QuebecTorrent Clone Outmanoeuvres Music Industry

Written by enigmax on July 16, 2008 

Just days after the QuebecTorrent BitTorrent tracker was taken down by an injunction in a blaze of publicity, a near identical clone of the 108,000+ member tracker has appeared out of nowhere. Allegedly the product of the old team, Torrent411.com is up and running with 109,000+ members - and counting.

Last week we reported on the final chapter of the QuebecTorrent story. After a long legal battle against 31 Canadian media organizations, the administrator decided that rather than fight and lose, it would be better not to mount a defense at all. After receiving a permanent injunction ordering the closure of the site, QuebecTorrent closed its doors for the last time having amassed an impressive 108,805 members.

Many people are drawn to BitTorrent news as it can be both exciting, confusing, intriguing and amazing all at the same time. Today we can report on a story which has all of these elements.

Seemingly out of nowhere appears Torrent411.com. Dubbed “The Torrent Yellow Pages”, this site will have the Canadian recording industry - ADISQ and CRIA et al - tearing out its hair out today. Hosted in Malaysia, from a standing start it already has 109,006 members, which is a couple hundred more than QuebecTorrent.

In fact, all of the QuebecTorrent user accounts have been transferred there - plus all the ratio stats and pretty much everything else. Adding insult to injury, categories that were removed on QuebecTorrent in a failed attempt to avoid legal action in Canada, have now returned. “No censoring blacklists will be tolerated on the site!” claim the Torrent411 admins.

Torrent411

It’s hard to imagine a bigger kick in the teeth for the media industry than this. A notice on the homepage reads:

Welcome to one and all! It is with great pleasure that we launch the Torrent411.com site today. All the team of Torrent411.com wishes you the most cordial of welcomes! Here you will find all the torrents imaginable which will be for you for thousands ofÂ’ hours to come! Filled with surprises that await you!

Of course, Sebastien Brûlotte, aka ‘Doditz’ the ex-administrator of QuebecTorrent, is abiding by the terms of his injunction to the letter. He assured us that he had no part in the creation of the new site and this is backed up the admin team at Torrent411: “All the members of theÂ’ team behind QuebecTorrent.com were preserved, except for late Doditz, our old Admin, who by court order could not join us.”

One area where the sites aren’t quite identical is the number of peers currently being tracked. Of course, to comply with the injunction QuebecTorrent is currently tracking zero peers but already there are instructions on Torrent411’s homepage to get the site’s old torrents working - either a simple edit of the .torrent file’s ‘announce url’ to match the format on Torrent411 - or users can simply re-download matching torrents from the site and use those instead.

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50 Responses

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1 Jul 16, 2008 at 11:31 by Louis

Just give it up.

2 Jul 16, 2008 at 11:33 by Kwl

Hehe. That’s classic.

3 Jul 16, 2008 at 11:41 by Mark

Torrents are a joke… the industry is one big school yard bully there not looking for a way to use this to there killing it off…. when other parts of the industry thank the pirates this is a joke give up

4 Jul 16, 2008 at 11:47 by www.eZee.se

The coming of hydra baby!!!

Good job Torrent411.com, kick their ass, we are right behind ya!

5 Jul 16, 2008 at 12:33 by TonInter

The music industry is getting their asses owned by them ‘nasty’ pirates. =D

6 Jul 16, 2008 at 12:35 by Ernesto

funny >.>

7 Jul 16, 2008 at 12:46 by the.dwarfer

FUCK THE RIAA!
FUCK THE MPAA!
FUCK THE CRIA!

P2P WILL NEVER DIE!

LONG LIVE THE HYDRA!

8 Jul 16, 2008 at 12:55 by Sharky

Man you’re quick. I was just about to tell you about this site. Good work.

9 Jul 16, 2008 at 13:39 by steveballmer

Torrents are for criminals! We will catch and prosecute all of you freaks!

10 Jul 16, 2008 at 13:50 by Anonymous

This is god damn brilliant! Great news, great story…

11 Jul 16, 2008 at 14:49 by lulz

lol *sniff sniff*… oh whats that I smell..?

PWNT TOAST.

That was a real good job you did there mafiaa.. you managed to put 1 admin out of the game.

@9 - Steveballmer

Your blog is boring and stupid, learn how to do something constructive with your time instead of polluting the internet, moron.

12 Jul 16, 2008 at 14:52 by omg..

omg dudes look at all the trolls in here saying shit like Torrents are a joke and were going to catch you..

they are seriously pissed about this..

haha you know you won when they are so mad they actually post comments on TF.

try harder noobs..

13 Jul 16, 2008 at 15:17 by Aemony

The music industry just got owned!

14 Jul 16, 2008 at 15:30 by Nick

I agree with No.7, Screw them there going to lose, How can you stop sharing, Your going to stop the village pirate who sells them to village people? PIRACY IS A COMMUNITY like a village but rather bigger than a village a big VILLAGE

15 Jul 16, 2008 at 15:36 by Anonymous

Excellent work :D

16 Jul 16, 2008 at 15:54 by the.dwarfer

http://www.b3tards.com/u/e4a330e3e27aa99ebb20/mpaaprop.jpg

17 Jul 16, 2008 at 16:40 by Cal!more

Nothing more to say than:

ROFL… nice one!!! :D

18 Jul 16, 2008 at 16:44 by HAAAAAAAAAAAAAR

HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAR

19 Jul 16, 2008 at 18:07 by Kochon

lol they kept QuebecTorrent’s user database, I still have my good old account hehe ^_^

20 Jul 16, 2008 at 18:18 by Franz

This is absolutely brilliant. Anything that annoys the suits is good in my book.

I agree it must have pissed them off as the angry trolls are posting here. LOL!

21 Jul 16, 2008 at 18:21 by anonymous

What about this - http://torrentfreak.com/malaysian-government-orders-immediate-torrent-site-blackout-080627/ ?

Didn’t Malaysia take down all sites?

22 Jul 16, 2008 at 18:21 by Pistol

The “late Doditz”?

He’s dead?

23 Jul 16, 2008 at 19:25 by Crynsos

Now that’s a return! Great work guys, now I just hope your old admin doesn’t get let lonely, he doesn’t deserve it…

(Damn, transferring a full userbase to a clone index site, really nice work, has anyone ever done that before?)

24 Jul 16, 2008 at 19:59 by Crynsos

@21: Look at the last part of that article…

“Update: Contrary to comments from a site admin, sources close to the situation are saying the shutdowns are limited to a small number of sites and aren’t necessarily part of a wider crackdown, despite government involvement.”

25 Jul 16, 2008 at 20:10 by KrazY KnucK

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!
F**K YOU CRIA!!!
YOU LOSE AGAIN!!!
YOU JUST GOT
PWNED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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