Araditracker BitTorrent Site Shutdown After Legal Action
After four years of operation, the private torrent site AradiTracker has been closed down by the administrators. After surviving ISP troubles exactly one year ago, fresh legal action against the site forced it to close yesterday and it is very unlikely to return.
A year (and a day) ago we reported that Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN had forced the closure of six torrent sites after their ISP, LeaseWeb was forced to hand over the administrators personal details. One of those sites, the 24,000 peer Araditracker, initially went dark but then reappeared at a new host, seemingly surviving unscathed.
Since its birth Araditracker has operated for over 4 years, however visitors to the site yesterday saw an ominous message on the homepage. The short notice said that Araditracker had been shutdown by ‘the powers that be’ with the admins indicating that the site would not be back. Thanks was sent out to all staff and members for their support.
With details scarce, TorrentFreak managed to find a senior staff member willing to talk on condition of anonymity, he told us: “Early Thursday morning (BST) legal action was taken directly against Araditracker. For the moment we are unable to divulge details. As a direct result the decision has been taken to close the site. It is very unlikely to return as a torrent tracker.”
Araditracker was born on May 4th 2005 “when a couple of guys on another site wanted to do more than they could where they were”. It gathered a few thousand members in its first few months of operation up to a peak of 37,000, with the total peers averaging around 24,000. No Microsoft content was indexed and in order to keep a ‘family feel’ on the site, the indexing of pornographic content was banned.
The site had been hosted in the UK, The Netherlands and most recently Canada, running radio, IRC and forums. There had been some rumors that the site couldn’t afford to keep going through lack of donations, something which is denied. Our source told us: “Despite speculation, it was not the money. Although donations were not as good as they have been and we had started to reorganize some hardware to compensate, the reason aradi is off-line has nothing to do with donations.”
Although trackers are loved for the wide range of access to media they provide, many are loved equally on the strength of their communities, where like-minded people can hang out and create friendships. In this respect Araditracker was no different. “We had a huge ‘family’ community,” said our source, “that is something we were very proud of and encouraged.”
It looks like Araditracker will not be back (as a torrent site at least) so there’s likely to be a sense of loss amongst the now ex-staff and members. Here is a final message for them:
“There are not enough words that can express our thanks for all support from the staff, past and present, Knights, VIPs, Uploaders, and members of all levels that have shared Araditracker over the last three years. Araditracker had a real sense of community and this more than anything will be missed by most.”
