Anti-Piracy Blunder Shuts Down BitTorrent Tracker
Written by enigmax on April 22, 2008A large BitTorrent tracker dealing only in documentaries has been shutdown after an anti-piracy company wrongfully identified content being tracked by the site. The 150,000 member site, which has had just “one mildly upset” copyright-related email in 4 years of operation, is moving to a new host.
During the last few days, TorrentFreak has been getting emails asking why the MVGroup tracker is down. It’s fairly normal to get lots of emails when when any of the high profile trackers goes down but the number of worried people around our inbox and on various forums seemed surprisingly high for a small tracker dealing only in documentaries. Well, I thought it was fairly small - turns out MVGroup has an amazing 150,000 members. So where has it gone?
The tagline for MVGroup is “An Education in P2P”, so TorrentFreak caught up with the tracker admin Merrin for a quick history lesson. Turns out that some anti-piracy company got it wrong - again. Who needs an education now?
TF: Please give us a little background on MVGroup before we find out why you were shutdown.
Merrin: MVGroup started with one aim in mind, an aim to fill a gap that I noticed 5 or 6 years ago on the Internet. A lack of availability of good quality educational material. We are here to give those that can’t get it, access to all the knowledge they need. A sort of video wiki of documentaries I suppose. Starting on ed2k we branched into torrents as they became popular and now I suspect that thanks to the wonderful staff and members over the years, we are getting close to being the biggest - and we hope best - free, no ratio, documentary site on the web.
TF: No ratios is great! How does this operate? Do you have seeding issues?
Merrin: We have torrents that are over 4 years old still going due to an adoption scheme where members choose a series and the seed upon request, the rest is on trust.
TF: Lots of fans have been emailing and starting forum threads, all worried about your sudden disappearance. What happened?
Merrin: Ok, the simple fact is that the whole thing is a cockup - by both a movie studio and our host/datacenter. The studio said (I suspect a bot trawling torrent dumpsites) that we were tracking a movie called “The Eye” - we obviously don’t carry that kind of thing. Never have done.
TF: So why the confusion?
Merrin: What we did have however was a documentary series also called The Eye.
TF: If it was case of mistaken identity, why is the site still down?
Merrin: The sudden shutdown is down to our host, who panicked, so basically we were taken down for the wrong reasons. Not very fair, but the host got paranoid, so we have had to move anyway. We have now found a new host and have more powerful server, for the same outlay financially.
TF: MVGroup has a good reputation and is known for being careful and considered with the material indexed by the tracker, with no mainstream movies, music or any type of warez. Do you get any takedown requests?
Merrin: As the modern MVGroup of 4+ years operation, we haven’t had more than one mildly upset email, and in fact have had a producer and writer of a series we torrented actually linking to us from his homepage.
TF: Do you have a message for the worried fans, currently hanging out in TorrentFreak’s inbox waiting for news?
Merrin: The main thing here is that we will be back, we have all our data, and nothing has been lost, the donations are safe, we’re safe and we’ll hopefully be up again in a day or two. We’re doing basic installs on the new server as we speak.
TF: Thanks for talking to us today, we’ll be over to MVGroup for our next lesson in a day or two.
For those interested in checking the site out, signups will be open with no invite needed.
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87 Responses
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What is the link?
thanks i reached to this answer at last :D
This is a huge relief. I’ve been going to MVGroup for a few years now and loved the site from the start. A great collection of documentaries and a great community spirit. Just a few weeks ago I finally donated for the first time and the site vanished. Thought it was bad omen or something :)
on post #51, Joli asks what is the link?
The MVG forums are at http://forums.mvgroup.org - but still not up at this moment.
Anyone not familiar with the titles hosted on MVG tracker can take a look at Mininova for a list :
http://www.mininova.org/search/?search=MVgroup
… returns 500 titles (and there’s a lot more).
Glad to know about the move to a better host. The old one was overpriced, imo.
MVG torrents are usually posted at Mininova and other sites. It’s a great place for documentaries and educational material, plus the user community is top notch, intelligent people. ;-)
While the MVG tracker is down, people with Usenet access can get a lot of items posted there (and enjoy top speeds).
A quick search finds lots of items :
http://www.nzbindex.nl/index.php?go=search&searchitem=MVGroup&age=30&results=25&sort=age_desc&min_size=100&showmoreinfo=1
With all the abuse of power from ISPs in Canada and elsewhere nowadays, Usenet is becoming the best way to go. ;-)
MVGroup has always been the best & is still the best for quality stuff! i’m not aware of any other site where you find these kind of collections. if MVGroup is in need of donations, I’ll be glad to put in a bit - maybe not huge amounts, but definitely smaller amounts, from time to time.
Hey Merrin- MVGroup IS the best site for documentaries, no question about it. IMO, it is a class act- members are friendly and helpful and there is material that sometimes you can’t find anyplace else. I’m going through a little withdrawal so I will be happy to see the site back. And as for ratio nonsense, bah! Through the adoption program or reseeding, you get everything you need.
Should’ve known they exist, i love a good documentary. Thanks torrentfreak.
Thank god!
I’ve been worrying all week about this sudden down time
Mvgroup is the greatest torrent site in existence, no competition.
I couldn’t recommend it more
ps. Thanks torrentfreak for the news..couldn’t find anything about the matter for days
just FYI:
MVgroup servers/trackers are online! so if you have any downloads stuck midway, now is the time to restart them!
of course their main (forum) page is not accessible, yet, but hey at least things are moving!
YAY!
lol the eye. hollywood needs to stop buying asian movies are reguritating them into pile of shit remakes.
Nabbed all the BBC Planet Earth’s from there a few years back. Nice site.
Having no ratio on some sites means that people don’t stick around and seed but MV Group is a bit different in my experience.
I think because most of the users of MV Group are more mature and pro-community than the typical PirateBay user is, even tho its not enforced that members keep seeding their downloaded torrents people still seem to do it.
^^^ because they know they got a good thing going on
P.S. Thank you S E E D E R S !!!
[quote comment="357218"]Thanks MPAA for making us aware of this site. I love documentaries, and a torrent site dedicated to them sounds awesome.[/quote]
I’m really looking forward to this site now that I know its around.
this is a little off topic, but could a moderator confirm the LACK of an IRC channel for this place?
i am positive it would be full of dedicated HELPFUL people….
and i wouldnt leave the place….
i love the site have been going there for yrs now… if you donate to torrent sites they are a good place to spend the $$$…
to me it looks like mvgroup could sue warner brothers for the mistake… they proudly wont sue but for me its the principle of the thing…
good story!!!
there is an irc channel, and it’s at irc.station51.net #mvgroup
[quote comment="358023"]this is a little off topic, but could a moderator confirm the LACK of an IRC channel for this place?
i am positive it would be full of dedicated HELPFUL people….
and i wouldnt leave the place….[/quote]
They do have one, and its active
irc://irc.station51.net/mvgroup
We’re back, site and trackers open, thanks for your support folks. Read the announcements when you log-in.
Thanks again.
Merrin
MVG is back up - enjoy, everybody :victory:
http://forums.mvgroup.org/
noratiofags.
up yours lolpants
I love MVGroup and have been a member there for about 3 years.
The only minor gripe I have is the site is a bit confusing to the newcomer. Other than that it’s a super site.
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