Since then Operation in Our Sites has resulted in thousands of domain name seizures and several arrests. While most of the sites are linked to counterfeit goods, dozens of “pirate” sites have also been targeted.

After a period of relative calm the authorities appear to have restarted their efforts with the takedown of two large music sites. RockDizFile.com and RockDizMusic.com, which are connected, now display familiar banners in which ICE takes credit for their demise.

“This domain has been seized by ICE- Homeland Security Investigations, pursuant to a seizure warrant issued by a United States District Court under the authority of 18 U.S.C. §§ 981 and 2323,” the banner reads.

TorrentFreak contacted ICE yesterday for a comment on the recent activity but we have yet to receive a response.

The domain names are now pointing to the same IP-address where many of the previously seized websites, such as torrent-finder.com and channelsurfing.net, are directed. Both domain names previously used Cloudflare and had their NS entries updated earlier this week.

Despite the apparent trouble, RockDizFile.com and RockDizMusic.com’s Twitter and Facebook pages have remained silent for days.

RockDizMusic presented itself as an index of popular new music. Artists were encouraged to use the site to promote their work, but the site also featured music being shared without permission, including pre-release tracks.

RockDizFile used a more classic file-hosting look, but with a 50MB limit it was mostly used for music. The site offered premium accounts to add storage space and remove filesize and bandwidth limitations.

Both websites appear to have a strong focus on rap and hip-hop music. This is in line with previous ICE seizures which targeted RapGodFathers.com, RMX4U.com, OnSmash.com and Dajaz1.com.

The latter was seized by mistake. The record labels failed to deliver proof of alleged infringements to the authorities and after a long appeal the domain was eventually returned to its owners.

This incident and the general lack of due process of ICE’s domain seizures has led to critique from lawmakers and legal scholars. The authorities are nevertheless determined to keep Operation in Our Sites going.

“Operation In Our Sites’ enforcement actions involve federal law enforcement investigating and developing evidence to obtain seizure warrants from federal judges,” ICE states on its website.

Once a credible lead comes in ICE says it “will work with the U.S. Department of Justice to prosecute, convict, and punish individuals as well as seize website domain names, profits, and other property from IP thieves.”

At this point it’s unclear whether ICE has targeted any of the individuals connected to RockDizFile.com and RockDizMusic.com or whether the unit has taken down any other sites in a similar fashion.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In the file-sharing space the phenomenon is very common indeed as these entities, torrent and ‘cyberlockers’ in particular, often face unique challenges. These special issues can often lead to unexpected downtime, although with the advent of social media many sites have improved their communications with users.

That being said, tens of thousands of Firedrive users currently have no idea what has happened to their site.

Firedrive, which was previously known as Putlocker before a rebranding exercise earlier this year, started behaving strangely last week. User reports to TorrentFreak initially complained that the site was simply down, but a couple of days later, with no official announcement forthcoming, things took a turn for the strange.

It’s well known that Firedrive is used by some to host unauthorized copies of movies. It’s unclear just how many but thousands of sites around the world carry links to Firedrive that allow the viewing of mainstream movies with nothing more than a web browser. However, users trying to access those links are currently facing disappointment.

Since before the weekend, many (perhaps all) video files on Firedrive have been replaced with 13-15 second intros used by the major movie studios. TF tested a few random links we found using Google and found intros from Sony, Warner, Universal and Dreamworks, instead of the movies that claimed to be there.

TVAddons, the XBMC-focused community previously known as XBMCHub, told TorrentFreak that the issues at Firedrive and sister-site Sockshare (which is also currently non-functional) have broken some of their XBMC/Kodi addons. However, even greater concern lies with those who use Firedrive as a personal storage site.

In recent months following the Putlocker transition, Firedrive has been debuting tools and features which give the site an appeal to users looking for Dropbox-style functionality. And this is where things get even more strange. After a short beta period, on October 1 Firedrive issued a press release heralding the official debut of their iOS and Android syncing apps.

“We are looking forward to our users exploring the new applications and finding value in sharing and backing up their rich media using Firedrive,” said Joseph Turner, CEO of Firedrive.

However, users searching for the apps on either the App Store or Google Play are now met with silence. ITunes reports that the app is only available in Canada yet switching to that location reveals that it has been removed. Searches on Google Play for the Android versions yields nil results.

