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IsoHunt Takes Down BitTorrent Trackers in the US

Starting today, the Isohunt team will deny access to all US visitors on their TorrentBox and Podtropolis tracker. They are forced to take this action because of their involvement in a lawsuit initiated by the MPAA.

The IsoHunt crew released this statement today:

As of earlier today, we have disabled access from users in the US to our trackers. This goes for ALL trackers (torrentbox, podtropolis) we run. This is due to the US’s hostility towards P2P technologies, and we feel with our current lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we can no longer ensure your security and privacy in the US. So, if you’re outside the US, you may notice less peers. We encourage you to add other public, unhampered trackers to torrents you post, in addition to Torrentbox and Podtropolis’s trackers.

IsoHunt is not alone in their battle with the MPAA. Last month TorrentSpy, another site named in the MPAA lawsuit blocked access to US users on their site. However, the takedown of IsoHunt’s trackers will have an even bigger effect on the BitTorrent community worldwide, especially because TorrentBox runs one of the biggest public BitTorrent trackers. As mentioned by the Isohunt team, this means that users outside the US will see less peers connected to their torrents which may result in slower download speeds.

The MPAA announced the lawsuit (PDF) against Torrentspy, Torrentbox and Isohunt in February 2006. Isohunt owner Gary later told TorrentFreak that they will not bow down to the MPAA. Isohunt hired a top-notch lawyer, specialized in Internet copyrights. It now seems that this wasn’t enough to keep the trackers in the air. For now, the websites are still available to US visitors.

The MPAA argues that the sole purpose of these BitTorrent trackers and sites is to share copyrighted content. But they are wrong according to Gary, who said, “We process copyright takedown requests daily, and have done so for hundreds of requests in the past, if not thousands. We work with all copyright owners, and even the RIAA email us routinely. The MPAA is the only organization unwilling to cooperate with us.”

Luckily, quite a lot of torrents are tracked by more that one tracker these days. And if that doesn’t work there’s always DHT. You can read more about how to protect yourself from failing BitTorrent trackers in this article. Long live the hydra!

To be continued. (Thanks Tom)

MPAA Takes Down IsoHunt, TorrentBox and Podtropolis in the US

Thanks to one of our American associates showing this block in action right now

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  • hoodlum

    like Ernesto said; it won’t stop US users getting to the files.. same as it won’t keep us from viewing HBO/Showtime outside the US.

    It’s a lost cause guys..
    In Johnny 5 words: Need More Input.

  • Badbob48

    Ahh its great to NOT live in the USA.

  • badnews

    I believe that this was isoHunts decision, not the MPAA’s., despite how you wish to word your headline. I’d gladly give up US peers if it means that I’m less likey to be sending or recieving shit from the likes of the late Media Defender or Media Sentry. There is more to this world the what America thinks, and we still have the rest of the world to seed to and leech from. Personaly I think good on them, screw the US and their world police mentality. Its about time more sites started doing the same. Perhaps then the lazy bastards in the US might decide enough is enough and stand up against the MAFIAA, rather than bitching because the rest of the world doesnt want anything to do with them. Boohoo for you.

  • http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com Ben Jones

    well, badnews, it was brought on my the MPAAs suit, it was hastened by the torrentspy decision (for the MPAA). If those two actions by the MPAA hadn’t gone ahead, would this have happened? No, therefore it’s directly attributable to the MPAA and its actions.

    however, it doesn’t really do anything, since DHT still works.

  • badnews

    If that were the case they would have done it when the lawsuit was first innitiated. Contrary to the headline, their trackers were not brought down by the MPAA. But your right in so far as if it were not for them this would not have happened. That does not however mean thet isoHunt was forced by the MPAA to cut off the US, as the healines would suggest. As for your DHT, perhaps people should start conciously banning US peers from their clients as I do.

  • HBS

    thing is Ben Jones, that means the people in the USA lose out because they let the orgs like the MPAA flourish. Hopefully these actions will provoke the peopel to make mroe of a stand. Word up to Badnews :)

  • Omega50

    Apathy of the people in the USA to stand up for their rights as the Swedish people have for TPB helps to cause them to be on the banned IP lists of more and more sites.

    Badnews, nice to see someone that thinks for themselves, creds to you dude.

    Yes their are ways around IP blocks, I think a lot of newbies would have problems working it out, just their questions of how to play winrar point out a lot of peoples lack of technical expertise.

    I support the Admins of these sites in their blocks. Until the citizens of the US, get off their asses and do something to show their government they want true net neutrality.

  • Tom

    As the one to bring this story to Ernesto (read: “Thanks Tom”), I pretty much need to comment. The fact is that US citizens don’t care. We believe that “no one will listen” because “there aren’t enough of us.” Unfortunately, if every single person who thought that would get up from their keyboard, we could make change. Make the politicians accountable, and hold the fucking MAFIA accountable for their actions.

