Two years later, however, the case collapsed and the men were free to go. Now, more than three years on, the FileSoup domain has been resurrected.

It’s a search engine / proxy, but not as we know it

The new site has no connections to the original owner, but there are several unique aspects to the relaunch of FileSoup that make for an interesting project.

On a basic level FileSoup acts as a meta-search engine variant. It covers four major torrent sites – The Pirate Bay, KickassTorrents, Torrentz and ExtraTorrent – each selectable via a drop-down box. It also acts as a reverse proxy for these sites to unblock them in countries where they are inaccessible, the UK for example.

Improving on search results

But FileSoup is no ordinary proxy. Instead of simply mirroring the content it finds on sites such as KickassTorrents, it actually attempts to improve on the results by caching third party site indexes.

“Let’s say Kickass.to receives a [DMCA] notice and deletes the content. We are not simply proxying but also caching the site. This means we can provide the page content even if Kickass.to has deleted the URL due to a DMCA complaint,” FileSoup informs TorrentFreak.

So in theory (and given time to cache – the site is still getting off the ground), FileSoup should be able to provide access to content previously taken down from other sites it proxies. To see whether it’s anywhere near to that goal, we conducted a search for one of the most talked-about franchises of the year – Expendables.

The images below show the results from FileSoup and KickassTorrents for exactly the same search. FileSoup returned 139 results while KickAss returned 115. Also notable, aside from the inserted ads, is the prominence of highly-seeded Expendables 3 results in the top placed positions on FileSoup.

Other searches produced varied results but since FileSoup is just getting off the ground it will need more time to cache significant amounts of taken-down content. But what happens when FileSoup itself is subjected to takedown notices of its own?

“When FileSoup receives a DMCA abuse notice we create a new URL address for the same content. After that this URL lives till the next DMCA abuse notice,” the team explain.

The Necromancer – using Google DMCA notices bypass Google’s takedowns

The operators of FileSoup also addressed indirect search engine takedowns. Every week rightsholders force Google to remove torrent listings from its search results. For this problem FileSoup says it has a solution, and a controversial one it is too.

The team behind the site say they have developed a web crawler designed to pull the details of content subjected to DMCA notices from two sources – Google’s Transparency Report and the Chilling Effects Clearing House. From here the links are brought back to life.

“We created a technology that crawls DMCA notices and resurrects the torrent webpage under a different URL so it can appear in search results again. It was rather complicated to sharpen it, but eventually it works pretty well. We will use it on FileSoup.com for all the websites we proxy,” FileSoup explain.

“It will lead to a situation when KickaAss.FileSoup.com (for example) will have more pages indexed in Google than the original Kickass.to because we will revive pages banned by DMCA within Google search results. We call this technology the Necromancer.”

The idea of manipulating publicly available sources of copyright notices to reactivate access to infringing content is not new but this is the first time that a site has publicly admitted to putting theory into practice. Whether FileSoup will be able to pull this off remains to be seen, but if it does it could signal the biggest game of whac-a-mole yet.

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

When the site started there was no Pirate Bay, no Torrentz, and isoHunt wasn’t searching .torrent files yet. FileSoup outlived many of the sites that sprung up around the time and developed an active and warm community.

After years of operating the site without any noticeable trouble, in the summer of 2009 police and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) conducted a raid on the home address of the site’s owner, known online as ‘TheGeeker’. Another raid was carried out around the same time on the property of fellow administrator ‘Snookered’.

Both were arrested and taken in for questioning.

After a lengthy legal process the authorities eventually dropped the charges against the admins in 2011. The court concluded that the evidence was solely provided by FACT and thus unreliable. While this was a huge relief and a welcome victory for the admins, the legal process effectively killed the once-so-vibrant FileSoup community.

Members left, and didn’t return. Only a handful of the 1,043,311 registered members check in on an average day, compared to the tens of thousands of visitors a few years ago. As the visitor count dropped, the interest of FileSoup administrator Geeker waned.