Ever since their press release Firedrive simply hasn’t been working and the only posts on Firedrive’s Facebook page are from angry users complaining about everything from lost files to hackers having taken over the site.

“All I can say is thank god I didn’t pay for this bullshit and to think was just about to go pro and pay,” wrote one. “Never happening now even if it does come back with my files intact, which I doubt will happen! Anyone into a class action suit, I have 100s of hours of work lost could only imagine what paying customers might have lost!”

TorrentFreak reached out to the site for comment but we have yet to receive any response. If anyone has any additional information, feel free to contact us.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Despite the lacking legal requirements, some anti-piracy groups do send copyright infringement notices to UK ISPs. In most cases these are ignored by the providers, but last week TalkTalk forwarded a notice to one of its resellers.

In the email the ISP asks Opal Solutions to forward the notice in question to one of its subscribers who allegedly shared a pirated copy of “Godzilla”. In addition the reseller was urged to take “preventive” measures, but what these should be is left open.

“Please see below copyright infringement email regarding an IP address of one of your clients, Please inform your client and take necessary preventative measures,” TalkTalk wrote.

At the bottom of this article is a copy of the original copyright infringement notice TalkTalk forwarded. It is a typical DMCA style notice sent by IP Echelon on behalf of Warner Bros.

IP Echelon didn’t make any effort to customize the notice for the UK audience. The email specifically references US copyright law, which doesn’t apply to the reseller or TalkTalk.

What’s most noteworthy, though, is that TalkTalk has decided to pass on this notice. The ISP is not known to forward these notices to its own subscribers, yet they appear to be urging a reseller to go beyond what’s required by law.

The forwarded email is most likely an attempt to avoid any type of liability. The question that remains is this: if TalkTalk do this with resellers does this mean they will start warning their subscribers as well?

Earlier this year the news broke that TalkTalk and other UK providers will voluntarily start sending infringement notices under the VCAP program. While VCAP isn’t going into effect before the summer of 2015, TalkTalk’s forwarded infringement notice could suggest that they might do something sooner.

Below is a full copy of the copyright infringement notice.

—-

We are writing this message on behalf of Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc..

- ————- Infringement Details ———————————-
Title: Godzilla
Timestamp: 2014-08-13T14:06:26Z
IP Address:
Port: 60261
Type: BitTorrent
Torrent Hash: c5cdf551eea353484657d45dbe93f688575a1e31
Filename: Godzilla.2014.WEBRiP.XviD-VAiN
Filesize: 2485 MB
- ———————————————————————

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Today we take a look at an interesting case that developed this week involving a movie anti-piracy company, a domain registrar and a torrent site.

Bittorrent.pm is a torrent index that doesn’t host any torrents itself but links to those to be found elsewhere. The site registered its domain with well-known registrar Internet.bs last year. The third player in the mix is a company called Rico Management, apparently acting in an anti-piracy capacity for the movie Cold in July.

During the past few days it became clear that Rico Management were trying to have some torrents removed from Bittorrent.pm. However, Bittorrent.pm only became aware of the complaint after being contacted by its registrar, Internet.bs. Since Bittorrent.pm hadn’t provided a formal tool or contact mechanism for facilitating removals, Rico complained directly to the registrar.

In emails seen by TorrentFreak, Internet BS responded to Rico assuring them that action of some type would definitely be taken.

“I added our customers in BCC of this email and they will get back to you shortly regarding this. If you do not get any answers within 48 hour please get back to us and we will investigate and suspend the domains,” the registrar told Rico.

When the operator of Bittorrent.pm questioned the potential suspension of his domain, Internet BS told him he needed to take action, since the registrar did not want to become liable for any infringements.

“We did not say we will suspend the domain but we will suspend it if you do not reply to the complainant,” Bittorrent.pm’s owner was told. “The difference is in the fact that, by answering to the complainant, you assume responsibility for the content on your website and we can also understand better what you are doing.”

“If you do not answer to the complainant we can be found liable for being informed
about illegal things and not taking any action. If we do not see any answer we have no choice but to assume the complaint is legitimate and then we have to suspend the domain.”

In the meantime, Bittorrent.pm protested that he had no torrents on his site to be removed, a comment that solicited the following response from a Jeffrey Moreira at Rico Management.