  • Andrew Norton

    This is all too true Tom, and its also something that dogs other areas, like elections – 3rd parties don’t get votes, because people don’t hear about them, and those that do think their vote is wasted, so the parties get few votes, and people go ‘yes we were right’ and at the same time they deny federal funding, and in other cases additional benefits, because of the need to be in the crowd, and support the winner. This is why we in the Pirate Party are having such a hard time gaining all the support we know is out there.

    Andrew Norton
    Pirate Party of the US
    http://pirate-party.us

  • h33t

    it is tough for the American public and you have my deepest understanding. i caution you to keep the faith and as Gary says seek alternative trackers. eventually all will become even

    it is not ok what is happening in the USA. but there is plenty upside. market forces are such that consumers who are currently buying services on the secondary market of isohunt, torrentspy, thepiratebay, cannot possibly accept an **AA taxed source. as any tracker operator will tell you there is no cash in the market, at best you can build a large community that attracts a fanbase of supporters who keep it alive or the critical logistic level to host exposure advertising and delivers funding

    keep it at the fore the people bittorrent serves are those who normally seek the services of a library: the students, the researchers, the young, the children, the old, the pensioners, the disenfranchised, the lame, the invalid, the war-wounded, the browsers, the try-before-you-buy, and importantly, those outside of the dollar/euro economic zones

    it was always the objective of the **AA to remove the free public tracker from the arena, to establish its own segmented tiered market model taxing downloads by anyone and everyone. America give your support to the free trackers, the **AA model cannot give you what you need. you need you dollars to feed, cloth, educate your children

  • panther

    Props to Tom for making this article more publicized. It is true there aren’t enough Americans standing up to the MPAA, but such things require lots of money, as the media companies and record labels have plenty to squander on fighting their battles. As for people outside the US, remember that what you are downloading in the first place is mostly American (US) media, and if it wasn’t for this country you wouldn’t have it in the first place. Boo to you and all your snobbery.

  • vryinterested

    i just cancelled my blockbuster online account. chose other and wrote “the mpaa sucks”

    maybe if more people would do this.

  • WhopperBoy

    I feel compelled to speak out here against Badnews. Why would you ban US peers, your just slowing down your speed by doing this. It may just be me, but normally the vast majority of people I connect to are located in America. Though I’m not sure I’m pretty positive that the MPAA/RIAA don’t send cease and desist letters to foreign downloaders, then again I may be wrong but I see the actions by ISOhunt simply as protection for their user and there’s plenty of other torrent sites out there so no big deal.

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  • US User

    Ok, so the next question is what do we in the US need to set in our Azureus/uTorrent/etc so we can proxy for tracker info, but not for actual data transmittal with peers… Seems like that’s the way we’ll have to go… If the clients don’t have that option yet, time for someone to write it a plugin to do so…

  • badnews

    I’m in Europe. I see absolutely no difference in speeds for the very little ammount I download via bittorrent. What I upload on the otherhand accounts for far more traffic, and i choose not to upload to the Unites States as much as possible. Who the **AA’s send their scare mail is of little personal consiquence to me directly, but by reducing the possibility that my uploads will be tainted by peers I upload to directly, I feel I’m do my bit to keep targeted torrents from quickly getting into the hands of the likes of Media Defender, by uploading to peers from countries that are less likely to be collecting data that they can corrupt. As long as there is a good seedbase there is little that anti-p2p can do to disrupt a good swarm. You may think thats its not a big deal, but I think uploaders will migrate to sites they know are safe, or are at least safer, and that is a good thing for the users of those sites.

    To panther: not everyone cares about US media, namely TV shows, as that is really the only thing that the US offers P2P in a timely fashion. Movies and games will continue to be released around the world, if not before, certainly not long after the US. Most new games and movies that hit bittorrent do not originate from the US anyway, so I doubt there will be much impact there.

  • Unknown

    Why go to isohunt? Its just crap there as long as we can get movies from axxo and piratebay. Badbob48 I’m glad I do live in the US.

  • badnews

    isoHunt is an indexing site. Any crap you find there is other sites crap, and has to more with what those sites allow to be posted. But then I suppose you’d be the type to winge about only getting 1 in 10 relevent search results from Google too. I might also add the Adso uploads his aXXo releases to TorrentBox, which is an isoHunt site.

  • Badbob48

    [quote comment="172705"]Why go to isohunt? Its just crap there as long as we can get movies from axxo and piratebay. Badbob48 I’m glad I do live in the US.[/quote]

    You know that axxo does a lot of his release from torrentbox don’t you? One of the trackers who have blocked the USA. But whatever. Yeah I enjoy about 10/100 movies the USA makes, the rest are crap. Thats why downloading is cool in my eyes.

    isoHunt also run Torrentbox, Podtopolis and Ed2k.

  • Ahmed

    Great news! let them block the light of sharing from US nation so ppl in the dark can get a beautiful morning.

