RLSLOG has grown out to be the authority when it comes to news about, and links to, scene releases. Millions of readers visit the site every month, looking for the latest releases that are posted daily by the site’s editors.

After being pulled offline by a complaint from Universal Music in April, the site moved to a new host in The Netherlands. Initially it seemed that this move had ended the trouble but it turned out to be just a temporary reprieve.

“Shut down again, although we never hosted any files or copyrighted data on our server. Our site is strictly informative,” a message just posted at the site’s home page reads.

TorrentFreak spoke with RLSLOG founder Martin who told us that he’s working on getting the site back online as soon as possible, the first step being the discovery of a suitable hosting provider. After being thrown out by a German and Dutch host, he will now try his luck elsewhere.

The current hosting company refused to forward the actual complaint to RLSLOG, so it is unknown who is behind the request. Martin was told by the webhost that the “German government” and a local anti-piracy organization are responsible, but he has been unable to verify these claims.

RLSLOG has been targeted by rights holders several times over the last year. Previously, Web Sheriff sent a complaint to RLSLOG’s former host who then took the site offline and a few weeks ago Universal Music also managed to take the site offline.

RLSLOG, however, sees no wrong in what it does as the site does not host any copyrighted files on its servers. Although the site appears to operate in a gray area when it comes to copyright, a website doesn’t have to store any copyrighted files in order to be seen as a copyright infringement facilitator by the courts.

The court cases against isoHunt, Mininova and The Pirate Bay have shown that linking to files can be enough to be found guilty of, or liable for, infringements. As we’ve said before, RLSLOG might actually have an even worse case since the ‘links’ are selected and published by the site’s editors.

Thus far RLSLOG’s problems are only limited to finding a host that would allow the site to operate despite any complaints that might roll in. If everything goes well, the site should be back online in a matter of days.

Source: RLSLOG Down Again After Copyright Complaint

Yesterday, however, its readers were shook up by an absence of news. Instead of seeing the regular homepage, visitors were welcomed by the following unpleasant message:

“RLSLOG.net was suspended by its German hosting company after removal request from law firm representing Universal Music, although we never hosted any files or copyrighted data on our server. Our site is strictly informative,” the message reads.

TorrentFreak briefly caught up with RLSLOG founder Martin who told us that he’s currently trying to find a new home for his site, hopefully with a hosting company that will not shut down the site so easily. The suspension came without prior notice, hence the downtime.

This is not the first time that RLSLOG is been put out of action by takedown notices. Last year, Web Sheriff sent complaints to RLSLOG’s former host and the host’s bandwidth provider, who then took the site offline. Also, Google has filtered several of RLSLOG’s pages from its search results after complaints from copyright holders.

These issues raise the question whether sites such as RLSLOG are acting within the law or not. Technically the site is not hosting any copyrighted material, but it generally does point readers to various locations where copyrighted material can be found. Legally, this is a gray area in most countries.

As we’ve learned from the cases against torrent sites like The Pirate Bay and Mininova, not hosting copyrighted material on ones site is no prerequisite for the courts to find operators not guilty of assisting in copyright infringement. RLSLOG might actually have an even worse case since the ‘links’ are selected and published by the site’s editors.

Refraining from posting links to searches or files hosted externally might be the only option to avoid legal issues at a future host. However, for RLSLOG founder Martin, his primary concern is finding a new hosting provider so he can get the site back online again.

Source: RLSLOG Pulled Offline After Universal Music Complaint

After making threats to SceneReleases, the anti-piracy outfit turned its attentions to RLSlog, demanding that the site display a full apology to Franz Ferdinand on its homepage. Of course, RLSlog wasn’t about to apologize but did remove the links, as a look at Google’s cache of the ‘offending’ page reveals. However, that wasn’t enough for Web Sheriff, and he decided to teach RLSlog a lesson.

Two days ago, RLSlog went down. Initially thought to be the victim of a DDoS attack, the site fired off emails to its host in the Netherlands to find out what was happening. Since it was the weekend, responses were expected to be less sharp than during the week, but it took the host a full two days to reply. When it did, the news wasn’t good.

Following complaints sent to the host and the host’s bandwidth provider, RLSlog’s host completely disabled the site. There was no discussion and no checking the validity of Web Sheriff’s claims. If the host had bothered to check any supposed links to the album, they would have seen that the links were gone. Indeed, the links were all dead before we reported on the situation last Wednesday. Nevertheless, the host completely disconnected the site, with no warning.

At this stage it’s still unclear if RLSlog’s host will reactivate the site but if they don’t, it won’t be the end of the world. RLSlog is fully prepared for disaster recovery and has everything in place to simply move to a new host, should that prove necessary. Of course, this might take a little time but the site will return. In the meantime, although RLSlog is down, their forums are up at RLStalk. They are running a little slowly at times but appear fully functional.

This takedown is quite the metaphorical ‘feather in the cap’ for the Web Sheriff, using their pages of legal jargon to great effect and successfully intimidating a weak host into a knee-jerk takedown. However, there is an unintended side-effect to these ‘cut-and-paste’ warnings. While researching Web Sheriff’s attempted takedowns of ‘Tonight’, I discovered a very easy way to find dozens of release sites and music blogs that i’d never heard of before, using a simple Google search.

Despite being very active in getting links to the album removed, Web Sheriff’s old nemesis The Pirate Bay still tracks ‘Tonight’. As far as we know, they didn’t ask them to remove the torrent. No point really, they already know the answer.

Source: Web Sheriff Takes Down RLSLOG