“Unfortunately, the glory days are in the past. When I was raided almost 3 years ago, there was a mass exodus and since then Filesoup’s interest has continued to wane severely, which for me, has been so sad to experience,” Geeker explains.

The result is that after more than nine years the site is now closing down for good.

“Filesoup has had a great run, since February 2003 we were online as one of the first BitTorrent sites and with our vibrant, helpful community, we grew at a tremendous rate, to at one time being listed in the top 50k visted websites on the internet. We morphed, updated, expanded and changed so much over the years, it was truly an awesome ride,” Geeker writes

“A lot of people and sites have learned, copied, emulated and grown from the things that we did and what went on here, heck we were online long before The Pirate Bay or SuprNova were even thought of.”

As a BitTorrent community FileSoup will certainly be remembered by many of the early BitTorrent adopters. Unlike many of the popular BitTorrent sites today, the community was more important than anything else.

Geeker informs the site’s members that he’s not selling the database, but the FileSoup domains are being put up for auction for those who want to buy a piece of BitTorrent history.

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

The site never ran into any significant problems with copyright holders, but this quickly changed in the summer of 2009 when police and the Hollywood-backed Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) conducted a raid on the home address of the site’s owner Steve Lanning, known online as ‘TheGeeker’.

The arrest came as a total surprise to Lanning, who felt that the police didn’t follow the rules as they should have. In addition to blindly acting on biased information provided to them by a self-interested anti-piracy group, Lanning summed up a total 56 complaints which he filed at the complaints commission late August 2009, shortly after his arrest.

Earlier this year the authorities dropped Lanning’s case (and the case of a fellow admin) because the evidence was solely provided by FACT and thus unreliable. While this was a huge relief and a welcome victory for Lanning, he was still waiting for a response to the 56 complaints filed earlier.

A few weeks ago he finally heard back from the police investigator, but it was by no means the response hoped for by Lanning. In a brief reply the police investigator reduced the 56 complaints down to just 3, and only in one case did the police admit a mistake was made.

“Mr Lanning was not given the right to telephone someone after the restriction had been lifted. The Sergeant in question will receive management action which will be in the form of words of advice from his line manager,” the police investigator writes.

Needless to say, Lanning wasn’t too happy with the fact that the other 53 complaints were simply ignored. He says he has evidence to back up every single complaint but for some reason the police investigator didn’t even consider them.

“There are no words that can adequately describe exactly how I am feeling right now, they have blatantly lied, and as if that isn’t bad enough, they have ignored the evidence which proves all of my complaints against them …and we are supposed to trust the police? Is this what people can expect of our justice system? Unbelievable!” Lanning told TorrentFreak in a comment.

After giving it some thought Lanning has now decided to fight the result of the police investigation, hoping that they will then take a closer look at the complaints. He has filed an appeal with the Independent Police Complaints Commission (IPCC).

“I am following through with this as a matter of principle, what they have done and the way they have done it is reprehensible, the police being used and manipulated by a private organisation for their own ends is totally wrong in so many ways,” Lanning told us.

“The police failed to follow their own policies and procedures as set out in the Police And Criminal Evidence Act (PACE), they abused their authority and the legal system, not only that, the way I was treated and the way I now feel, they violated any trust I might have had in them, everyone should be appalled, it could be you next time!”

“What makes this whole situation even worse is that they are now lying to try and cover this whole fiasco up. I have evidence proving that they lied, they also have evidence proving they are lying, hmmm… what do you reckon on the chances of them mysteriously losing or erasing that evidence all of a sudden?” FileSoup’s owner said.

Some might wonder why Lanning would continue to follow this up even though his case was dropped earlier this year. He is a free man now and no longer at risk of being prosecuted for his involvement with FileSoup. Lanning, however, wants to see the police admit their alleged wrongdoings.

The arrest, the police investigation and the court case made a huge impact on the BitTorrent admin’s personal life. Many of his belongings taken during the raid were trashed or never returned, but the emotional roller-coaster and the failed attempts to have his many complaints heard have also taken their toll.

