Police Shut Down Latvian BitTorrent Trackers
Written by Ernesto on February 24, 2009Latvia continues its clamp down on BitTorrent trackers, as two more sites have been pulled offline by the local police. Whether the attempts will prove effective is doubtful. File.lv, Latvia’s largest BitTorrent tracker was taken down last summer but has since returned, despite an ongoing lawsuit.
A few months ago we reported that File.lv, Latvia’s largest BitTorrent community went dark after a joint effort by the Latvian Economic Police and the IFPI-affiliated Latvian Music Producers Association, otherwise known as LAmpA. While the site has since returned, local authorities continue their efforts to shut down further BitTorrent trackers.
Outlaw.lv, one of the largest trackers in Latvia is currently offline following pressure from the Economic Police, while rumors say that one of the top uploaders was detained for a few hours. “Economic Police has shut down our project. Outlaw LV will be back in a new way and with a new mission,” reads a message on the front page.
It is clear though that the authorities aim to take more sites offline. Danger.lv is another tracker that has received a letter from the police, and they decided to pull the plug voluntarily, for the time being.
Similar to last summer, several other BitTorrent trackers became extra cautious after the renewed attention from the authorities. Bithack.lv was one of the trackers that took action. The site didn’t close however, but now serves recipes instead of torrent files.
TorrentFreak spoke with one admin of a local BitTorrent tracker, who informed us that they have also been receiving letters from anti-piracy organizations. “A handful of popular trackers are taking severe countermeasures to avoid any possibility of takedown and continue to serve the community for now, hoping that no takedowns will follow,” he said.
As with many of the takedown attempts in other parts of the world, lobbyists from the entertainment industry are the ones tipping off the police, and assisting in ‘evidence gathering’ and even raids. In Latvia it’s LAmpA, but the BPI and IFPI have also been assisting the authorities, most notably with the raid on the popular music tracker OiNK.
Needless to say, these anti-piracy outfits are not the most objective partner when it comes to solving these type of digital ‘offenses’, and it’s worrisome to see how they appear to be increasingly intertwined with local authorities.
Previously: Pirate Bay Trial Day 7: Screenshots for Evidence
Next: Pirate Bay Trial Day 8: Pirates Kill the Music Biz
68 Responses
tell the music industry good luck in shutting down all 10 million trackers worldwide…
…i guess no more Latvia Girls Gone Wild torrents for a while…
it seems to me like the IFPI are taking individual sticks from a bundle and trying to break them…
As Aesop (?) said, “United we stand, Divided we fall”.
and then that’s bittorrent ROFL and what of the 5 billion other ways to transfer files …as the internet is exactly that , transfer of data.
Remove that and your going ot have a load a angry kids , adults and disabled that will cause you a load a problems.
we should all just turn it off for a month and/or refuse to pay the bill in north america a SHOW of force of WHO is really in charge.
VideoGamersUnited.com
lolz @ that tracker now serving recipes :D
If you log into bithack, you still get torrents. The frontpage is just a “coverup”, a way to ridicule the lampa.
uk-t.org for all your mod needs.
Serves them right. Latvian people are known to be extremely corrupt, cruel and prone to violent outbursts of rage against people that are smaller than themselves.
The fact that they mercilessly beat their own children (that’s the lucky kids) as a routine part of their culture is just one of the things about Latvia that means I have little sypmpathy for this sad and twisted country. They also supply 98% of the worlds slaves and control at least 70% of Europes heroin trade.
They don’t deserve filesharing. As a nation and a people they should be wiped from the face of the earth.
thekodels do bithack a favour and get your comment deleted, the anti-piracy groups read this site too and you just tipped them off…
Bithack has served tor… recipes since 2004 ;]
#8 Excuse me? I am latvian. I can’t even comment that bullsh*t you just said.
[...]They also supply 98% of the worlds slaves and control at least 70% of Europes heroin trade.[...]
Are you f*cking kidding me? Have’nt you played GTA IV too much? http://tehnika.boot.lv/index.php?pg=202&news_id=7853
People like you don’t deserve free speech. Why are you telling such lies?
Unfotrunately Latvia has high coruption ratio in all goverment institutions, so it was pretty easy for music industry to shut them down…..
“thekodels do bithack a favour and get your comment deleted, the anti-piracy groups read this site too and you just tipped them off…”
Right. Because they never would have worked that out in 2 minutes.
Oh wait, yes they would have.
