One year later and it appeared that history was repeating itself when a notice appeared on the site’s homepage warning that the tracker had been shut down by “the powers that be.” Unlike the previous year’s closure, this time it was made clear that the site would not return.

AradiTracker had operated since May 2005, gathering a few thousand members in its first months of operations up to a peak of around 37,000, but it was the 2008 raids carried out by police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft that finally ended its operations.

In action against the owner of AradiTracker, Hugh Reid of Northern Ireland, police seized all computer related equipment from the 70-year-old’s home and place of work. Three weeks later police and Trading Standards officers raided a second person, Reid’s son-in-law Marcus Lewis, at his home in North Wales.

Five years later in 2013, both Reid and Lewis were pleading guilty to distributing items protected by copyright law.

The prosecution, who framed AradiTracker’s activities as a “movie theft” operation, said that the site received so much money that PayPal refused to process any more transactions. The cash coming in, donations given by the site’s members, was described in court as the users “buying” counterfeit content.

Judge Philpott, who said the behavior of the men was “nothing less than theft”, noted that people suffer due to copyright infringement.

“There are people who work here locally who work to make films locally in this jurisdiction and in others as well,” the judge said. “There are also the people who work in cinemas, the people who distribute DVDs who are all affected by copyright infringements.”

Noting that Lewis had a clean record, the judge at Belfast Crown Court handed both men two year prison sentences, suspended for two years.

According to a local report, that money – said to be £33,000 – will become the subject of a confiscation hearing next month. Reid’s lawyer said his client “had the means” to settle the matter in full.

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

Since its birth Araditracker has operated for over 4 years, however visitors to the site yesterday saw an ominous message on the homepage. The short notice said that Araditracker had been shutdown by ‘the powers that be’ with the admins indicating that the site would not be back. Thanks was sent out to all staff and members for their support.

With details scarce, TorrentFreak managed to find a senior staff member willing to talk on condition of anonymity, he told us: “Early Thursday morning (BST) legal action was taken directly against Araditracker. For the moment we are unable to divulge details. As a direct result the decision has been taken to close the site. It is very unlikely to return as a torrent tracker.”

Araditracker was born on May 4th 2005 “when a couple of guys on another site wanted to do more than they could where they were”. It gathered a few thousand members in its first few months of operation up to a peak of 37,000, with the total peers averaging around 24,000. No Microsoft content was indexed and in order to keep a ‘family feel’ on the site, the indexing of pornographic content was banned.

The site had been hosted in the UK, The Netherlands and most recently Canada, running radio, IRC and forums. There had been some rumors that the site couldn’t afford to keep going through lack of donations, something which is denied. Our source told us: “Despite speculation, it was not the money. Although donations were not as good as they have been and we had started to reorganize some hardware to compensate, the reason aradi is off-line has nothing to do with donations.”

Although trackers are loved for the wide range of access to media they provide, many are loved equally on the strength of their communities, where like-minded people can hang out and create friendships. In this respect Araditracker was no different. “We had a huge ‘family’ community,” said our source, “that is something we were very proud of and encouraged.”

It looks like Araditracker will not be back (as a torrent site at least) so there’s likely to be a sense of loss amongst the now ex-staff and members. Here is a final message for them:

“There are not enough words that can express our thanks for all support from the staff, past and present, Knights, VIPs, Uploaders, and members of all levels that have shared Araditracker over the last three years. Araditracker had a real sense of community and this more than anything will be missed by most.”

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

Now, even though an appeal in respect of Everlasting.nu is still pending, an emboldened BREIN has moved to get 6 further Leaseweb-hosted torrent trackers shut down, including the popular Araditracker, BitHQ and Peerportal, who between them tracked 9,000 torrents.

In a move which is bound to concern many other administrators who have their sites at Leaseweb, the host has again given up the personal details of the tracker admins. All three named sites have now left Leaseweb (and the Netherlands entirely) and have secured hosting elsewhere in Europe and US but this exodus doesn’t seem to concern BREIN who seem intent on pursuing the owners outside the Netherlands.

Tim Kuik of BREIN said “we have the names and addresses of these administrators, so we can get to these people through our contacts abroad.”

Armed with these names, BREIN says it intends to go after the administrators to force them to compensate content owners for lost revenue and prevent the sites from starting back up again.

With two out of the three sites already fully operational, it looks as if BREIN’s main aim of closing these sites has failed – in the biggest possible way.

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