Although the site’s operations were frowned upon by a part of the BitTorrent community, its members saw MovieX as their prime source for fast downloads. This high-profile site didn’t go unnoticed by the Australian anti-piracy outfit AFACT, who launched an investigation into the site’s operators.

During December 2008, AFACT’s efforts resulted in the arrest of two brothers from Australia, the then 27-year old Hitesh Rama and his 23-year old brother Moneel Rama. The two were accused of facilitating the unauthorized transfers of 14 million movies and TV shows.

This week the case against the two brothers finally came to an end. Hitesh Rama was sentenced to 18 months in jail and his brother Moneel Rama received a 15 month jail sentence. However, Judge Richard Jones sent the two home on a $3000 good behavior bond, replacing the jail time with community service of 200 and 125 hours respectively.

TorrentFreak spoke to Moneel, who says he is glad that they escaped jail time, which he credits to the excellent work of their lawyers. But, at the same time he’s also very disappointed with how their case is being presented in the media.

“I would like to point out that me and my brother have learnt our lesson. However, half the things said in the press are untrue and the media has a way to blow these things out of proportions,” Moneel told TorrentFreak.

Aside from technicalities, such as the claim that the website was hosted at their home address instead of in a data center in The Netherlands, most of the inaccuracies deal with money related issues.

In common with many other private BitTorrent trackers, MovieX offered VIP memberships to its users in return for certain privileges. However, reports in the media suggest that people could only download files if they paid for a membership, which is certainly not the case.

“We never forced anyone to give us money or sign up for a ‘subscription’ service as described in the press. If we were to go back and ask any VIP member of the website if they were ever forced to give us money the answer would be a simple ‘no’,” Moneel said.

This is supported by the court papers which show that 6,000 transactions were made by MovieX members, totaling more than $110,000 in revenue. A large sum of money, but 6,000 transactions with more than 400,000 members means that less than 1.5% of all members paid money to the site.

And then there’s the claims that huge profits were made from the website. If we deduct the $50,000 that was frozen and confiscated by the authorities, a healthy revenue still remains. However, according to Moneel nearly all of the revenue went back into the site.

Moneel explained that the server costs added up to $1000 a month, and that they spent several hundred dollars each month on premium RapidShare and Megaupload accounts for the site. Also, the ‘owner’ of the site – better known as Loder – received a share of the donations for his work on the site. The rest of the money was kept in the brothers’ personal bank accounts, but would be invested in the site at a later stage.

According to the brothers there was never any intention to cash in at the expense of its users, or steal the money and run away. There were issues, and not everyone may have been a fan of the site, but the site was not setup as a business at all.

“MovieX was simply a hobby and we never had any intention of bringing the torrent community and my families name to shame. Obviously we had a lot of issues with our tracker problems and stolen VIP funds however that is the past, and the truth will always be out there.”

For the brothers the end of the case closes a controversial chapter in their lives. Both hold a steady job and they are ready to move forward.

“I wish to end this by saying I respect the Judge’s decision on our sentencing. Me and my brother can only go in one direction and that is forward and this will be something that is left behind,” Moneel concluded.

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

In the meantime, the understandable uncertainty at the site is causing problems. Administrators aside, on most sites it’s the uploaders that take most of the risks and these have been moving away from MovieX, with some leaving to share on a site started by ex-staff. But it’s not just the threat of diminishing content causing problems, they can be overcome as memories fade. There is the old demon too – money.

After the arrrests, one of the claims against the site was that those running it were making money. A statement said that AUS$54,000 (US $35,000) had been seized, with the implication this substantial amount was generated on the site via member’s ‘VIP Donations’, which gave access to direct-download material.

After the arrests, the site reappeared in just a few days. The police and anti-piracy agencies made a point of not naming the site in their press releases, which indicates they had some idea this would happen. Despite the quick revival, the site’s finances were in turmoil but according to claims being made by the new administrators, a UK-based user stepped forward to help handle the donations in future.

Two days ago MovieX disappeared, only to reappear yesterday with yet more gloom. The site hadn’t been busted again, but the person alleged to have been responsible for donations, known as VIPxXx, had deleted himself from the MovieX database. It seemed a strange move, until it was discovered that he had also made a charge back on all the server bills previously collected and paid in his name. MovieX administration strongly believe he has stolen the money.

MovieX claim to have discovered the real identity of VIPxXx and have his photograph, various personal details and IP address on the site’s temporary homepage. TorrentFreak contacted his alleged girlfriend but as yet we have had no response.

An administrator at MovieX told TorrentFreak, “The site will be back. We are working on getting the servers back online as we speak.”

