down is still not yet known
    - Rb was "on holiday" when the site went down, and is in no position to put it back up again,
    or explain anything, until he gets back
    - There was a Ddos attack - After the site went down!

    One more fact:-
    Nobody, REPEAT, nobody, except Redbeard knows what Redbeard is planning to do.

    Keep watching torrentbits.org for a statement.
    It's the ONLY place to get the full facts
  • No worries (Score:3, Informative)

    by voya ( 582627 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:56PM (#11130990)
    Use www.lokitorrent.com [lokitorrent.com] from now on. It's just as good as suprnova.org was.
    Also, check out it's sister site: www.mufftorrent.com [mufftorrent.com]
  • Bye bye SuprNova (Score:5, Interesting)

    by colonslashslash ( 762464 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:58PM (#11131006) Homepage
    I saw earlier in SuprNova IRC that the topic stated:

    Now talking in #suprnova.org
    Topic is 'SuprNova is from today on DOWN. It will not be returning in any way that we know it now. We are very sorry for this, but it is not possible any other way. Thank you all for all your help! SuprNova crew '
    * Set by sloncek on Sun Dec 19 16:08:10

    I knew it was serious as sloncek is the owner of SN and doesn't fool about with the topics much (unless its April 1st).

    The thing that affects me most is that we at TLMP [tlm-project.org] get a large portion of our traffic for Linux ISO torrents from SuprNova's listings.

    Anyway, there are other sites, and much like when SR was taken down a couple of years ago, one of them will likely take the traffic and fill the void. Where there is demand, there is supply.

    Anyone have any more information as to why this happened? Is it anything to do with the developement of Exeem? I can't see it being as simple as the MPAA taking legal action, as AFAIK they have little influence in Slovenia where it is hosted, and they have whethered alot of copyright group's actions fine until now....

    • Re:Bye bye SuprNova (Score:5, Interesting)

      by polyiguana ( 76056 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @06:19PM (#11133187)
      For starters, "sloncek"'s identity was essentially revealed by the Slovakian magazine Mladina [mladina.si].

      It gave his initials (A and P), the high school he went to (which meant which town he lived in), and basically everything short of an online map to his house. In a small country like Slovenia, if the authorities know who the culprit is, it's very easy for them to put some pressure on "sloncek" to make him go away so that little Slovenia won't be declared a member of the Axis of Evil. I doubt that sloncek is going to jail, but he might have decided that cooperating is better than having his life made hell for the next few years like DVD Jon.

  • by __aaitqo8496 ( 231556 ) * on Sunday December 19, 2004 @12:58PM (#11131007) Journal
    the irc channel (#suprnova.org) on irc.suprnova.org is announcing that suprnova won't be coming back online
  • by maskedbishounen ( 772174 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:00PM (#11131029)
    A big point many people miss -- trackers are what keep the torrents together. Indexers like SuprNova, although highly popular, do nothing but point people where to go.

    It's like asking a bartender about the street corners where the girls hang out late at night. If he responsible for how you use the information; ie, if you engage in prostition?

    It's a sad, sad day when information is made the scapegoat. If anything, they should be applauded, and kept as a means for getting to the real criminals.
    • by Jim McCoy ( 3961 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:28PM (#11131253) Homepage
      A big point many people miss -- trackers are what keep the torrents together. Indexers like SuprNova, although highly popular, do nothing but point people where to go.

      It's like asking a bartender about the street corners where the girls hang out late at night. If he responsible for how you use the information; ie, if you engage in prostition?


      The big point that you are missing (and most people running torrent trackers) is that if you have a reasonable suspicion that the information you are providing to someone is going to be used for criminal purposes then you are treading dangerously close to the definition of "conspiracy".

      Let's take your example of the helpful bartender a bit further. You wander into a bar and over several drinks proceed to tell the bartender about your sleazy business partner and how he is cheating you. The bartender tells you that "he knows a guy" who can take care of your problem for a bundle of cash. You take the number he gives you, meet with a contract hit man, and pay him a wad on money so that your business partner meets a rather violent demise.

