TorrentFreak

At the beginning of 2011 two administrators of FileSoup – the longest standing BitTorrent community – had their case dropped by the authorities and were free men once again. But that was not the end of the story for one of the admins. In his quest for justice, Steve Lanning appealed the unsatisfactory police investigation by filing more than 50 complaints, and is claiming that the police are covering up many mistakes.

This week it was widely reported that a 58-year-old grandmother from Scotland had become the first person in the country to be convicted of file-sharing offences. Today, David Cook from Burrows Bussin Solicitors, a law firm which has defended individuals in the OiNK and FileSoup BitTorrent cases, voices his concern at the ongoing rights-holder led persecution of those least able to defend themselves.

Last month the second case against a UK-based BitTorrent site came to an end. Two administrators of FileSoup – the longest standing BitTorrent community – had their case dropped by the authorities and were free men once again. This week, personal belongings that were seized during the house raids were released and returned, but what should have been a celebration turned out to be a great disappointment.

Two administrators of FileSoup – the longest standing BitTorrent community – had their case dropped by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) today. The prosecution relied solely on one-sided evidence provided by the anti-piracy group FACT and was not able to build a case. Following the trial of OiNK BitTorrent tracker operator Alan Ellis, the FileSoup case marks the second where UK-based BitTorrent site operators have walked free.

In mid 2009, FileSoup – the oldest surviving BitTorrent site – was raided by police and the owner arrested. Despite this, however,the site remained online. Then, during the first week of 2010, FileSoup disappeared without warning. But there is cause for cautious optimism – FileSoup could be back sooner than you think.

One of, if not the oldest BitTorrent communities still around today has been targeted by police and anti-piracy officers. The owner of FileSoup, one the most enduring sites since the introduction of the BitTorrent protocol, was arrested by police and denied his phone call and legal representation for more than seven hours.

BitTorrent is the most widely used P2P protocol. New BitTorrent sites emerge regularly and we at TorrentFreak often get requests from people to write about their BitTorrent startups. Because it is nearly impossible to showcase all the new sites here on TorrentFreak, we decided to post a selection of some promising and / or innovative BitTorrent sites.