“I am after justice, it’s plain and simple, those who have done wrong need to be held accountable and those wrongs put right, the system needs to be changed drastically and things put in place to avoid this happening again in the future,” Lanning said.

“It’s about time that somebody physically makes a stand for their principles to stop this type of abuse from happening, if that someone has to be me, well then so be it.”

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

Cook and Burrows Bussin successful defended a 17-year-old alleged uploader to the now-defunct music tracker OiNK, and a 56-year-old administrator of the BitTorrent forum, FileSoup.

It was reported in the national media on Tuesday 10th May that Anne Muir, a 58 year old woman in Glasgow has pleaded guilty to criminal file-sharing offences, for which she will be sentenced later this month. Although not a party to that case, I believe that this is a stark reminder of where we are at.

It seems to me that the media consciousness has been diverted by the Digital Economy Act 2010, and all that it entails. The infringement notification procedure and “technical measures” suggested for alleged file-sharers and website blocking has understandably caused great concern. However, the elephant in the room remains s.107 of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988 (CDPA). This legislation is the source of the ability of the State to prosecute someone in a criminal court for a copyright offence.

It is still possible for a criminal prosecution under CDPA, despite the availability of the civil remedies of which the public are now more than aware. The Digital Economy Act 2010 not only leaves the criminal copyright provisions unchanged, but, in fact, ups the ante. As well as the Crown Court having the power to impose a 10 year custodial sentence and an unlimited fine, the Digital Economy Act now gives the Magistrates Court the power to impose a £50,000 fine. Be under no illusions – people can and will continue to be prosecuted in criminal courts for file-sharing offences.

Reports that the British Phonographic Industry and International Federation of the Phonographic Industry played a major role in the prosecution of Anne Muir are of great concern.

In the recent OiNK case, in which we successfully defended a boy accused of similar file-sharing allegations, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and British Phonographic Industry used their influence to gain entry to our client’s family home, gather evidence and dictate the direction of inquiries. Despite Government ministers categorically stating they do not want to see teenagers arrested in their bedrooms for file-sharing, such assurances are evidently hollow. That prosecution was not only incompetently handled, it was also never in the public interest and the CPS were forced to admit that in March 2010 when they discontinued their case in the face of the rigorous and aggressive defence that we had forwarded.

In February 2011, we had another case before the UK courts. Again, a rights-holder group was heavily involved in the prosecution. The FileSoup prosecution was aimed at the peer-to-peer distribution of films, so the Federation Against Copyright Theft was the relevant body. Again, we mounted a robust defence and, again, the CPS dropped the case, offering no evidence and allowing our client to be formally acquitted by the Crown Court Judge.

It is of concern that our clients in the OiNK and FileSoup cases were members of the public whose alleged criminality appeared extremely limited. In OiNK, it was alleged that our client had found the music on one publicly accessible music site and simply moved it onto a members-only site (OiNK). In FileSoup, the prosecution was initially focused on a film (X-Men Origins: Wolverine) for which they had already prosecuted the person responsible for the real criminality in this case – the original leaker. That film was then circulated on the internet for a considerable period of time and its distribution was widespread. FACT then took the decision to prosecute a non-profit making community forum of film buffs. This FileSoup prosecution was clearly not directed at the person responsible for any loss or to blame for any leaks.

The OiNK and FileSoup investigations were carried out almost entirely by the rights-holder groups, who then gave the police and CPS the evidence they sought to rely upon, in order to prosecute. However, the duty is on the police and the prosecuting authority to independently investigate alleged offences. It appears that they simply did not do so in those cases. The only people who had investigated were the rights-holder groups, who are not independent bodies. FACT, BPI and IFPI are funded by the media industries and it was they who controlled the OiNK and FileSoup investigations. Little or nothing independent was carried out by the police. The role of the rights-holder groups became effectively that of investigators, witnesses and experts in their own case.