      Is the bartender a participant in your conspiracy to commit murder? According to the law he is. A reasonalbe person would have no problem conecting the dots here and information that was provided had a purpose...

      To drag this back in to the real world, you might want to take a look at how the law deals with flea markets and swap meets where counterfeit goods are being sold. The person organizing the swap meet can post as many signs as they want saying that they have no idea what you are selling and are only providing a place for people to put their goods on display, but the law treats that claim like the BS it truly is. The people running the torrent trackers know what is being provided and what their role in the game is, and if they try to claim that they are shocked that people are trading pirated music, software, and videos on these services they will be bitch-slapped by the law.
      • by antiMStroll ( 664213 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @03:17PM (#11131964)
        Murder, contract killers, I'm surprised terrorists and children in peril didn't make the analogy. How about something a bit more realistic? The bartender tells a patron who wants to go fishing the location of the nearest sporting goods store. The patron uses the fishing gear purchased out of season. The bartender knew it wasn't fishing season when providing the directions. No murders, no money changing hand with the bartender, no quantifiable loss, just breaking a law intended to preserve a resource. Is the bartender guilty of conspiracy? Only in a sense worthy of a Victor Hugo novel, a reasonable person would not connect the dots. In a civilized, humane society the patron bears full responsibility for the act, which is at best a misdemeanour and a small fine.
      • by Jah-Wren Ryel ( 80510 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @04:19PM (#11132393)
        As a counter example - read the yellow pages in any major city in America. Look up "escort services" -- typically you will find multiple pages of listings. It has been this way for at least twenty years (that's when, I as a horny teen, ordered my first call girl on a trip to the big city) and probably a whole lot longer than that.

        As escorts are just another name for prostitutes, that would make the yellow pages of every major metropolitan area guilty of conspiracy for solicitation. Yet, these ads continue to run and the yellow pages publishers seem to be completely unmolested by the legal system for their part in it all.

        Now, you can't quite download a hooker via bittorrent, but I think the analogy between the call girls in the yellow pages and suprnova is a lot closer than the analogy between the bartender's hitman and suprnova.
      • by adam31 ( 817930 ) <adam31 @ g m a i l .com> on Sunday December 19, 2004 @04:37PM (#11132504)
        You take the number he gives you, meet with a contract hit man, and pay him a wad on money so that your business partner meets a rather violent demise.

        Or, to use a probably more accurate analogy... when my friend wanted to shoot spit wads during english class, I lent him a pen to bore out for a spit-tube... and damn! We both totally got busted for detention!!

        bittorrent != murder

    • by ScooterBill ( 599835 ) * on Sunday December 19, 2004 @03:44PM (#11132144)
      You can always push this concept to whatever level you want. Should the alcohol companies or firearms manufacturers be considered co-conspirators? Should your ISP be liable? Should the government be liable for information that traverses the ether since they tax it and are therefore "involved"? Should the U.S. military be liable for "incidental deaths" in Iraq?

      The reality is that the one with the biggest stick makes the rules. Those of us with the little sticks have to be far more clever which isn't that hard when it comes to competing with governments and large corporations.
  • Stop Posting Links (Score:5, Insightful)

    by EvilGoodGuy ( 811015 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:02PM (#11131043)
    People, please stop posting links to your favorite torrent site that is still up and kicking. They are already under tremendous pressure right now, and I don't want them to have any more attension brought to them. Those that are interested can find the sites themselves, so please, help save the few that are left and stop posting links.
    • by Buran ( 150348 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:23PM (#11131227)
      People find resources they need through web links. People advertise the resources they have, or like, through web links. Especially if there is a need needing filling, like there seems to be now. "Find the sites themselves" how, without weblinks? I'd like to see a search engine that does a good job indexing sites that no one links to! I'd like to see a web browser that automagically knows about unlinked sites, no matter how perfectly they may match the needs of whoever is doing the surfing.

      There is no point in having a web site that no one links to, because no one will ever go there. Furthermore, if people like a particular site, they tend to talk about it, and link to it. That's just the way the net is.