  • StoneCold

    IM IN THE USA AND I SAY FUCK THE MPAA FOREVER

  • lubczyk

    To the people in the that say they don’t need indexing trackers like Isohunt, Torrentbox, and Torrentspy -
    from the US or otherwise -
    What happens when US peers get blocked by the Pirate Bay, BTJunkie, Bushtorrents, Mininova, AnimeYume, Boxtorrents and other trackers huh? Where will it end? I know I’d be pissed if Demonoid blocked US peers tomorrow. Start thinking about the whole Bittorrent community instead of just yourselfs.

  • Grendel

    I don’t see how this is bad news. Sounds more like a step forward. Maybe this will encourage other trackers to move their servers outside the U.S., and thus deter the problem altogether. And if the RIAA/MPAA wants to go around bullying other countries, well… that’s just going to look bad on them.

  • Breeze

    [..] there’s always DHT [..]
    As long as the private flag isn’t set by some morons for public torrents…

    And a tip to make torrent faster and more stable (ie againt false data from malicious peers): don’t use piece sizes above 256KiB!

    - Breeze

  • arch

    Welp I guess everyone is going to start using piratebay.org because that site will never get shut down its in Sweden :)

  • SUMO

    They do this to protect their users, this is very brave from them I think but unfortunately they will also loose a lot of traffic :(

    For all users who are worried about not being able to download the contents tracked by TorrentBox or PodTropolis, download them on
    http://www.sumotorrent.com

    All public torrents are tracked by SUMOTracker and PirateBay on top of the original tracker, so you will still be able to download even if the original tracker is unreachable :)

  • me

    Breeze, care to explain about the piece size? I use 256 mostly but for big files (like Linux ISOs ;) ) I go with 512-1024. Why 256?

  • bhinak

    Here’s some RIAA/MPAA court cases that are taking place in the US. Read the related articles also. I live in the US and have had 2 run ins with MD but nothing ever happened.

    http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20070924-victorious-riaa-defendant-gets-attorneys-fees-turns-to-class-action-plans.html

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  • the.dwarfer

    Has anyone noticed that eztv demonoid and mininova are all down today?

    i hope this isn’t related

  • Noby

    You might also add the denis.stalker.h3q.com announce url to your torrents. It’s an open tracker, meaning that just announcing a hash to them is enough to start tracking it over there (no need for uploading torrent files, heck, they don’t even run a indexing site for that purpose). Maybe if one uses the Bluetack filter list, he/she has to unblock their IP (thanks to Bluetack for that retarded banning on that IP).

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  • manicmac

    All the arguments aside….when trackers start banning whole contries….the fight is almost over…the mafiaa’s are winning. And your going down without a fight. If your in another country running a tracker what do you have to worry about. Are you that scared of the US and its corporations.

  • me

    i’m in brazil and i see no difference in my torrent speed with my 2mb connection, anyway its a badnews see great american torrent sites falling one after an other

  • Tom

    And you Europeans say we’re the arrogant one? How about instead of turning this into a “we’re better than you” argument, we all get together and try to solve the underlying problem?

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  • Matt

    Naw I like this better. I’m Canadian. And yes. I AM better than you.

  • Gringo Chapin

    [quote comment="172842"][..] there’s always DHT [..]
    As long as the private flag isn’t set by some morons for public torrents…

    - Breeze[/quote]

    I’ve often wanted a simple way to turn off that private flag. I realize that it wouldn’t do much good unless some other folks did likewise, so perhaps a few of the most popular apps should offer this feature. Unless someone knows of some good reason not to do so?

  • TBA

    To block anyone you like, I have 2 words…..peer guardian.

  • canadaisballs

    Canada sucks.

  • christh21

    Facts correction: The three sites that were sued in February 2006 did NOT include TorrentBox. They were Isohunt, TorrentSpy, and NiteShdw.com.

  • Cory

    I have a program that makes my ip look like it’s coming from Japan, or I can choose it to be anywhere in the world I want to. These programs are SUPER EASY to use… would these work as a work around because it’s not showing you’re from the US? if so, than NOTHING is happening to Bittorrent traffic at all.

  • Honeyko

    > the people in the USA lose out because
    > they let the orgs like the MPAA flourish

    “…they let…”?

    What do you suggest *I* do about it? Vote uselessly?

    They have democracy in Europe, too; and it’s just about the most decrepit thing ever.

  • h33t

    ipfiltering a WHOLE country is a legal move, nothing to do with best practise for trackers that are not in a legal bind

    tracker best practise is:

    1. a public tracker must use blocklist ipfiltering to drop all the known anti-p2p ip’s to prevent them from joining the network
    2. a public tracker must use tracker blocking to eliminate bad trackers propagating fake files
    3. a public tracker must actively moderate uploads to eliminate fake files

    conclusion:
    open public unprotected trackers are rich bountiful source of infomation for the **AA who need do nothing more than add a tracking peer to a torrent to receive all the data they need. i am sorry to say this, examples of dangerous unprotected public trackers:

    denis.stalker.h3q.com
    demonoid
    thepiratebay
    sumo

    http://www.h33t.com has an open public tracker that uses ipfiltering to block ALL known anti-p2p ip’s from joining a swarm. it is possible and more trackers must start using ipfiltering

    (final note on the evil DHT, the tracker communities must be educated to DISABLE the evil DHT as it is an open door into the swarm when a protected tracker has blocked an evil peer)

  • Chris

    Just wondering…

    Is it possible to move seeds from a fixed location to a “floating” location? So, instead of putting a seed .torrent file on a server (always subject to takedown) I upload it directly into a global swarm?