“You do not have any clear contact on your page to deal with any issues that a copyright holder has with you. I have had to jump through hoops to finally get a response directly from you about bittorent.pm,” Moreira wrote.

“You have multiple torrent files available for torrent download on your site.
You may simply claim that you do not have copyrighted material on your site but that is far from the truth.”

Eventually Internet.bs carried through with its threat to suspend the domain. It also received more complaints about Bittorrent.pm, something which further tested relations.

“As the complainant said you have absolutely no contact details on your website. We received about 15 new complaints regarding your website today. You need to have some contact details as we cannot act as your abuse department especially with the very low margin that we have on domain names,” the registrar wrote.

The operator of Internet BS argued back that there is nothing in his domain terms and conditions that obligates him to have such an abuse mechanism, but apparently that didn’t have the desired effect. His domain remains suspended and he’s currently working to transfer it to a new registrar.

The approach taken by Internet BS in response to the Bittorent.pm issue raises a number of questions, including whether a registrar should get involved in this kind of dispute and whether they are in the best position to play judge and jury. Obviously Internet BS wants to abide by the DMCA in this case, but as Bittorrent.pm points out, as a Barbados-based company it doesn’t necessarily have to. Bittorrent.pm is not based in the US either, although Rico Management appears to be.

Also, while it could be argued that Bittorrent.pm should have a contact form, it’s ironic that RicoManagement.com has no outward web presence at all to help show who they are or indicate that what they are doing is legitimate. At the moment all they have is a GoDaddy holding page, and Internet BS were apparently happy to act on that.

TorrentFreak requested comment from both Internet BS and Rico Management but we are yet to receive a response.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In recent months the group has approached several site owners requesting them to take down their sites, or face legal action.

One way to identify the owners of said sites is through domain WHOIS information, which is publicly available. However, this becomes problematic when site owners use so-called domain privacy services, which hide their personal details from the public. At least, that’s what’s assumed.

As it turns out, not all of these services are as private as one might think. The operator of a linking site learned this the hard way when ‘Domains by Proxy‘ shared his personal details with the MPA.

The domain privacy service, which is owned by GoDaddy founder Bob Parsons, handed over his personal details without a subpoena, or any form of due process.

“We have received a possible legal complaint regarding your domain name xxx.com,” Domains By Proxy informed the site owner.

“Since we were provided with proof the complainant owns a potentially applicable copyright, we have disclosed your identity for the limited purpose of this complaint so that the complainant can communicate directly with you to seek resolution.”

The site owner, who prefers to remain anonymous, was shocked when he received the message. He says his website doesn’t host any copyrighted material and assumed that Domains by Proxy would at least notify him before sharing any personal details.

Soon after the email from Domains by Proxy arrived, the Motion Picture Association reached out to the domain owner, using the name and email address provided by the domain privacy service.

“This Notice requires you to immediately take effective measures to end and prevent further copyright infringement. All opportunities provided by the Website to download, stream or otherwise obtain access to the Entertainment Content should be disabled permanently,” the movie industry group wrote.

“If you fail to take the immediately required action to end and prevent further copyright infringements the MPA and the MPA Members expressly reserve the right to pursue all remedies available,” MPA added.

MPA email

Needless to say, the domain owner does not agree with Domains by Proxy’s action. He says that the MPA obtained his personal details without providing actual proof. In addition, he doesn’t understand why his personal details had to be handed over, as all emails directed to the email listed in the WHOIS are forwarded to him anyway.

“Domain by Proxy automatically adds yourdomainname@domainbyproxy.com, so any organization can contact the domain owners directly. There is no need to ask personal details from the WHOIS service without any proof of copyright infringements,” the domain owner tells TF.

“Other web services, such as LeaseWeb, don’t give details directly to MPA but force you to disable the service instead. Domains by Proxy should do the same I think,” he adds.

TF reached out to Domains by Proxy for a comment on the situation, but the company hasn’t responded yet. With the slogan “your identity is nobody’s business but ours” it’s odd to see that they hand over private details of customers so easily, but those who read the company’s privacy policy can see that this is common practice.

“We will disclose any information about you to government or law enforcement officials or private parties as we, in our sole discretion, believe necessary or appropriate to respond to claims and legal process, to protect our property and rights or the property and rights of a third-party,” the privacy policy reads.