These internet sites are evidently, in the view of the rights-holders, encouraging breaches of copyright. While there is no doubt that a copyright holder is entitled to the protection of the law, it is nevertheless fundamental that a prosecution is conducted impartially and independently. This was not our experience in the OiNK and FileSoup cases.

I only know about the case of Anne Muir from the media reports that have been published. However, I am willing to bet that the rights-holder groups have acted in a similar way in the prosecution of Muir.

It was our view that the rights-holder groups target the people with the least chance of resisting a prosecution of this nature; those having made no commercial gain and often with little funds to defend such a case. They have prosecuted the very people who spend significant amounts of their time and money in pursuing their interests in music and film. It certainly appears that rights-holder groups are avoiding taking on those with funds at their disposal, perhaps for fear of them exposing the manner in the way in which these groups go about such investigations. It was only through a methodical and painstaking consideration of the evidence that we were able to draw the attention of the Court to the investigative failures and flawed evidence in the OiNK and FileSoup cases.

It is reported that Anne Muir was not a leaker or a site administrator, but a simple file-sharer on the Direct Connect client. She therefore appears to be an unremarkable file-sharer – part of a class of people that must include the vast majority of UK citizens between the ages of 14 and 30. This legislation and series of cases seek to criminalise a large proportion of the youth of this country.

The inequality in real terms is substantial. FACT, BPI and IFPI wield enormous financial resources and clout. They clearly do lobby Parliament and pressure prosecutors to take cases on their behalf. FileSoup and OiNK operated as forums for people with an interest in films and music and were not commercial or profit making organisations. Anne Muir was not alleged to have made any money from her file-sharing activities.

FileSoup, OiNK and the prosecution of Muir were directed at people who are considered in the most vulnerable groups of society. Our OiNK client was a 17 year old boy. Our client in FileSoup was, due to illness, largely housebound in his flat in Scotland. Anne Muir is reported to have suffered mental health problems.

These are the people who the mighty US film and music industries choose to pursue.

The frustrating part is that it falls to the British tax payer to fund these prosecutions. The defence funding, also borne by the British tax payer, is based on a page count of disclosed material controlled by these rights-holders groups. In the OiNK and FileSoup cases, the funding we were able to receive was inadequate to cover the costs that we had incurred in defending the prosecutions. These are the conditions in which alleged file-sharers are supposed to defend against the limitless resources of the US media industries.

As news of Anne Muir’s conviction washes over an indifferent British public, the repercussions may eventually be felt as the rights-holder groups become more buoyant by their successes in Court and through their lobbying. With vast proportions of the UK public involved in file-sharing to some degree, who will be next?

David Cook is a solicitor from Burrows Bussin Solicitors in Manchester.

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

“I got back home just before 8pm to find my belongings had been turned upside down, the dining room was a like a whirlwind had gone through..[]..they’d turfed out all the drawers of the desk, chucked back what was of no interest to them, left a pile of paperwork scattered across my desk and table with wires everywhere, talk about a nightmare!”

The police officers and ‘agents’ of the MPAA-funded FACT tagged everything with a chip in it, and bagged them as evidence. In the following weeks some items were returned, including a mobile phone, sat nav and video camera, but most of the hardware was kept under lock and key.

As Geeker and fellow FileSoup administrator Snookered were released from all charges by the Crown Prosecution Service last month, their belongings were finally returned this week. This final step in the dreadful legal proceedings should have been a day to celebrate, but the police once again trashed the party.

From the looks of it the police and FACT did not return all of the seized property, and the hardware that was given back appears to be completely trashed.

“Initially it looks like only a couple of things such as power supply units might be missing, but, as you will no doubt appreciate, there is a heck of a lot of stuff to check, it’s going to take me some time to go through it all,” Geeker explains.

“What concerns me the most about my property, is the condition it is now in… the way it was seized and bagged and how it was probably handled and transported to goodness knows where, the thought just horrifies me,” he adds.

The pictures below document the disaster. A 40 minute audio clip of the agents returning Geeker’s property is available here.