    What I envision is some sort of plugin for the bit torrent clients that slowly moves bits around all day. Most people would hardly notice a few K per hour.

    I’m not a tech guy but it seems that bit torrent is most of the way there already.

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  • Abe Froman

    Ah well, back to getting my shit from newsgroups…

  • naxalite

    is demonoid dead? seems to be offline…
    is the party ending?
    maybe some more people will start partying after bar…

  • the.dwarfer

    as i said earlier eztv is out too, i think the massive amount of people downloading the fall premiers has done it.

  • http://neuron2neuron.blogspot.com Ben Jones

    [quote comment="173124"]
    1. a public tracker must use blocklist ipfiltering to drop all the known anti-p2p ip’s to prevent them from joining the network[/quote]

    You’re a bit behind the times, and a little nieve too. Blocklists don’t work. BT-GM ran them on their trackers years ago, as did, I believe Youceff. They still got notices, and youceff got raided.

    A blocklist is only effective when every potential IP that can be used by copyright enforcers, is blocked. Theonly way to do that is to block all IPs. Its a solution that has that fatal flaw in it’s conception, and hasn’t worked for at least 10 years. Promoting it as a good idea is one of the worst.

    A false sense of security is worse than not having it to begin with.

  • this is the slasherman speaking

    MPAA needs to know who they are fucking with…I say kill all the people who tries to sensur the internet. Kill all the people involved in MPAA.

  • Honeyko

    The paranoia here is breathtaking. There are MILLIONS of file-traders, so much so that you’re more likely to be struck by lightning than be one of the miniscule handful to ever confront an available court-docket spot.

    Essentially, you have to be exceedingly stupid and reply to every single letter you ever get. And, never use IP-blocking software (e.g., PeerGuardian) and are therefore at the top of their list for attention.)

    Why people don’t use PeerGuardian for its other utility (blocking fake servers, etc) is beyond me. Is it perfect? No. Is anything else? No.

  • Noby

    @h33t:

    Well, as Ben Jones pointed out, you are a little behind the times. The people at opentracker (denis.stalker.h3q.com) added a feature to their tracker named “Perfect Deniability”. They add random IPs to their announce. So media companys can’t rest on using the announce as proof of anything.

    http://opentracker.blog.h3q.com/?p=22

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  • bt

    From isohunt:
    As of earlier today, we have disabled access from users in the US to our trackers, until further notice. This goes for ALL trackers (torrentbox, podtropolis) we run. This is due to the US’s hostility towards P2P technologies, and we feel with our current lawsuit brought by the MPAA, we can no longer ensure your security and privacy in the US. So, if you’re outside the US, you may notice less peers. We encourage you to add other public, unhampered trackers to torrents you post, in addition to Torrentbox and Podtropolis’s trackers.
    —–

    Way to frame an issue wrong, your journalistic skills need help. Don’t help spread half-truths elsewhere please.

  • kornflake

    most trackers i know have u disable dht neway and as far as

  • ScrewBADNEWS

    [quote comment="172627"]I believe that this was isoHunts decision, not the MPAA’s., despite how you wish to word your headline. I’d gladly give up US peers if it means that I’m less likey to be sending or recieving shit from the likes of the late Media Defender or Media Sentry. There is more to this world the what America thinks, and we still have the rest of the world to seed to and leech from. Personaly I think good on them, screw the US and their world police mentality. Its about time more sites started doing the same. Perhaps then the lazy bastards in the US might decide enough is enough and stand up against the MAFIAA, rather than bitching because the rest of the world doesnt want anything to do with them. Boohoo for you.[/quote]

    screw you fuckin wanker. not everyone in the US is a lazy fuckin bastard. Also, just in case you hadnt noticed, not everyone in the US believes in this “World Police” bullshit. In fact less than 30% of the US approves of the way the country is being run by the monkeys on the hill. So quit acting like every person from the US is an asshole and a lazy bastard whos only goal in life is to screw the rest of the world over. Honestly, i dont give a shit about the rest of the world, smuggle crack and blow each other up for all I care, not my problem. Just keep it out of my back yard. The only thing that we’ve done right was killing Sadam Hussein. He had it coming.
    As for the fuck up of a war going on over there now, however many years later, I am not for it but I will support our troops because they didnt choose to be there they chose to defend our country not anyone else’s. If you wanna talk about saying enough is enough and standing up and doing something, we did the right thing and all you pussies over in Europe did shit. The US made sure there was one less psychotic mass-homicidal leader out there while France and the UK were too afraid to go.