      In other words, you're advocating doing something that makes it IMPOSSIBLE to do the other thing you're advocating doing.

      So which do you want? Pick one, dammit, and be consistent.
  • by utexaspunk ( 527541 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:04PM (#11131057)
    this is the same sort of thing that happened with the original Napster. Any sort of centralization is going to become an immediate target for MPAA/RIAA legal action. At least with BitTorrent there can be other sources for .torrent files, but so long as they can shut down any large repositories like suprnova.org, finding files will be too cumbersome for all but the most determined users.

    DC++ seems to have the same weakness, with the hosts, but as long as host lists are legal, it will remain pretty easy to find new hosts. Gnutella seems pretty safe, but they've managed to pollute the network enough to make it almost unusable.

    alas, it is only a matter of time before something comes along that perfects this problem and leaves the MPAA/RIAA with no option but to come up with a new business model. Free music seems to me to be a fine way to advertise a touring artist who is making money off of the shows. Movies may have to resort to product placement, or something.
    • by zmollusc ( 763634 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:10PM (#11131127)
      How's this for a solution to film piracy?

      1. Forget chasing 'pirates'. This will save a lot of expensive legal bills. Cut back drastically on advertising too, as you don't need to whip people up into a frenzy to get them to theatres in the first week.
      2. Make film (Citizen Kane: starring Adam Sandler or something).
      3. Make a VCD cut and make unlabelled cheapo vcd's. Using the economies of scale, sell these so cheap that the guys selling pirate vcd will buy from you rather than burn their own copies. Your margin is the difference between a bulk pressed cd and a small scale burned copy.
      4. Simultaneously sell the film as a download for the same price as you get for the vcd.
      ...wait a few weeks
      5. Make a nicer, longer dvd cut of the film and, again, sell these so cheap that the guys selling pirate dvd will buy from you rather than burn their own copies.
      6. Sell the dvd cut of the film online at the same price as the DVD wholesale price.
      .... wait some more
      7. Theatre release of film in lovely THX/35mm
      8. Boxed set dvd release with extra everything.

      By doing this you make money from the guys currently selling 'pirated copies' of films and money from people who can't be bothered to find a torrent of your film. The money saved on lawyers and advertising would probably pay for setting up the servers.

      At stage 3 you are the sole supplier of vcd of your film, it is uneconomic to burn copies so you own the market. People may share your film over the internet but the hassle of finding a torrent and/or running P2P software is competing against the paid download (4) which is priced as low as a blank cdr.

      This is simple economics. Cut back on expensive things like lawyers and advertising, then put out bargain bin priced product to soak up the sales to misers and the poor. You can still make bigger margins on the nicely packaged versions to people who want to buy them.
      • by xstein ( 578798 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:35PM (#11131311)
        This is simple economics.

        You're missing the idea behind cost of production and supply/demand. Hollywood filmmakers will NEVER be able to sell as cheap as pirates for the simple reason the pirates do not pay anything for the material. Making movies is a costly venture, advertising or no advertising, lawyers or no lawyers.

        While I do agree Hollywood is approaching this the wrong way, your idea is fundamentally flawed. Besides, this has nothing to do with cost of production--this is simply supply/demand economics. The market will set the price, and right now it has done so very efficiently for DVDs. Hollywood needs to embrace the Internet, not implement artificial methods of stopping Internet piracy--remove the demand for pirated movies, not the supply.
      • I have a better idea... Charge me once for the content. Most software has an "upgrade" policy. They don't reward people for doing business with them. They try to screw you every way possible, and expect you to play nice. Let them clean up their act first before they go after people not playing fair with them. I just can't find it in my heart to feal any pitty for the "plight" of anyone working in or for the MPAA.

        1) They lobbey the government into outlawing things that the average person wouldn't agr
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:04PM (#11131059)
    Several bittorrent sites that I use have gone dead. The ones I miss the most are torrentbits and delirium vault.