To say that the evidence was not properly stored and shipped would be a huge understatement. It looks like the computers have been taken apart, dragged through the mud, with no real attempt to reassemble them or clean things up.

According to Geeker none of his systems will boot up, which may not come as a big surprise considering the photos. The big question is why?

It almost appears as if a frustrated FACT employee trashed the hardware on purpose before it was sent back. How else could it turn into such a mess, and why take the computers apart piece by piece in the first place? What were they looking for? Warez?

Geeker is clearly not happy with how his property was handled, and he encourages everyone to help him get the story out.

“Please do me a favour everyone… tell everybody you know about this, blog about it, tweet about it, facebook and myspace or wherever else you feel it might do some good, let the whole bloody world know exactly what these evil gits have done …and will probably keep on doing if something isn’t done to stop this kind of crap from happening and people and their property being treated like this!,” he said.

Geeker has contacted his lawyer to see what the best response to this mess is.

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

After years of operating the site without any noticeable trouble, in the summer of 2009 police and the Hollywood-backed Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT) conducted a raid on the home address of the site’s owner, known online as ‘TheGeeker’. Another raid was carried out around the same time on the property of fellow administrator ‘Snookered’. Both were arrested and taken in for questioning.

In the summer of 2010 the two administrators were charged with conspiracy to infringe copyright for their involvement with the site. As in previous cases in the UK, the evidence was solely gathered by the Hollywood-funded anti-piracy group FACT. No independent investigation was carried out by the police.

This critical lack of investigation on the prosecution’s part was brought to the Court’s attention by the solicitors of the two administrators. The solicitors, who successfully defended the owner of BitTorrent tracker OiNK in an earlier trial, pushed the prosecutor to formulate their charges. This turned out to be problematic.

The prosecution failed to understand some of the technical issues, did not know whether to prosecute FileSoup as a business or not, and was unsure whether the copyright holder had caused prejudice. Since there was no independent investigation into the case, all these questions remained unanswered.

Today the Crown Prosecution Service decided to drop the case entirely. It concluded that the alleged offenses are a civil rather than a criminal matter and decided not to spend any more public money on the prosecution. As a result, ‘TheGeeker’ and ‘Snookered’ are free to go.

Both men are relieved that the case has finally come to an end, and are grateful for the excellent work their solicitors carried out.

“It has been a long and stressful 18 months but I am happy to finally have the weight lifted from me,” Snookered told TorrentFreak. “During this time my solicitors, Burrows Bussin and David Cook in particular have kept me sane. Nothing was too much for them. I owe them a debt of gratitude along with my Barrister Ian Whitehurst.”

“I hope to have some more details in the next few days so I may say more then. Thank you to everyone for all the support. It was greatly appreciated,” he added.

Morgan Rose solicitors, who defended TheGeeker, are now able to add another win in a prominent BitTorrent case to their resume, which is welcomed by other UK-based operators of file-sharing sites.

“This case is not a one-off,” David Cook, Snookered’s solicitor said in a comment. “We have now seen two prosecutions for allegations such as these, both of which were fundamentally flawed. We have persistently worked in exposing the flaws in these cases, which have resulted in the absolute failure of both prosecutions.”

Today’s news is a great blow to the UK anti-piracy outfit FACT, who have spent tens of thousands of pounds on this case alone. According to the prosecution FACT’s involvement created a great inequality. The movie industry funded group has enormous financial resources while the defendants only ran a non-profit website.

Yet again the prosecution was led by FACT to believe that they were dealing with a criminal gang, a picture that didn’t hold up on closer inspection. Luckily for the UK tax payer and the FileSoup admins, the Court realized in time that justice was best served by dropping the case.

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

After many years of keeping a low profile, on Monday 27th July 2009, police and the MPAA-funded anti-piracy group FACT conducted a raid on the home address of the owner – known to all in the torrent community as ‘TheGeeker’.

It didn’t matter that since 2005 FileSoup hadn’t operated a tracker and never hosted any copyrighted content, Geeker’s offense was initially labeled as “Distribute Article Infringing Copyright”. The full details of the raid and aftermath can be read in our previous article.