  • Honeyko

    France was selling weapons to Saddam.

  • Pharaoh

    /me stabs the MPAA

  • ~

    [quote]screw you fuckin wanker. not everyone in the US is a lazy fuckin bastard. Also, just in case you hadnt noticed, not everyone in the US believes in this “World Police” bullshit. In fact less than 30% of the US approves of the way the country is being run by the monkeys on the hill.[/quote]

    Do something about it? :P

    [quote]… but I will support our troops because they didnt choose to be there they chose to defend our country not anyone else’s.[/quote]

    They didn’t choose to be there? Not refusing to go seems like choosing to me ;)

    [quote]If you wanna talk about saying enough is enough and standing up and doing something, we did the right thing and all you pussies over in Europe did shit. The US made sure there was one less psychotic mass-homicidal leader out there while France and the UK were too afraid to go.[/quote]

    Your idiot president ordered the invasion and occupation of their country to kill their idiot president, and started a civil war which caused the deaths of over a million people (1/3 killed directly by “coalition” troops).

    Congratulations, sure wish MY country had the guts to do something that stupid! Then I could act all macho and blame the evil commie Europeans for everything!

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  • Geldan

    It’s not a right to steal copyrighted material. We aren’t socialists, and we aren’t communists, and we’re proud of this fact.

  • noname

    ScrewBADNEWS, bin ladens proberly drinking coffee with bush right now as i type laughing at all you morons

  • panther

    [quote comment="173352"][quote]screw you fuckin wanker. not everyone in the US is a lazy fuckin bastard. Also, just in case you hadnt noticed, not everyone in the US believes in this “World Police” bullshit. In fact less than 30% of the US approves of the way the country is being run by the monkeys on the hill.[/quote]

    Do something about it? :P

    [quote]… but I will support our troops because they didnt choose to be there they chose to defend our country not anyone else’s.[/quote]

    They didn’t choose to be there? Not refusing to go seems like choosing to me ;)

    [quote]If you wanna talk about saying enough is enough and standing up and doing something, we did the right thing and all you pussies over in Europe did shit. The US made sure there was one less psychotic mass-homicidal leader out there while France and the UK were too afraid to go.[/quote]

    Your idiot president ordered the invasion and occupation of their country to kill their idiot president, and started a civil war which caused the deaths of over a million people (1/3 killed directly by “coalition” troops).

    Congratulations, sure wish MY country had the guts to do something that stupid! Then I could act all macho and blame the evil commie Europeans for everything![/quote]

    It sure looks different from the other side of the ocean doesn’t it? Did you know that people can be shot for abandoning the military, committing treason? Yeah, its a high crime. How bout you go have a chat with your leader and tell them to change something you don’t like, and wait for it to happen, since that’s what you’re expecting us to do. Yeah, that will happen. You’re a snob, and an uneducated one at that.

  • Relex

    Don’t see how blocking USA ip’s from torrentbox will stop people. I just connect to a proxy server with firefox and I can still get torrents from torrentspy.

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  • Nitrate Row

    [quote]It’s not a right to steal copyrighted material.[/quote]

    When will you learn that copying is not stealing?

    [quote]We aren’t socialists, and we aren’t communists, and we’re proud of this fact.[/quote]

    I’m an anarchist; I’m not a capitalist, I’m not a statist, and I am proud of this fact :)

  • Whocares

    Hey badnews or should I say tard, your still going to download mad mediadefender shit from the web, THEY ARE EVERYWHERE, anyways this don’t mean shit for me as a USA ciizen.

  • tdatb

    As far as I know there’s not a single instance of piracy occurring through the use of bittorrent software. “Piracy” involves copying and distributing FOR PROFIT materials for which you have not secured the right to do so from the rightholder. I make no profit from any material I upload, nor do I pay anyone for anything I download.

    The MPAA loses no money from me because I refuse to pay their excessive prices: I only buy movies from the bargain bin, ( and it’s been a long time since I’ve even done that, ) and the last movie I actually went to a theatre and paid to see was “Braveheart”.

    The RIAA loses nothing from me because the entire industry puts out less than a dozen songs worth listening to in any calendar year and I absolutely REFUSE to pay $15-$20 for a CD with 1 decent song and 9 pieces of shit on it.

    I download alot of TV – American, British, Canadian, and Australian. I have a strange sleep schedule ( many years of working nights combined with the pain meds for my multiple herniated discs, ) and downloading is easier than setting-up the VCR and ( usually ) delivers a higher quality video. So, I can legally tape or TiVo “Desperate Housewives” for my sister and she can invite a dozen of her friends over to watch it with her and send the tape home with the girl whose mother couldn’t come but it’s against the law for me to download tonight’s episode of “Bones” to watch when I’m awake??? Bullshit!!!