    People have said that these sites are closing voluntarily before they get raided. The site owners seem to have solid information about the raids. I doubt they'd close down without it.

    The best community sites kept track of ratios to encourage people to upload. Suprnova didn't, but torrentbits did. Unfortunately, that means that the sites maintained databases of everything users downloaded.

    Without those databases, the MPAA would have to join swarms and try to collect as many IPs as possible. With such a database, they could look up everything everyone had downloaded through that site.

    So it was a very good thing that the site admins pulled the plug on those sites before the databases could be seized.

    It seems likely to me that the old model of the bittorrent community site, which depended on such databases, is dead.

    Perhaps some old cypherpunks could come up with a better way to incentivize users to share and participate in the community, without leaving data behind in a database. Maybe something with blind signatures, similar to a digital cash protocol.

    But the old model is probably dead.
    • by maeka ( 518272 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:24PM (#11131230) Journal
      People have said that these sites are closing voluntarily before they get raided. The site owners seem to have solid information about the raids. I doubt they'd close down without it.

      The best community sites kept track of ratios to encourage people to upload. Suprnova didn't, but torrentbits did. Unfortunately, that means that the sites maintained databases of everything users downloaded.

      Without those databases, the MPAA would have to join swarms and try to collect as many IPs as possible. With such a database, they could look up everything everyone had downloaded through that site.


      Yes Torrentbits has detailed records of user accounts - what they've uploaded, and what they've downloaded.

      But...
      Your IP is only attached to that user account on a temporary basis. As soon as you stop seeding or leeching a Torrentbit torrent they no longer have a record of your IP.

      If the **AA wants to collect your IP address they simply have to join the swarm. Getting their hands on Torrentbits records will in no way aid them in their attemps to collect IP addresses.

      Perhaps some old cypherpunks could come up with a better way to incentivize users to share and participate in the community, without leaving data behind in a database. Maybe something with blind signatures, similar to a digital cash protocol.

      Most large tracker sites have long abandoned the pratice of tracking their users via IP address. Many sites now attach a "key" to every .torrent downloaded from their tracker. They use this key to relate a peer with an authorized user in their database.
      So there is info in their database, but nothing that can be used to attach any particular user with their real-life self.
  • Can't say I'm sad (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Craig Ringer ( 302899 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:08PM (#11131099) Homepage Journal
    These sites really had it coming, frankly. While I'm concerned about corporate power, and less than thrilled with the modern media, they weren't trying to do anything about that - they were just plain illegal. Not in a recent way, either - they were ignoring the same copyright laws that protect the software I write, and the GPL so many here are so fond of.

    I'd find it far easier to understand a site that restricted its self to things not otherwise availible than sites like these that appear to have no problem with full scale piracy. Yes, I realise that would still be illegal - but IMO rather less offensive.

    I used to be a bit more sympathetic to this stuff, but I know too many people who view it as their RIGHT to access other people's work for free, without their permission. I guess its just another version of the "information wants to be free" zealotry (Free Software bigots who don't actually understand free software and usually hypocrites. The few, very loud ones that give the whole community a bad name to some.).

    AC posts will be ignored.

    Now - -1 flamebait me. You know you want to.
    • by chiph ( 523845 )
      I wouldn't automatically assume it was the fault of one of the recording industry groups ... it may be that suprnova.org simply couldn't afford their bandwidth costs any more. But until we hear more from the owners, we're all just guessing as to the cause.

      Chip H.
    • by Beautyon ( 214567 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:42PM (#11131364) Homepage
      How can posting a list of files possibly be illegal?

      That is all that Suprnova ever did. Now, if its illegal to post a list of files, it must also be illegal to print one in a newspaper, or write one on a piece of paper with a pencil anad photocopy it.

      If you go a google search for "index of" apache *.dmg* "port 80" [google.co.uk] you get lots and lots of links to copyrighted software. By your flawed logic, Google "is just plain illegal" because it provides lists of files just as Supernova did.