Man, you are some silly twit aren’t you.
can someone explain what is “the Economic Police” ?
@12
a fancy way of saying they have a ‘do what they feel and get away with it’ badge
“Unfotrunately Latvia has high coruption ratio in all goverment institutions, so it was pretty easy for music industry to shut them down…..”
Then, the only thing needed to fight back is monetary resources. If supporters of the trackers would all band together and contribute some money to the defense of the tracker, then surely there would be enough to fight back. After all, there must be many, many, more file-sharers than people working for the LAmpA.
Economic Police is an institution of Criminal Police that is supposed to fight corruption, counterfeiting, frauds, smuggling… and also copyright issues. Unfortunately they find it difficult to solve serious national cases that require extensive effort and instead attack the supposed pirates.
#13 is quite right. It is a norm over here.
And, #8 (ghannie)… please die :-(
This is Latvia. Bribe politicians and you could put ANYTHING into law.
http://youtube.roarion.co.uk
quote: And, #8 (ghannie)… please die :-(
+1
———
TPB FTW
———
“Warner has actually led the industry with a policy of signing bands to so-called 360 deals, in which artists give the label a cut of everything they sell, be it ringtones, merchandise, or concert tickets.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/11/arts/music/11leed.html
There ya have it they are not only getting music sales also they are getting tshirt sales and concert money, so if an artist deals with them DONT GOTO there CONCERTS , DONT buy there stuff.
bigest nonsense I’ve ever heard. Althought I’m not from Latvia, but I was there for a 2month, all you said is pure insane. Who can really beat you is lithuanians, but Latvia was very kind on the underground scene at least. Talking about simple people, haven’t had any problems at all..
and wtf O.o is that? ” They also supply 98% of the worlds slaves ” it’s not 17th centry you know? =D
I don’t think a lot of torrent sites do themselves any favours in their choice of names for their websites a lot of the time. It says a lot about their intentions and attitude as will be seen by the authorities. From this report alone we have Outlaw and Danger (not to mention the obvious one in the news atm). Perhaps they should be a bit more subtle…
“They also supply 98% of the worlds slaves and control at least 70% of Europe’s heroin trade.”
Man, I laughed so hard… You ARE a dimwit, aren’t you? Oh, wait – this is “the internets”, you don’t need to justify anything you say. Idiot!
they shuting down my contrys torrents :(
lol @ #8
You truly don’t have any fckin idea what ure talkin about
#8
yes, please die once again after you die first time as suggested by #15
As you will try to close these trackers , they will come back , no mather what you will do. Because , they are saving the tracker resourses , only the owner’s will change.
“TorrentFreak spoke with one admin of a local BitTorrent tracker…”
a local tracker?
A tracker in Latvia you moron.
Latvia has a music scene? You’d think they’d want world-wide exposure (how many kids could find Latvia on a map?) for their scene. They ought to be hosting their own BitTorrent tracker and getting their music online. I can guarantee you no one else will do it :) Given the abysmal state of music at this time, a Latvian invasion is not beyond the realm of imagination.
@6: i think you are wrong i’m member of that comunity and can honestly say we don’t get any torrents anymore
@8: WTF? though i think it was sarkasm
@11: tru to the last bit of your message
@15: goverment has taken care of fact that we should never have monney if we continue to stay in this country
@29: SHUS what we do in our bathrooms is our own buisness (lol)
You should be careful of what you say. Although I’m not proud of my country (because of government corruption, incompetence and many other reasons), I can’t tolerate what you said about my people. That was uncalled for and VERY OFFENSIVE.
@30: re “we don’t get any torrents anymore”
can you clarify if it is no torrents from bithack or no torrents at all (in Latvia)?
but why do you need the torrent sites be located in Latvia? does geographic location really matter on the net?
a the moment – here in Latvia – there is only one normal bittorent tracker left running… f* bs, even the economic police is corrupted! Institution responsible for all that horse s* here also is corrupted (talking about Lampa – aka: LAiPA) – they have gone trough with every possible immoral law – that could be created – ever! artists here, if they are lucky – get around 10% of all income, f* f* bs…. (excuse me for swearing so much, but what can I do…)
:@32 re(if it realy was pointed at me)
… i wont coment on your question fully but i can say that i have not seen any torrent file on bithack.lv though i have seen a whole bunch of recepies on coktails(probly typo) and foodz
as for geography and net …actualy there is alitle bit of difference in speed of the download due to distance and hops and many other things i wont go in to though i myself am patient enough to wait even 2 hours for 10gb downlaod to finsh…my speed and provider hopefully shall not be dusgussed
Soooo you are you really better with your European Corporate overlords Latvia? Hows that “Freemarket” Capitalism working out for you? Hows all that freedom your enjoying?