As it turns out, Domains by Proxy is judge and jury here, while due process is completely absent. That’s not really an ideal policy for a company that trades on people’s privacy rights.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Having endured a several-years-long legal battle with the MPAA, owner Gary Fung sensibly negotiated a way out of his potentially ruinous copyright infringement predicament, eventually settling for a headline amount of $110 million, something (thankfully) he’ll never have to pay.

Nevertheless, the end result was that one of the Internet’s favorite torrent sites, with an owner that was both visible and well-liked, shut its doors for good leaving users without their regular home. Seeing an opportunity in waiting, a torrent-friendly group seized the day.

Within a couple of weeks, isoHunt.to was born. The site is a loose clone of isoHunt.com – graphically similar but with no connections to the original isoHunt team – with an aim to give former users a pace to share files. Just two months later at the end of 2013, isoHunt.to was making serious waves. From a standing start the site became the Internet’s 8th most popular torrent site, slotting in just behind 1337x.org in the overall top 10.

“When we launched isohunt.to we gained the level of about 200k uniques per day in about a week. Right before Christmas we hit 500k uniques per day. After that we’ve been going up and down but the overall trend remains upward,” an isoHunt.to admin informs TorrentFreak.

“Of course, many people are looking for ‘isohunt’ and that drives them to us. But there’s a lot of new traffic as well. We do lots of stuff to keep users happy and improve the site constantly. In a couple of days we’ll be rolling out another pack of features we’ve done since Christmas. Hopefully, users will be satisfied.”

While it’s certainly likely that millions of users are now happy at having a familiar looking site to frequent, the same can not be said about people who worked on the original isoHunt. When the clone site launched some quite understandably felt that it was unfairly trading on isoHunt.com’s image, not to mention their hard work.

“We tried to contact former isohunt.com members (admins and moderators) to get involved with the new site but we were rejected in a very rude way,” the isoHunt.to admin explains.

“Their position is clear – isohunt.to is a ripoff and our intention is only to make profit from the well-known brand. They have contributed so much into the original website it’s painful for them to see a wannabe isohunt in a current condition. But their rejection just means we have to continue ourselves. We may not reach the same heights as isohunt.com but we’ll definitely try to create a new wave of isohunt followers and make a new home for them.”

But in the world of file-sharing there is another bogeyman that often raises its head. When sites come out of nowhere and quickly start getting big, people question their motives. Is it money? Is it malware? Or, God forbid, do they have something even bigger up their sleeve?

“Since honeypots have been created over the last few years some people thought (and still think) our site is a honeypot made by MAFIAA,” the admin explains.

“It’s interesting to read comments where people assume we work for a government agency like the FBI, or an organization like the MPAA and others. We don’t blame them, we would probably think the same. And we don’t try to encourage these people into using isohunt.to. Everyone should decide it for himself or herself. But there are plenty of opportunities to be anonymous on the net. Just a hint,” he adds.

But despite the setbacks, the popularity of the site is booming and while some won’t use the site, others have put the past and other worries behind them.

“There are lots of people saying we made them happier with the new isohunt. When they found out the original site closed down many regular users felt like a huge part of their lives had just disappeared. They were sad and lost. That shows us again how great the original place was and how immense was the effort to keep it going. We can only see a fraction of that but are happy we can preserve something valuable for people.”

Finally, the isoHunt.to admin says he believes that the new site is in itself symbolic of torrenting.

“First there’s someone sharing something. Then others join and continue sharing when the original sharer can’t do it anymore. That feels great to be a part of something bigger. So we’ll be happy for new people to join the new-wave isohunt community and continue sharing,” he concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

For more than 24 hours visitors to Icefilms.info have been left disappointed. Rather than being confronted with masses of movie and TV show content to view, the site is currently a shadow of its former self, sporting only this miserable notice from GoDaddy.

If GoDaddy is to be believed there is something wrong with the site’s WHOIS information. Registrars have been known to deactivate domains if WHOIS info is shown to be false or if people make a complaint about a domain’s details and they fail to get rectified.

The current WHOIS information shows that changes were made yesterday, 11 Nov 2013, at 15:07:01 UTC and at least since then the site has been rendered largely inaccessible to visitors.