      Printing a list can never be an illegal act. At least not in a free country it cant.
  • Settlement? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by moofdaddy ( 570503 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:08PM (#11131100) Homepage
    I find it hard to believe that they would not have issued warnings or other things of that nature if the issue was that bandwidth and all of that was becoming too expensive. Suprnova was incredibly popular with teh torrent community and they had to know that people would come to their aid.

    I think it is possible that Suprnova and a number of these other sites reached an agreement with the MPAA or whoever was threating to sue them that they just disappear quiety into the night and they can save them self from a lawsuit.

    It strikes me as odd that they would not heve mentioned it, but I can easily see the reason for this. If your the MPAA you have two options, either make an example of these sites so people are too scared to fuck with them, or just make them go bye bye. I think the first won't discourage enough people, because the law is on suprnova's side, so a number of people would rise up just to defy the MPAA and take up the cause. However, if the MPAA were to tell suprnova that in order to avoid a lawsuit they need to tell people that the site was just too much work, it prevents them from being martyrs and other people won't be so quick to jump in and fill the vacum left.
  • FAQ (Score:3, Funny)

    by optize ( 248582 ) <tyler @ n e r d i e . org> on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:08PM (#11131108)
    http://www.silentdragz.net/suprfaq/
  • by BenSpinSpace ( 683543 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:09PM (#11131111)
    Man, I'm so unbelievably relieved that you guys are listing off virtually every torrent site in existence. Since obviously nobody at the MPAA would ever think to read Slashdot, it's totally obvious that you should post more torrent sites, including a mirror of one site that was apparently just forced to shut down. No need to be covert here!!
    • Re:What a relief (Score:3, Insightful)

      by davideo_ID ( 772303 )
      Are you under the illusion that the MPAA would not already know about these sites? I mean, you reckon they don't have google or are you thinking the don't have an internet connection? Maybe they work from a dail-up connection and don't get to check out any forums? A bit more respect for the powers of the dark side might suit you well
    • Ya ... well I encrypted my posts with double-ROT13 encryption ... so if they attempt to decrypt it ... it's a violation of the DMCA ...
  • I use google anywayz (Score:5, Interesting)

    by polyp2000 ( 444682 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:10PM (#11131122) Homepage Journal
    eg:

    the ultimate torrent search [google.co.uk] ...

    are they going shut down google now ?

    nick...
  • Jurisdiction? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Kozz ( 7764 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:11PM (#11131131)
    What about all those folks who said at the last "SuprNova is going bye-bye" story that it couldn't be touched because it was somewhere in Europe where the MPAA can't reach them?

    We can't really say this is the result of MPAA, can we? Can they "get" the folks related to suprnova.org if they are located in Belgium or Turkey or whereever?
  • by antdude ( 79039 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:15PM (#11131167) Homepage Journal
    See this newsgroup thread [google.com].
  • Usenet (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Universal Indicator ( 626874 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:22PM (#11131212)
    BitTorrent is a great technology, and it has sped up many Linux ISO downloads I've had in the past. However, I think it is so funny the way people freak out over stuff like suprnova closing. "Where are we supposed to get our MP3s and warez now?!!"

    I NEVER hear anything about usenet, and there are hundreds of gigabytes of stuff posted every single day. Nearly my entire MP3 and digital video collection (and actually just about everything else) has come from usenet. I don't understand why this seems to still be the great untapped resource? Especially nowadays with services like newzbin.com, it makes finding and downloading from usenet a real snap!

    Just the other day I introduced my brother to usenet, and he couldn't believe what he had been missing for so long.
  • by KennyP ( 724304 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:26PM (#11131240)
    ... of the MAN trying to keep us down...

    I'll miss SuprNova... A lot of good old tv there.

    Kenny P.
    Visualize Whirled P.'s
  • by Anonymous Coward on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:27PM (#11131244)
    Look man, everyone knows he with the gold makes the rules.

    So if you really want torrents to continue being available on the internet, and in general any kind of p2p activity to be available on the internet for US customers - then the following must happen.

    1) You need to get some gold for your own lawyers. That is just the fact of the matter. It sure is nice to get all this free stuff, but as they say - there is no free lunch.