    Every connection I make from my IP to another IP on the ‘net is the same thing as the connections I make when I place a telephone call and should be similiarly protected. The RIAA and MPAA engage in what is tantamount to illegal wiretapping activities each and every time they intercept or track a private citizen’s internet activity. It is a Federal felony to remove a supermarket circular from my mailbox but anyone who can gain access to my private email can do so with impunity. Hackers go to prison for breaking into others’ computers or for spreading malicious software ( viruses, rootkits, etc., ) yet these NON-GOVERNMENTAL organizations are allowed to actually keep people on their payrolls to do just those things and are not charged with conspiracy and racketeering?

    Unfortunately, common sense seems to have no place in Law, anymore: it’s all about Politics and Lobbyists with large bank accounts. The only way we’ll ever get things straightened out is to take over a small country – Belize or Guyana have small populations and decent climates….. ;P – and make laws allowing for the setting up of a massive server farm with an “anything goes” policy towards materials and access and absolutely NO LOGGING so that even the Western governments’ hired hackers couldn’t get any data out of them to use against anyone. Too bad it’ll never happen……..

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  • Honeyko

    > and started a civil war which caused the deaths of over a million people

    You’re a stupid lapper of propaganda. Nowhere near that many people have died in Iraq — not by orders of magnitude — and you make it sound like the Killing Fields of Cambodia.

  • Honeyko

    .

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  • Franklin Delano Roosevelt

    Ladies and Gentlemen, an address from the (former) President of the United States of America:

    September 24th, 2007 – a date which will live in infamy – the torrents of the United States of America were suddenly and deliberately attacked by legal and fiduciary forces of the MPAA and RIAA.

    They have attacked Torrentspy.

    They have attacked Isohunt.

    They have attacked Demonoid.

    The attack yesterday on the Trackers has caused severe damage to American completion. I regret to tell you that very many American downloads have been lost. In addition, American peers have been reported torpedoed on the backbones between San Francisco and New York.

    But always will our whole nation remember the character of the onslaught against us. No matter how long it may take us to overcome this premeditated invasion, the American people in their righteous
    might will win through to absolute victory.

    I believe that I interpret the will of the Seeders and of the leechers when I assert that we will not only defend ourselves to the uttermost, but will make it very certain that this form of treachery shall never
    again endanger us.

    Hostilities exist. There is no blinking at the fact that our movies, our music, and our television shows are in grave danger.

    With confidence in our modems – with the unbounding determination of our people – we will gain the inevitable triumph – so help us God!

  • this is the slasherman speaking again

    its time to fight back..kill all the people who tries to sensur the internet..
    Hack all MPAA systems

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  • M. P.

    Hey, I live in the US and yeah, the US are some whiny people trying to make a buck for sorry movies they present. They get angry because they charge a arm and a leg for useless movies they bring to the table and no one wants to pay for such rubbish.
    Not everybody in the US are the bad guys, ok? So stop lashing out on the people who help people over seas seed their movies. I’m one of those people who do help those who moan and complain about nobody seeding. So from the US, you’re welcome for that.

  • bt

    Nice job changing the article title, too bad the url with the false info still exists. :P

  • ReasonOne

    Hilarious. This petty “my country” crap started becasue some idiot decided to blame an entire nation of people for the M*AA. Then he (and others) went on to say how they don’t upload to the US, and it didn’t matter to them anyway. If it doesn’t matter to you, then why start the fight you knew would happen? Because you just want to fight.

    It would be better for you to just STFU and go about your “uploading only to cool Euro countries” policy. Americans, get your IP blockers tuned-up and remove Europe…

  • ReasonOne

    Oh, and one more thing. It looks like it was the CRIA (That’s the CANADIAN Recording Industry Association) that was responsible for the Demonoid downtime.

    I guess the folks in Europe will have to simply block all IPs in North America now. Do I hear anyone whining about lazy Canadians not standing up to the CRIA? (awfully quiet out there).

  • juang

    [quote comment="173958"]> and started a civil war which caused the deaths of over a million people

    You’re a stupid lapper of propaganda. Nowhere near that many people have died in Iraq — not by orders of magnitude — and you make it sound like the Killing Fields of Cambodia.[/quote]
    According to the most recent reliable studies, it’s been over 1 million.

  • Neil

    Isohunt bows down and sucks anti-pirate dick so fast, pathetic… MPAA will use them as a tool to fight the war, and theyre falling for it to avoid lawsuits.. if they cant handle the pressure then they need to get the fuck out of the water instead of being sharks themselves.

  • scrippen

    Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”).

    I guess it’s just another one of those things that happen. Prohibition
    never stopped alcohol in the “Twenties.” It only made thing more interesting. Americans will refuse to and can only be sued for no more than the “ORIGINAL PRICE” of whatever they download. At most it can really only be a “COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT.”
    Though many jurisdictions impose penalties for certain blatant acts of copyright infringement and may try to stop certain infringing imports at the border, copyright infringement is still mainly prosecuted through private lawsuits by the copyright holder or their exclusive licensees. When successful, these lawsuits will typically impose monetary damages against the infringer as well as injunctions against future infringing uses.