Of course, TorrentFreak needed to get onto the site to find out if there was more news to report, so we’ll explain how we went about that. Following the same process will largely bring the site back to life, at least for now.

First we discovered that the site’s IP address – 80.82.65.150 – so entering that into a browser should immediately bypass GoDaddy’s notice.

However, certain parts of the site still won’t work, so we have to trick Windows into thinking that the domain still works. We do that by editing our hosts file. Instructions on how to do that can be found here.

For example, by adding a brand new line (80.82.65.150 forum.icefilms.info) to our hosts file we can now access the Icefilms forum.

Once there we found a user posting who yesterday reported the following:

“We are aware of the problem with GoDaddy, they screwed up our domain server and it may take as long as 3 days to propagate the fix. The bright side is this is day 1.”

We have a message out for the Icefilms team to contact us and will report back if we find anything new.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

One guy who has gone down that particular route is John Bain, an Englishman known online as TotalBiscuit. Bain is a great success and has almost 1.3 million subscribers to his PC gaming YouTube channel. However he now finds himself in a copyright takedown controversy sparked by his review of Wild Games Studio’s first-person survival game Day One: Garry’s Incident.

There’s no way to sugar-coat Bain’s review – he hated it, and quite rightly so. The 21 minute review ripped apart the graphics, gameplay and presentation of the game and it was quite obvious from Bain’s tone this wasn’t going to end well. Aside from the odd element receiving a lukewarm reception, the review concluded that the game is a complete turkey.

The video review became highly viewed very quickly, topping search results for the game on YouTube. But without warning it suddenly disappeared, only to be replaced by a copyright infringement notice, issued by none other than Wild Games Studio themselves.

At this point it’s worth pointing out that Bain is no stranger to the studio. They gave him a free key to access a review copy of the game on Steam and asked Bain to place a link in his review to where the game could be bought. It was perhaps appropriate then that the CEO of the studio decided to justify their takedown actions on the Stream forums themselves.

Well aware of the circumstances behind the review and his protections under copyright law to critique the game if he so chooses, Bain summed up the mess on Twitter.

“Long story short. Dev sends code, code used to make critique, dev dislikes critique, dev abuses system to censor critique,” he said.

“This happened 2 days ago, we contacted [Wild Games] for an explanation and have heard nothing. Giving them til Monday to respond before going nuclear. It should be pointed out that US Fair Use doctrine exists in particular to protect criticism from being censored in such a way.”

While Bain may have had the intention of not “goin nuclear” until today, things are now largely out of his hands. His follow-up video (embedded below) which explains events to date has already received more than 500,000 views and the backlash on Metacritic is something to behold, with the game currently receiving 0.6 out of 10 after 683 votes. It is very clear from the comments that the Metacritic reviewers know what the developer did to Bain.

“This highlights a wider problem and an issue that must be addressed. Look at how easily a company was able to censor the most-watched and prominent critique of their game by abusing YouTube’s copyright claim system,” Bain says. “Look at how they were able to completely flaunt the notion of networks policing their partners and using a shoot first, ask questions later form, to deny revenue to someone who they didn’t like.”

In order to draw attention to the issue, Bain says he will be donating all YouTube revenue generated by the ‘incident’ to the EFF.

In the meantime, anyone wanting to see the original review can find it on here on DailyMotion, ironically now being monetized by someone else.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

There’s more in this cracking filing (Number 61 on the docket) though, including some more fun over the Alan Cooper business. For those that don’t know, Alan Cooper is the name of one of the principles in the case who has signed a lot of the copyright paperwork. It’s ALSO the name of John Steele’s former caretaker, who has sued over having his identity stolen, to which Prenda counter-sued

In the exhibits filed there are some nice audio snippets featuring conversations with GoDaddy. Included in there are some people claiming to be John Steele, and in one (PDF with embedded audio), the same voice is calling himself Alan Cooper.

Is it any wonder that Alan Cooper sued for fraudulent use of his name?

There’s also audio of Steele trying to fix his site when a javascript redirect sent visitors along to the Pirate Bay, sounding rather worried and being admonished that he needed to keep his sites software (mainly wordpress) up to date.