    2) You need to get some gold for your lobbiest to the congress critters. They only know what the MPAA/RIAA mouths tell them. A politician basically knows only how to get elected, otherwise they would be doing something else.

    3) You need to get politically motivated. You need that political organization named above. You need your own moveon.org to keep the membership active in letter/fax/email writing and informative campaigns.

    Play time on the internet is over. It is time to grow up and realize politics, government, and all that corruption is part of the game now.
  • by Dixie_Flatline ( 5077 ) * <vincent@jan@goh.gmail@com> on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:30PM (#11131273) Homepage
    Just like every other time a website has gone down. Everyone flocks to the newsgroups and grabs what they need from there. I'll bet that the torrent newsgroups suddenly explode with traffic.
  • by Kozz ( 7764 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @01:31PM (#11131285)
    This is why when all else fails, I turn to the alt.binaries groups to find my VCDs, SVCDs, etc. Use an excellent free news reader like XNews [newsguy.com], browse to alt.binaries and then filter the groups based on your keyword ("enterprise" or "simpsons" or whatever). Many of the most popular shows have their own groups. And even the less popular show up in alt.binaries.vcd, alt.binaries.svcd, etc.
  • by v1 ( 525388 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @02:11PM (#11131531) Homepage Journal
    A friend of mine just received one of these gems:

    Infringement Detail:
    Infringing Work: Grudge, The
    Filepath: The.Grudge.SCREENER-VideoCD.torrent|CD1
    Filename: vcd-tg1.r00
    First Found: 18 Dec 2004 04:21:14 EST (GMT -0500)
    Last Found: 18 Dec 2004 04:21:14 EST (GMT -0500)
    Filesize: 14,648k
    IP Address:
    IP Port: 58546
    Network: BTPeers
    Protocol: BitTorrent

    Apparently the RIAA has been sampling the swarms or getting their data from somewhere like that. This torrent was gotten from Suprnova... was that "paper" we saw the other day here on slashdot linked to any data they collected that the RIAA might have dipped into?
    • by Apathetic1 ( 631198 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @05:32PM (#11132895) Journal
      I had a friend who was sent one of these notices after he downloaded a show from suprnova. Fortunately in Canada the notices don't mean jack because the ISPs aren't permitted to (or aren't willing to) turn over subscriber information without a court order. In fact several of the big high-speed ISPs went to court against the RIAA to fight this. It's nice having your ISP in your corner even if it's mutual self-interest rather than the big guy looking out for the little guy.
  • by wintermute1974 ( 596184 ) <wintermute@berne-ai.org> on Sunday December 19, 2004 @02:29PM (#11131653) Homepage
    the MPAA is co-operating in criminal investigations with police in Finland, the Netherlands and France, so it is reasonable to infer that reports of raids in more European countries are likely to surface shortly. [theregister.co.uk]

    Yes, the MPAA is acting on behalf of its members and copyright holders, ensuring that intellectual property is not distributed for free. They have the law on their side, and can probably buy or lobby anyone of importance that disagrees with them.

    That said, I think the MPAA is fighting a losing battle. People like to share, to spread what little wealth and happiness they have around.

    BitTorrent enables a system where people of like interests and hobbies can reward one another as they are connected to the same torrent. And yes, this includes both legitimate and illegitimate uses.

    Sharing is part of human nature and any organization that throws its weight around in an attempt to circumvent our instinct to share will ultimately prove to be futile.
  • Exeem Screenshots (Score:4, Interesting)

    by Beautyon ( 214567 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @04:16PM (#11132362) Homepage
    And review are here [mitosis.com].
  • by Jugalator ( 259273 ) on Sunday December 19, 2004 @04:51PM (#11132608) Journal
    I think those organizations shutting down these sites just started to initiate the next generation of decentralized P2P clients... That's usually the only thing they do, help speed up the next generation of file sharing software, more clever than the last time. It usually doesn't happen if not a great deal of sites are taken down, since then there's not as much need to advance technology.

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