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  • Nicole

    I am in the U.S. and the people who are of the age that use torrents are least likely to vote. It is SO fustrating because when you tell your friends to vote they say the politicians don’t speak to them. But of course they don’t speak to them because they don’t vote. I am in law school and still talk to friends going back to high school. Most don’t vote, even when you show them posts about how our rights are diminishing before our eyes, despite the fact that the judgments in these cases have a direct effect on them. Corporations have such a hold on our government and our politicians are useless. They act outraged infront of the camera over what is baseball players’ urine, but won’t standup to our moron president or the RIAA for that matter. A lot of people who live in the U.S. and are aware of what is going on do care but in my opinion we are totally outnumbered by those happy to watch tv until they pass out when they get home from work. As much as I am proud of certain aspects of my country’s history, I can see why the rest of the world thinks we are a bunch of lazy dolts. A lot of U.S. citizens grow up being told that the U.S. is the greatest and that our way of doing things is the only way. So many never question that, despite that some of the bad consequences for some of our actions/methods staring us in the face. Hell, I still can’t get over the fact that Bush was elected for a second term.

  • Youguysareparanoid

    Mediadefender my ass..
    You pirates pissed off some people and now you expect them to play along?
    I find it kind of funny that this has turned into a war.. You punks never learn do ya? where is respect? where is etique? MD is nothing more then smoke and mirrors for people who want others to believe its the media that comes to get them. In truth, these guy have better things to do then waste their precious time with worthless user.

  • Youguysareparanoid

    You want to share fine but stop trying to be little hitler trying to own people like their sheep. Come on we’re not stupid and we don’t like being controlled by the few. What different are you guys from these megacorporation? Why do these site need donation? So they wouldn’t be up and running w/out some kind of donation? So they are competing with money by providing a place to share files. Big Deal. So they too are making money, and if they aren’t they would not be up for more then 24hrs.
    Who the hell would do a free service for nothing? The human is driven by mopney and greed. They will never change. P2P sole purpose was to do a free service but it has taken a wrong turn. I’m sorry but if something doesn’t benefit anyone why continue to do it? I may as well work for free and try to pay my rent out of nothing. Will that work?

  • Nicole

    [quote comment="173102"]I have a program that makes my ip look like it’s coming from Japan, or I can choose it to be anywhere in the world I want to. These programs are SUPER EASY to use… would these work as a work around because it’s not showing you’re from the US? if so, than NOTHING is happening to Bittorrent traffic at all.[/quote]

    Which one do you program do you recomend? Have you tried it? Thanks!

  • scrippen

    Try “Anonymizer Anonymous Surfing” followed up with “PeerGuardian .”

    Or do this:Set you LAN, and them :

    echo “Ip Masque lance…”
    echo “1″ >> /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

    echo >> /etc/issue
    /sbin/ipfwadm -F -p deny
    /sbin/ipfwadm -F -a m -S 192.168.1.0/24 -D 0.0.0.0/0
    /sbin/modprobe ip_masq_cuseeme
    /sbin/modprobe ip_masq_ftp
    /sbin/modprobe ip_masq_irc
    /sbin/modprobe ip_masq_quake
    /sbin/modprobe ip_masq_raudio
    /sbin/modprobe ip_masq_vdolive

    Ummm and other “STUFF” to Masquerade your IP. But this can cause a KERNEL COMPILE ERRORS. You are probably better of using commercial software unless you are an “IT” geek…lol

  • yeeeeehawwww

    money by providing a place to share files. Big Deal. So they too are making money, and if they aren’t they would not be up for more then 24hrs.
    Who the hell would do a free service for nothing? The human is driven by mopney and greed. They will never change. P2P sole purpose was to do a free service but it has taken a wrong turn. I’m sorry but if something doesn’t benefit anyone why continue to do it? I may as well work for free and try to pay my rent out of nothing. Will that work?[/quote]
    I agree, if these free torrent site companies were paying out of their own pocket for server space, connection speeds, and moreover php programmers to build them sites.. they surely wouldnt have enough money left over to hire “top-knotch” lawyers.. everyone is out to get theres.. as p2p downloaders.. were out to get free shit.. plain and simple.. the providers of that free shit they are getting kickbacks from advertising.. and the **AA are getting nothing.. well boohoo.. last time I checked box office records are staggering. They wont be squeezing my tit anymore. they can run out every torrent site they want but there is one constant in all of this. when you build a lock, someone will pick it. where I sit. all this cyber babble is in vane. not one of you have any say so and probably not one of you with half a brain cell will be shut out from the free media.. so why point fingers and say shut out americans? or americans why point the finger and say fuck you?
    very infantile indeed. things are the way they are.. nobody cares

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  • then who has any help

    then does anyone here know how to bypass or circumvent these sh1tty bans? i liked torrentspy, until their so-called-head banned the u.s., and now isohunt? does anyone here know how to write a program or know one that can circuvent this sh1t?

