Yesterday many of its regular users were in for a surprise though, after their favorite search engine suddenly became unreachable.

It turned out that the site’s domain name registrar, the Poland-based company Nazwa, had suspended the Torrentz.eu domain. This drastic step was taken after they received a letter from the UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit.

In recent months City of London Police have targeted dozens of domains through their registrars. Some complied, but others refused to take action without a court order, which is appropriate in these cases.

At first Nazwa placed themselves in the first group, as they were quick to suspend the torrentz.eu domain. However, it appears that the company was willing to listen to reason since their initial decision has now been reversed.

This morning Torrentz.eu’s old DNS entries were put back in place, replacing the ns1.blocked.netart.pl and ns2.blocked.netart.pl ones.

The Torrentz team informs TorrentFreak that their lawyer contacted the registrar yesterday afternoon. In a long letter the lawyer explained that the domain can’t simply be held hostage based on a third-party request.

Among other things, this argument is based on an earlier decision by ICANN’s Transfer Dispute Resolution Policy panel which concluded that a court order is required to take such drastic action (although it has to be noted .EU doesn’t fall under ICANN’s TDRP).

While the registrar has not yet replied to the letter, the fact that the old DNS entries have been restored suggests that they admit that the suspension was in error.

The Torrentz team is happy with the outcome thus far and will continue operating from the .eu domain. The site should be accessible again worldwide, at least to those who have the latest DNS information.

The UK’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit informs TorrentFreak that the recent efforts to ask registrars to suspend domain names is part of “Operation Creative.” The websites targeted by the police are identified by copyright holders, and then verified by police officers.

Update: Responding to the inquiry we sent yesterday, the police sent the following statement explaining how websites are identified and what actions are taken in response. As with the previous initiatives, such as the pirate site advertising blocklist, these fall under “Operation Creative.”

“As part of Operation Creative, rights holders in the creative industries identify and report copyright infringing websites to PIPCU, providing a detailed package of evidence indicating how the site is involved in illegal copyright infringement. Officers from PIPCU then evaluate the websites and verify whether they are infringing copyright. At the first instance of a website being confirmed as providing copyright infringing content, the site owner is contacted by officers at PIPCU and offered the opportunity to engage with the police, to correct their behaviour and to begin to operate legitimately.”

“If a website fails to comply and engage with the police, then a variety of other tactical options may be used including; contacting the domain registrar informing them of the criminality and seeking suspension of the site and disrupting advertising revenue through the use of an Infringing Website List (IWL) available to those involved in the sale and trading of digital advertising.”

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

Torrent-Finder, which shifted to a .INFO domain to continue its operations, is fighting back with legal representation. Others, unsettled by the developing atmosphere of uncertainty, are taking steps to mitigate any potential future action against their sites.

Already several private trackers have invested in alternative domain names which are at least currently believed to be outside US control or influence. Early December the popular Demonoid tracker showed its hand with a shift from a .COM to a .ME domain.

While seizing the domain names of a fully fledged torrent site with index, categorization, heavy moderation, tracker and seedboxes might not be a huge surprise in the current climate, the targeting of the Torrent-Finder meta-search engine came as a real shock to the file-sharing community.

So there can be little doubt that Torrentz, the Internet’s second biggest torrent site, eyed the recent developments with an element of disbelief. As a meta-search engine it should be absolutely fine but the unofficially established rules of the game appear to have changed, despite being based on a case filled with serious mistakes.

To that end, today we can confirm that Torrentz has officially dumped its .COM domain in favor of Torrentz.eu. There’s no official announcement from the site but anyone visiting the old URL is immediately redirected. This change is a permanent one, we have learned.

Two years ago Torrentz already faced a hostile domain takeover from a hacker, but this issue was resolved quickly and without any serious consequences. We assume that moving away from the .COM domain is deemed to be the path of least resistance by the Torrentz.eu team.

But its not just BitTorrent sites that are affected by this environment of uncertainty. With the seizing of the domains of several hip-hop sites – RapGodFathers.com, RMX4U.com, Dajaz1.com, and OnSmash.com – that community is also worried for its future.

A handful of bewildered site owners have contacted TorrentFreak during the last month with questions ranging from “Why were these sites taken down?” through to “What can we do to avoid the same fate?” Our answer to these sites has been consistent – they have been targeted for being involved in RIAA-label music.

For those in hip-hop, the chance to really take their music back to the streets should be a breath of fresh air and a poke in the eye for the corporates who have tried, once they realized it was a money spinner, to absorb their scene during the last 20 years.

For everyone else, other tactics will have to be employed. The technology war to stay online – and findable with a search engine – has only just begun.

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