Despite all the turmoil, Geeker was never asked or told to close down the site, so naturally it stayed open, supporting the loyal and passionate community it had built over the previous 6 years.

But then, on January 6th this year, without warning FileSoup simply vanished. Of course, as the days went by there was the usual speculation, but the reason for the disappearance was not as sinister as some believed.

A few days before FileSoup went down, TorrentFreak was told by a number of readers that a company they had rented seedboxes from had simply stopped responding. Despite their claim to offer “premier customer satisfaction,” JMHServices.com disappeared leaving many of its customers out of pockets, some by hundreds of dollars. In an email, NetDirekt, a provider that JMH co-located with, confirmed that the company had not been paying their bills.

Unfortunately, JMHServices was FileSoup’s host too, and when they went down, so did the site.

On Monday 11th, Geeker returned to the police station to answer his bail and was again interviewed at length about FileSoup. Various items that were originally seized were returned, including a mobile phone, sat nav and video camera.

Understandably this experience with the police is proving upsetting for Geeker, the JMH situation was yet another kick in the teeth and for a while it looked like FileSoup would be no more, such is the pressure.

Geeker told TorrentFreak that the goal for FileSoup right from the very beginning was always to be a really friendly and open community site all about BitTorrent and filesharing – a place where people could come and find out everything they needed to know in a fun and helpful atmosphere, not just to get torrents.

“It is so upsetting for me and for every member I’ve heard from since Filesoup went offline, to think that we’re all going to lose the friends and the site we all worked so hard to build up over the last 6+ years,” Geeker explains.

But things are looking up.

The hunt is now on to find people with the necessary expertise, knowledge and free time to bring FileSoup back as a great community site.

“Over the next couple of weeks, I’m hoping to find and speak with some like minded people to help me, so fingers crossed, if everything works out well, Filesoup could be back online again real soon,” he told us.

Geeker’s new bail date is currently set for Tuesday 13th April. I’m sure our readers will join us in wishing him well.

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

Founded way back in 2003 – a light year in BitTorrent terms – UK based FileSoup is one of the original torrent sites and has built a solid reputation while keeping a surprisingly low profile, particularly considering its status. It has already outlived The Pirate Bay by around 9 months and is believed to be the oldest community still around today.

The search warrant for the owner of FileSoup was issued under Section 109 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988 and authorized the gathering of any evidence related to the illegal distribution or file-sharing of copyright films. Notably, since 2005 FileSoup hasn’t operated a tracker but links to metadata which links to material hosted elsewhere. It has never hosted any copyrighted content.

Known online as TheGeeker, the owner of FileSoup was arrested and taken to his local police station. The charge: Suspicion of downloading copyrighted movies. He told TorrentFreak that his site had been under FACT investigation since February this year.

“I asked them [police] while still at home if I could contact a member of my family so that someone could come and make sure my dog was catered for, they said that I couldn’t. On the way to the police station I asked if they could contact someone to take care of the dog or if I could make a phone call, they again said I could not,” he recalls.

But the police’s lack of sympathy for Geeker’s pet was just the start. He says that before being put in a cell he was given a ‘Notice Of Entitlements’ sheet, a document explaining how a prisoner should be cared for. One section explained:

Keeping in touch: As well as talking to a solicitor and having a person told about your arrest you will usually be allowed to make one phone call. Ask the police if you would like to make a phone call. You can also ask for a pen and paper. You may be able to have visitors but the custody officer can refuse to allow that.

But Geeker soon discovered that things were different in his case. “I asked again as I was put in the cell, if I could contact someone or make a phone call, I was told no I couldn’t do that, I asked why and was told that the Inspector had put a block on any and all communication from me to anyone.”

Each time an officer called on Geekers cell, he asked permission to let someone know of his arrest. He also asked to contact his lawyer. Seven and a half hours later and both were effectively still being denied.