Perhaps you had more freedom as Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic hmmmm????
Just swapping one Totalitarian regime for another. The beauty of “Corporate rule” is you don’t know you are under a totalitarian regime. At least with your puppet government under Soviet control, you knew you where being oppressed.
Laughing from Moscow… or Wildblue Satellite Control, in Kirsk…. I love using former Soviet Space program of private interests for the bottom line :D BTW, we are constantly under pressure from MPAA, RIAA, and whatnot to force stricter FAP violation policy… and from what I know… my corporate masters are in lockstep with them.
@32: re “as for geography and net …actualy there is alitle bit of difference in speed of the download due to distance …”
location of the tracker should not matter much. what you want is for people in the swarm to be nearby. one could set up a tracker for people in Latvia but located outside the country (if there are tracker-friendly countries where to put it).
but this is giving in to the terror of money-loving officials and record companies (could work as a temporary measure though).
i hope that torrent-closing activities in the EU (like what is going on in Latvia, the trial in Sweden, …) will not succeed.
but if they do, trackers will just move elsewhere and people will still be using them. the net is large.
in the end record industry will have achieved nothing.
half of the peoples who commented this article, don’t have really any idea what they are talking about
bl*e vot nah*ui outlawu aizveera :D :D:D:D
omg, closing trackers will do any good for anti-piracy, there is so many other ways get stuff :D These trackers get files from other sources anyway, not cracking and ripping itself.
anyway, Bithack FTW :) It is or was second oldest tracker in LV…
No one will follow with by the law if there is no respect for artists etc. Big companies earning billions of dollars and small part of that money gets to artist. And nowadays can sing anyone, no need for talent :/ So why should we give them money? :D
aim with Mo3
ai think u dont`t know reali where is Latvia!
You can get music anywhere this days
http://www.ucubd.com/Index.aspx?id=695&cid=x01000054
You have to be a real retard to not see a sarcasm in the post #8.
As for the topic, well, I don’t give a damn to be honest, I will download my TV series from TPB, we have wide & direct cable to Sweden, so speeds are quite ok. Though I liked bithack for instant uploads of Lost in 720p. For Russian material or warez there is huge tracker torrents.ru, which satisfies me. So fellow latvians stop this annoying whine. However I must admit, these LAMPA fags should be raped in the ass, considering they are stealing money from us when you buy any media carriers, printers and other stuff.
“Alms for the poor! Place a penny in my hat mister, please, I can no longer afford to bribe politicians to do my bidding.”
If they keep spending, then I’ll keep sharing. Every new computer I connect to internet, get three things.
1. Anti-Virus
2. Anti-Malware
3. File-Sharing
They can close down the web, it won’t help. They can screw innocent software developers into open-source. The only people who gain from this are those who share.
The digital revolution has been and gone.
i am half black and half latvian. you know, latvians really only want to drink balsams, listen to music and dance in between shooting up and locking their kids in basement. WOOOOOOOOOOOTTT!!!!
Serves them right. Venusians people are known to be extremely corrupt, cruel and prone to violent outbursts of rage against alien cultures that are smaller than themselves.
The fact that they mercilessly beat their own podlings (that’s the lucky kids) as a routine part of their culture, is just one of the things about Venusians that means I have little sympathy for this sad and twisted planet. They also supply 98% of the worlds Vegan Sex Slaves and control at least 70% of The Sol System’s Trakkia trade.
They don’t deserve filesharing. As a planet and a race they should be wiped from the face of the Milky Way Galaxy.
– There, fixed that for you
And now after receiving some letter from ANDA(just like MPAA ,but Latvian).
Fano.lv has shut down too.
You are such a retard but what can you expect from a lowly Russian whose IQ can be scaled with psychopat and paranoid Zhirinovsky. Have fun in your shithole, greetings from civilized Europe.
F*ck the goverment! Give us our torrents back! I didn’t have any other torrent except outlaw and danger! Could anyone give me some invite from this torrent tracker please???? :) I’m good seeder! veryape@orb.lv PLEASE!
yeah, well, right now theres almost not a single local latvian tracker with an acceptable user base working.
nasty scare.
oh, and file.lv is no longer hosted in Latvia, as far as i know. traceroute tracks it to Moscow.
i guess thats what the other trackers will do as well.
get a life!