This filing comes hard on the heels of a motion by Prenda’s Craigslist-advertising Georgia counsel, Jacques Nazaire, the day before. In Nazaire’s motion, also heavy with exhibits, he shows upset at the discovery undertaken by the defense (some of which we’ve just talked about) as well as the public comments on the case, including comments by the two other people appearing before the judge that day – Defense attorney Blair Chintella, and his expert witness Andrew Norton (Disclosure, Mr Norton is TorrentFreak’s researcher and community manager, better known as K`Tetch).

Mr Nazaire included posts describing the July 2nd hearing, where discovery was granted, by those two, plus comments on Techdirt, popehat, and fightcopyrighttrolls (although in those last three, the article itself was not included), all as part of a request to put the case under seal, meaning nothing further in the case would be public. His reason was as follows.

Additionally, the Plaintiff is respectfully requesting that any future filings in this case may be filed under seal. This case has generated much unneeded attention on the internet. Please see Exhibits N-S. While the writers listed in exhibits N-S have the right to post these articles, unfortunately, these articles and blogs have created an embarrassment, misleading characterizations and perhaps an unsafe environment for plaintiff’s counsel and third parties. As such, plaintiff is respectfully requesting that all future filings be permitted to be made under seal.

The embarrassment is mainly due to an earlier filing in the case, where Mr Nazaire suggested that the court ignore Judge Wright’s Star Trek order, because states have different laws, just like California allows Gay marriage, and Georgia doesn’t. In the same filing, he also alluded to the EFF being terrorists, and how Mr Chintella was a member, presumably to sway the 83yo judge who sat on the FISA court in the 1980s. It didn’t work.

Likewise the unsafe environment argument was reportedly shot down at the hearing, when Mr Nazaire was asked why some of the contact details on the original complaint were not his, but those of Brett Gibbs, at that time Prenda’s local counsel in California. This is a big no-no under Federal rules, and the threatening behaviour Mr Nazaire was worried about? A single mocking email, he admitted to the court; we at TorrentFreak get trolled more by Piracy fans…

He has since doubled-down on these arguments as well, filing this morning that any sort of discourse or discussion (as required by law for certain things) is impossible, because

The telephone and live conversations will more than likely be taped and played on the internet. The confidential matters discussed via email will more than likely be posted as a publicity campaign on the internet.

It’s a reiteration of a claim made by Nazaire to the judge in the hearing – that of the poor bullied lawyer – and was dismissed by the judge at the time. Unfortunately it’s a technique they are too well associated with, having basically bullied thousands of defendants into paying settlements, or else have their names ‘posted as a publicity campaign on the Internet’.

While the evidence in so far is convincing, it’s by no means conclusive. Discovery won’t end until September 5th, so there’s bound to be more revelations. However, few can probably be as disturbing as the thought of a lawyer having steelefamilylaw.com on one hand, and trannyboyswholovetheirtoys.com on the other. Meanwhile a crowdfunding effort is in progress for depositions to be made of Mark Lutz, and others, to really get to the bottom of things.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

The group, more commonly known as FACT, has threatened many sites with action in recent months. Although UK-based, FACT aren’t restrained by geographic boundaries. TorrentFreak is aware that the group has contacted sites all over the world with their demands to close down, not just those in the UK.

Last week the Hollywood-backed group claimed another victim.

Torrent-Damage is a torrent site founded way back in 2005, so at almost nine years old is somewhat of a private tracker veteran. Just recently though the site received a fairly standard threat from FACT and it was enough for the admins to decide to throw in the towel.

“Torrent-Damage has received a Cease and Desist notice from FACT (Federation against Copyright Theft), and while FACT are UK based (and none of us are), the operators of this site will stick to their gentleman’s agreement and comply with any such request – for the safety of the staff members and its user base,” the site’s operators announced.

“It is with much sadness to announce that Torrent-Damage will be closing its doors on the 5th of August, 2013. Effective immediately, the tracker will be shut down and all torrents removed (thus complying with the cease and desist order).”

A long-time member of the site told TorrentFreak that currently the site has 30,000 members and 35,650 torrents.

Another of FACT’s tactics is to ask site operators to hand over their domain names. It is not clear whether Torrent Damage’s owner intends to do so.

“We wish all of our members Godspeed for the future, and hope that our community was of a great benefit to you while it was here,” the site concludes.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.