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  • ironx

    is that Switzerland or Sweden

  • Anonymous

    this has been on the cards for a while now, if the US wasn’t wrapped up in other countries affairs, they would’ve seen this coming.

    the bottom line is that this isnt about to get better, in fact this leaves the MPAA to start going for the smaller minnow p2p sites and pressuring them to follow suit, using not only lawsuits, but the actions of isohunt and others as a precedent to which they will now be intent on making the others follow.

    For american’s there is a lesson here, do not vote for presidents who only want to flex their military muscles, but who actually have a brain in their heads. Whats with the “land of the free” when you have to be a millionaire to be president in the US with a multi-million dollar campaign to stay in the competition? thats not democracy people!

    for the MPAA, this is the best thing they could hope for, they have now effectively shut a fair percentage of the US torrent market down, the average american would have no more than a bit torrent program and isohunt in their favourites list.

    the MPAA have no direct duristiction over other countries (despite their arrogance to the contrary) but they have been putting pressure on the governments in Europe and Canada and Australia, to bring in anti-piracy laws to include torrent downloading.

    Thankfully, the legislation has not been developed to a stage where it is illegal to download torrents (which the mpaa would have us all believe).

    With the blocking of the US from certain trackers and sites, the MPAA now have a smaller barrel of fish to shoot into in the US, so for the US torrent user, its not looking good for you.

    since your president and his cabinet appear to be in the pockets of the MPAA, then it envitably comes back to the american joe for putting the seeds there to start this ball rolling…

  • pissedUSA

    for one i didnt vote for this fucktard of a president, but did that keep him from becoming the president , no

    i am american and i loath almost everything about it, and i hate to be hated by others just cause i was born and live in the USA.

    to all of those people that dont like me cause i live in the USA can suck my nut and die for all i care, you dont respect me i wont respect you. simple as that.

    i dont have a problem with the people that like me no matter where i live.

    all of this i am better then you attitude is a bunch of bullshit, you are obviously no better then anyone else, people who think like this are so closed minded its pathetic. its people like this that deserve nothing in life cause they dont know what respect means.

    why cant we all just get together and fight this as one. fighting with each other isnt going to do anything except just make things worse.

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  • Anonymous

    guys, just go to usenet.

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  • American Badass

    1st of all, all u faggots hatin on the USA can suck my left nut, cuz America is the shit, and fuck wit us and we will fuk u up. 2nd, these torrent sites are a revolution in the media business. Its goin to force the media to only produce good shit. There is so much shit out there its hard to know whats good, and thats why the torrent sites are tight.

    Ps Canada Sucks and the antichrist is alive.

  • Zzz

    Fuck the MPAA

  • Becca

    This has been an interesting read. I actually got very little information on what the article was actually talking about and more on how everyone hates “US”. Do you guys really have nothing else to do with your lives but then to sit around and hate the US? I’m not saying we’re the best country in the world, and I certainly don’t believe it, but geeze get off your high horses.

    Now please can some explain in plain English, or whatever language you’re comfortable in, although I may not understand you ;)what exactly is going on? I mostly got that the MPAA is trying to shut down free bittorrent sites? And so the sites are starting to block US users?
    Someone also mentioned something about Mediadefenders, what exactly was meant. I have an idea, but I would like clarification.
    Thanks in advance.

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  • Anonymous

    [quote comment="173036"]Naw I like this better. I’m Canadian. And yes. I AM better than you.[/quote]
    at f*cking polar bears.
    ok I grant you that

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  • fuck you usa

    what makes me laugh is you americans are so far up your arse you cant see the truth.
    you suplied the arms to saddam to fight against iran. then he used them against the us brits.
    you suplied the arms to the afgans
    the taliban against the russians.
    now there using them against us the brits.the americans are the one’s who do the friendly fire. oops your dead you moved and i thought you was the enemy. you lot start a war that you cannot finish.
    the world would be a better and safe
    place without a yank.
    arse holes, sorry arse holes are uuseful they get rid of shit.

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  • ^hey guy

    ^you’re next.

  • fuck you usa

    89 internet hardnut that about sums
    a american.
    shit head

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  • American

    i don’t bash other nations but i think it’s pretty messed up to bash mine…being blk i fucking hate brits…u “arse” holes started the fucking slave trade so shut the fuck up about who the world would b better without…cus your on the top of the list in the worlds opinion because of the sheer massive damage u inflicted on the world during your era as an empire…secondly…we’re all fucking human…iran and afgan…they had and have to be taken care of some time…if we leave em alone…they’ll just fuck with europe…granted they are now but it probobly would be hella worse if there wasn’t a war goign on

  • white man

    fuck u nigga

  • fuck you usa

    you call us brits for the slave trade, ok fair enough but if it did not happen you jungle beats will still be in africa banging drums and crying out war songs and humping monkeys, dont say you dont because where do you think aids has come from.
    anyway if it was not for us you niggas will still be in the ice age.

  • fuck you usa

    ps, i dont call other nations just america.
    because you are the shits of this world. i feel sorry for canada and mexico who have got to boarder you lot.

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