THIS IS LATVIAAAAAAA !!!!
Corruption Drugs Alcohol – the trackers now
*sad panda*
to ghannie – say it to me face to face, and I’ll beat your a*s, little pr*ck.
8 Feb 25, 2009 at 01:16 by ghannie
Serves them right. Latvian people are known to be extremely corrupt, cruel and prone to violent outbursts of rage against people that are smaller than themselves.
The fact that they mercilessly beat their own children (that’s the lucky kids) as a routine part of their culture is just one of the things about Latvia that means I have little sypmpathy for this sad and twisted country. They also supply 98% of the worlds slaves and control at least 70% of Europes heroin trade.
They don’t deserve filesharing. As a nation and a people they should be wiped from the face of the earth.
SDFU u dont know wat ur talking…
latvia is the best..!!!
And it isent truth!!!
( The fact that they mercilessly beat their own children)
That yust your imagenashion!!!
Life in latvia is bether then in usa
If ur smart and know how to get to the top ur life will be fantastic..:)
There is no tornados thereisent so mach thefs!!
There is the most butiful girls in the wrold..!!! :D:D:D
and we love to party!!!!
i am half black and half latvian. you know, latvians really only want to drink balsams, listen to music and dance in between shooting up and locking their kids in basement. WOOOOOOOOOOOTTT!!!!
omg ur such a noob!!!!!
i am half black and half latvian. you know, latvians really only want to drink balsams, listen to music and dance in between shooting up and locking their kids in basement. WOOOOOOOOOOOTTT!!!!
omg ur such a noob!!!!!
get a life !!!
ble pisisu ar kaaju tajai policijai nahuj tos sukatajus te vispar vajag. padlas bleha
Nothing Special (Nasing Spešl), it’ Latvia.
@8: Would you please die again!
@58: Indeed!
Necessity will lead us to a new invention. WWW is huge, we’ll find a way.
8 Feb 25, 2009 at 01:16 by ghannie
Serves them right. Latvian people are known to be extremely corrupt, cruel and prone to violent outbursts of rage against people that are smaller than themselves.
The fact that they mercilessly beat their own children (that’s the lucky kids) as a routine part of their culture is just one of the things about Latvia that means I have little sypmpathy for this sad and twisted country. They also supply 98% of the worlds slaves and control at least 70% of Europes heroin trade.
They don’t deserve filesharing. As a nation and a people they should be wiped from the face of the earth.
That text up is 100% bull shit. U realy dont know Latvia as a country. So stop telling to ppl lies. And cruel ppl in latvia is Russians, they destroy our publicity, they are stealers, dealers and they are violent.
And before u saying those lies for Latvia, u need to trench about Latvia. And what i can tell about u is, ur 100% wrong men.
U all whio think that latvia is worst place in the world ur all are wrong. Latvians arent violent, and drugs? LOL i can laf about it, to us drug level is wery low. USA is 400% i can say 100 000 000 times biger drug level. Familiys who lock they kids in basement, they are ppl from RUssia from the Old russian times. And first time i hear about locking kids in basement, go to open ur knowledge ur IQ level is to low. Ur from the rock age, because u dont know anything about latvia, only rumour. So what i can tell STFU and wach to the USA, crime, drugs, violent and other things are more than somewhere else. And all that same i can tell about Russia. they problems are worse. So u all think wrong about latvia.
#8 Excuse me? I am latvian. I can’t even comment that bullsh*t you just said.
[...]They also supply 98% of the worlds slaves and control at least 70% of Europes heroin trade.[...]
Are you f*cking kidding me? Have’nt you played GTA IV too much?
———————
NAY, He just mixed up Latvia with Lithuania as always…
#8 I’m also Latvian , not to start flaming at you , but are you sure you didn’t mix Latvia with Russia? Absolutely nothing of that what you said is true. And who are you to decide who should be wiped off the face of the heart you freak.
No torrents in Latvia – No problems for Latvians.
#8 Better don’t say anything. You just humiliate yourself. Your IQ is to low to say something normal that is true.
Veiksmi visiem!!!
Hey! Someone need some slaves? Discount availible. welcome. If you buy 10 slaves, them 1kg heroin i give you like gift!!!!!! :D
I am from Latvia. this country sux. and politics are under any critics.
police sux. everything sux.
You suck too.
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