He also told us that there is something that MovieX members can do to help. “We are asking all our VIP members who have paid to PayPal account shooting.shared@gmail.com (PayPal name: Ali Sar) to make a dispute for unauthorized payment,” while going on to apologize for the downtime.

It is hoped that the funds will be returned to MovieX and that will be the end of the matter.

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

Of course, TorrentFreak previously sent emails to the founders giving them ample opportunity to deny the allegations, but we have had absolutely no response.

Yesterday it became apparent that despite the site going offline, the domain name of MovieX.info wasn’t controlled by either of the arrested pair, making a return of the site likely. Indeed, although the arrests of the brothers caused a knee-jerk takedown of the site, in the AFACT (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) press release they took care not to mention the name of the site, probably mindful of the likelihood it would reappear. Today, that’s exactly what has happened.

Just a couple of hours ago the MovieX holding page disappeared to be replaced with an apparently-intact site. Over time, the site got more and more busy and now there are many people back on the site, although some users are reporting that although the forum is functional, the tracker isn’t, but it’s early days. No doubt it will be fully functional soon.

Despite users on the site asking for one, there is currently no official message explaining the reasons for the downtime, but ®ama’s user account profile has been edited to remove statistics related to the material he personally contributed to the site. His location, Brisbane, and his actual date of birth remain, as does his original profile in Google’s cache. Indeed, none of this information is a secret, anyone can access it. He is the 27 year-old mentioned by the police.

When questioned about ®ama and his whereabouts and the lack of information by a VIP user, one admin said: “What I am saying is that whoever the person or persons are who have been arrested, [it's] none of my business.”

MovieX offered a VIP area where users could download material directly rather than use the site’s tracker. Much was made by AFACT of this section, claiming that the site generated revenue by charging users to access it. Since the site returned, some users are reporting that the section is inaccessible, although it is unclear if this is the case for all everyone.

Whereas with the OiNK raid, police took the time to completely neutralize the site by arresting the admin, seizing the domain name and confiscating the servers, Australian police did a much less comprehensive job. As a result, MovieX is back online with more publicity than ever before.

It remains to be seen if the news outlets that reported its demise will be just as quick to report that it’s back in business, but back it is, and despite uncertainty in other areas (such is the ‘fog’ of BitTorrent) there can be no doubt about that.

Update: (03:09 PM) dev0 [admin] “Tracker is now back online”

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Today, the site has bigger things to worry about. A press release from AFACT, (Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft) has proclaimed the death of a huge site, but stopped short of naming it.

TorrentFreak can now exclusively reveal that the site in question was MovieX, with one of the founders being Rama from Brisbane. The domain currently displays this message and is still operational:

We are temporarily offline.

Currently there is NO ETA AVAILABLE

@ADMINISTRATORS: PLEASE CONTACT DEV0 ASAP! ASK AROUND OTHER ADMINS IF YOU DON’T KNOW HOW TO GET IN TOUCH WITH ME.

According to Australian Federal Police who shut down the site following an AFACT investigation, two Brisbane men from the same family – a 21 year-old and a 27 year-old (thought to be brothers) were arrested yesterday.

A bank account containing around AUS$54,000 (US $35,000) was frozen after the police alleged the money was proceeds from the site. Investigators close to the inquiry claim the site generated around AUS$10,000 (US $6,450) each month, with many users donating $10 a month for VIP access to direct-download material, which was separate from the site’s BitTorrent tracker. Other bank accounts connected to the site are currently under investigation. Computer equipment was also seized with a storage capacity of 2 terabytes.

“BitTorrent is a legitimate and efficient software for sharing files but, like any tool, it can be misused,” noted Neil Gane, AFACT’s Director of Operations.

Andrew Traucki who directed the Aussie movie Black Water has been getting in on the action, “applauding” the closure of the site. “Being a low budget film I didn’t get paid much and hoped to make some money for all my effort from the films’ sales. The fact that Black Water had been pirated and was online within days of being finished is upsetting. How are Australian film producers like me meant to make a living from our films if people pirate the film and watch it for free?”

However, although the movie was available for download via MovieX, things probably aren’t as bad as Traucki is now making out. As recently as August this year, Traucki said that he was delighted with the success of the movie, telling DVDindustry, “We wanted to make a film with international appeal and obviously we’ve succeeded,” going on to note that the movie had enjoyed “a remarkable sales ride”.

Penalties for commercial copyright crimes in Australia can amount to $60,000 and 5 years in jail for each offense.

More on this story as we get it.

Update: MovieX has opened a temporary forum. It is claimed there that the arrests have nothing to do with MovieX, but we have sufficient information showing that the opposite is true.

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