Around 4:45pm a policeman appeared in Geeker’s cell with a 12 page list of items seized from his house, and demanded a signature that would indicate that the items were his. Of course, it was impossible to say if the items they had in custody were indeed the ones on the list, so Geeker declined and the policeman stormed out of the cell.

“What do they take me for, a complete idiot!” says Geeker. “No one in their right mind would have signed to say any of these items were their property, especially if they’d not been there when it was seized!”

At 5pm Geeker was finally allowed legal representation, where he questioned that surely “downloading” was a civil issue, not a criminal one. However, the movie industry anti-piracy group FACT are known to frame things differently. In previous cases they have insisted that donations are profit and therefore constitute a criminal copyright offense. It is probable they have done the same thing at FileSoup and this could be why Geeker was arrested and not sued.

Geeker then had an interview with two police officers which was recorded on a machine which malfunctioned throughout the interview. In common with other FACT-run cases, the nature of BitTorrent proved difficult for law enforcement to grasp, with Geeker having to explain how everything worked – including what URLs and domain names are.

Upon leaving, Geeker was informed that in common with other cases in the UK such as that against TV Links, the private anti-piracy group FACT was in charge of his seized property, not the police.

Geeker was eventually released on police bail a little after 19:30 with his offense listed as “Distribute Article Infringing Copyright”. He must return to the police station in October.

Geeker says his home was a mess. “I got back home just before 8pm to find my belongings had been turned upside down, the dining room was a like a whirlwind had gone through..[]..they’d turfed out all the drawers of the desk, chucked back what was of no interest to them, left a pile of paperwork scattered across my desk and table with wires everywhere, talk about a nightmare!”

And Geeker’s dog was pretty upset too. “My dog was extremely traumatized, he’d been barking almost non-stop all day long the neighbour told my Dad when he went over at about 6:30pm to feed the dog as I hadn’t got back yet. My dog rarely barks at anything, now he barks at the least little thing, I am SO annoyed that they have done this to him!”

The FileSoup site remains open. Stay tuned.

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

Btswarm.org

Btswarm.org is a fast and clean BitTorrent site that is available in 5 different languages. The site currently indexes 107,907 torrents, which represents over 80TB of data. Btswarm supports search based RSS feeds, a great feature that every site should have in my opinion.

SumoTorrent.com

SumoTorrent who recently partnered with FileSoup, one of the oldest BitTorrent communities, collects the BitTorrent stats for our monthly stats post. But, they also serve torrents and offer not only .torrent links but also Azureus magnet links, and DHT links.

One of the things about SumoTorrent that I particularly like is that they have their own tracker, something more BitTorrent sites should do. At the moment 50% of all the torrents on public trackers are tracked by The Pirate Bay All hell would break loose if they were taken down.

FlixFlux.co.uk

FlixFlux is a BitTorrent site that focuses on movie releases. On the frontpage they list the US box office charts, DVD rental charts, and the UK box office charts. If you register you can also keep track of your favorite movies on the site. FlixFlux has a description for every film including the IMDB rating and plans to add movie trailers and for their torrents soon, which is an interesting feature.

A similar site also dedicated to movies torrents is Superfundo, they focus mainly on Scene and aXXo movie releases.

TorrentTAB.com

TorrentTAB is a new BitTorrent meta-search engine that displays the search results in a tabbed view. Personally I’m not a big fan of meta-search engines, but I know others like it. The tabbed searching works quite well. TorrentTAB site currently searches Isohunt, Mininova, Torrentz, BTjunkie, Meganova, and Torrentspy.

JunkNova.com

JunkNova is a torrent review site that keeps you up to date on all the stuff that’s available on BitTorrent, similar to sites like rlslog and hypoh. JunkNova is brought to you by the makers of TorrentScoop, a Google-powered BitTorent search engine.

MicroTor.org

The last site in our list is Microtor, a site that only indexes TV torrents. MicroTor allows you to browse through the available shows and seasons and they also have a brief plot outline for every TV show.

Do you know any new BitTorrent sites that are worth a visit? Feel free to leave a comment!

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