FeedMyTorrents Closes In Face of Legal Threats
Written by enigmax on May 22, 2009FeedMyTorrents, a site which published handy RSS feeds for downloading TV-shows using BitTorrent, has closed its doors for the last time. The site went down earlier this year due to financial difficulties but following legal threats, has now closed down for good.
FeedMyTorrents (FMT) was a relatively new site that achieved an impressive level of popularity in a relatively short space of time. The site published RSS feeds for most popular TV show torrents – subscribing to these with a compatible client allowed those shows to be downloaded automatically as soon as they became available. The feeds were moderated by FMT staff to ensure a quality download.
Due to the site’s growing popularity, FMT started to hit problems in early 2009 – specifically those relating to capacity. According to staff on the site, every day there was a 5% increase in pageviews and registrations. More and more users meant the site consumed more and more bandwidth, which affected both the server performance and stability. This was a problem since the site was already running on a server labeled as “a piece of old junk” by staff.
In February 2009, it all started to get too much. The site needed funds to continue. Staff explained that if every visitor to the site on a single day donated $1, the site could survive for another 6 months. In the end the site raised less than half of this money, raising the possibility that another donation drive would be needed sooner rather than later, if the site was to survive.
Copyrighted RSS feeds?
Then last week the site completely disappeared. The DNS for the domain was updated on May 12th and no longer points to the old IP address. However, the old IP address is currently still functional and shows this message;
It’s over. We’ve received several take down requests, and have decided not to test the extents of the law. We’d like to thank everyone who contributed, and for the fun times we’ve had.
That message seems fairly final, which is quite a shame. However, BitTorrent fans looking for an RSS fix still have plenty of other options, some of which are outlined in our earlier article, Top 10 BitTorrent and RSS tips.
Previously: German Pirate Party Sets Course For European Parliament
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39 Responses
One Down.
second Down.
Third Down.
Over 6k trackers, which tracker will they shut down ?
They should stop their stupid tactics and find a new algorithm.
Grow up kids.
Second!
lol whos next?
MPAA, your mama is NEXT =)))
Grow up SUKA !
“lol whos next?”
Retroshare?
Well TOR Hidden Services don’t work?
http://sigfrid.wordpress.com/2008/01/07/decriminalize-file-sharing/
Follow Sigfrid suggestion and decriminalize filesharing LoL
how is an rss feed illegal. Put lawsuits to cars and recorders and dvd burners already!!!!!
http://www.dklevine.com/general/intellectual/againstfinal.htm
Against Intellectual Monopoly
I used FMT’s custom feed via my G1 cell phone to add new torrents for downloading at home, but since they are gone I made my own little rss feed generator at http://feedz.newagekllrz.com
It’s not as great for “subscribing” to a show, but it works great for downloading while on the go. (hey thats a good tagline)
So what is this, links to feeds, which links to torrents, which link to trackers, which link computers where packets of data are transfered are illegal?
Is this torrentfreak article illegal if it linked to FMT?
Twelfth
better be leaving retroshare alone and this whole “ah i got a legal threat lets close down” stuff has to stop stand up for what you believe in.
Are they idiots? Do they really think they can be guilty in c.r. infrigements because of providing XML feeds via HTTP? O_O
P.S. Make me unborn.
If you’re french the loppsi 2 law is comming and basically allows law enforcement to install a keylogger on the PC of anyone LoL
gaga googoo loppsi 2 … i make a poopoo. :/
@16
could you point me towards a source to back up your statement? such a thing sounds terrifying to me.
FMT was pretty cool but seriously, how can they take action on people that serve XML feeds?
BTW, where was FMT located?
http://torrentino.net
So by linking to a page that contain torrents whick link to trackers that link to PC’s you are breaking the law now? So google is next to have to shut down then?
@18,
It is stated on various sites, including, but not limited to security.nl, jmp.net, astalavista.com.
Regards,
Henk van de Tillaart,
Mengvoeders United
good job they are down the more and more sites that are out in the open means more and more time for anti piracy groups to close in on people dealing with downloaded material was way better when it was a lot more secret public sites public shite like rlslog or whatever are crap they bring way to much unwanted publicity to the eyes of riaa mpaa and such
The loppsi 2 law is more scary than even I thought… not only will the French have to endure keyloggers, ISP monitoring, government spyware etc, the loppsi 2 also paves the way for automated cameras on motorways etc to record car license plates… This is shocking – 1984!
Go Karl Sigfrid!!
Guess where I am not going for my hols?
@18:
I tried to post the links but they don’t appear so what is left to do is tell you where I found the news.
Zeropaid and Arstechnica both have articles and the “lemonde.fr” also on the link of the arstechnica there is another link showing the U.S. version called “Computer & Internet Protocol Address Verifier” (CIPAV) that is already in use.
@11 Very, very good point!!!
RSS feeds by themselves aren’t illegal, but their usage in this particular case is. They were feeding the piracy machine.
Good I m stick To bitmetv
It went down same time as mininova started filtering torrents. Last thing I got from FeedMyTorrents was the TXT files that EZTV post on mininova. IT’s a shame really. I had a great setup for a couple of months there..
so they did a money drive, and closed shortly after that… i wonder if they refund the donations that where not needed. oh wait, i don’t.
all of the torrent trackers are shutting down really fast without notice now that the guys from the pirate bay have lost their case. I guess no one wants to go through all of the hell and expenses of federal court. The Pirate Bay drew way too much negative attention to bittorrent so now bittorrent is getting a bad name.
Thats what happens when you try to take these underground downloading applications mainstream without securing rights or permission from copyright holders. It will be way too expensive and risky for anyone to run trackers or bitt sites.
“so they did a money drive, and closed shortly after that… i wonder if they refund the donations that where not needed. oh wait, i don’t.”
—————
you mean, like how the pirate bay took a bunch of donations for that island they were going to buy and then (surprise!) never did, and then (surprise!) never returned a dime?
kinda like that?
Thieves stealing from thieves.
LOL.
Losing Rights isn’t Fun. Tell your legislators to stop sucking the CORPS off…
wow that sucks….Internet getting patrolled and shit…
guess its time to get back
secure Internet :D
can’t even trust ISP’s…gonna have to run a Private Wireless Network (MESH network) to get back common freedoms of the Internet.
Who’s in ?
Mh… I loved this site, since I could watch series way before they were aired in germany…
Now, I have to read your article.
There’s already a replacement :-) : showRSS
hope you enjoy it! :D
I don’t understand why people think that idea that an artist wants money for their work somehow makes them evil. You would too, if it was your work.
If you wanted to, you could easily set up a torrent site, then ask for donations to keep it running, then bugger off when you get your donations.
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