Web Sheriff Takes Down RLSLOG
Written by enigmax on January 19, 2009RLSLOG, one of the world’s most popular release news sites, has been taken down following action by Web Sheriff. The site, which did not host any copyright material whatsoever, has been down for two days after the UK-based outfit issued complaints to the site’s host and their bandwidth provider. The site will return.
Last week we reported that Web Sheriff, hired by Franz Ferdinand’s label Domino Records, was taking an aggressive stance towards anyone posting links to the band’s new album ‘Tonight’. Sites like SceneReleases and RLSlog did their regular reporting on the leak of the album, with the usual links to sites like Rapidshare that briefly hosted the album. Very quickly these external sites removed access to the album, rendering the links still displayed on SceneReleases and RLSlog useless.
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.
Previously: The Myka BitTorrent Box Looks Like a Scam
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94 Responses
Oh… That’s what happened. I was looking for info on the first HD Galactica being nuked and RLSLOG was offline and I thought it crashed due to curiosity.
BTW, does anyone know of a site that publishes the reason for nukes? I used to rely on my favorite release group’s site but they took down their forum for some reason.
I urge every single person who reads this message to send a strongly worded email to Web Sheriff (not offensive, per say) to let them know just how UTTERLY UNJUST their actions were. Not only was their warning to Rlslog totally and completely invalid because of the spelling mistake, it was therefore inadmissable under UK Law. Furthermore, Web Sheriff has about as much authority on the internet as my fat ass. They are NOT lawyers, they are NOT a government body and they are most certainly not involved with law enforcement in any way. All they do is send out nice emails to people saying “stop this or I will rat you out to your ISP! Ooooh!” In this case, it seems to have worked, which is why I would also encourage people to find out who Rlslog’s ISP/Hosting Company was, and let them know just how fucking disgusted you are about this whole, unjust mess.
***PLEASE COPY AND PASTE THIS MESSAGE ALL AROUND THE INTERNET***
Email Web Sheriff right here: websheriff@websheriff.com
I enclose a template email you could send, below:
Dear Web Sheriff
I am writing to express my utter and complete disgust at your recent actions in which you attempted to “protect” the illegal release of a Franz Ferdinand album. This relates particularly to the case of RLSLOG.net (note the correct spelling, please, for the last time). Your actions in this case have been at best unjust, and at worst illegal under UK law. You are not a government, police, or legal body and as such have absolutely zero authority to issue demands to any website administrator or host. The site in question, RLSLOG.net (correct spelling, again), hosted ABSOLUTELY ZERO illegal content, and in fact its only relation to such content was in the form of textual links. I must point out to your apparently inept and uninformed legal “experts” that such linking is completely legal under UK and US laws. An equivalent activity in the “real world” would be me informing you that you can rob a bank if you purchase some intimidating materials from a supermarket. This is not illegal in the slightest.
In summary, I sincerely hope you enjoy your new reputation for being the joke of the internet, and I trust you will be sure to read all the comments which so many users have been leaving for you on various websites. Should I ever need any kind of intellectual property or protectionism service for my own online business, I shall be sure to never tread a mile near your scummy company.
With absolutely no regards whatsoever,
A concerned user
Who was RLSLOG’s hosting company, by the way? All I could find was a dynamic DNS service which suggests they were hosting from their own machine? No?
Please give their contact details if possible; I’d like to email them too, and avoid them at all costs in my own web projects.
This is an example of what will happen if ISPs are forced to disconnect their customers based on letters.
LMAO, pwnered by Web Sheriff, now that’s embarassing. :-D
ZeroSec.ws was also under attack, however their team of technicians were able to deal with the attacks and take them in stride. However their regular postings have been affected.
i use rlslog rss feeds to know the latest movie releases, but noticed that i was not getting any news for some time. i am now using some alternatives until rlslog is back.
scenereleases.info
vcdquality.com
nfohump.com
scenereleases.info is the shit. Better search engine etc.
Everyone start flooding web sheriffs website:) 500 k users that read rlslog per day should do a great job:)
This is awful. RSLOG is such a great blog!
http://www.fetchmp3.com
scenereleases.info is better! Not like rlslog, that's full of tv-shit!
If u want tv-stuff, go to eztv.it ffs.
Thanks for coverage Ernesto.
I decided to send a message to Franz Ferdinand's MySpace profile as well, here's the reprint of it:
[quote]
Hi guys,
just wanted to tell you you probably succeeded at this. I am admin of RLSLOG (www. rlslog. net), which is a fairly popular weblog informing about new movies, games and music. The website was visited by more than 350 000 unique visitors a day.
Recently, we received a takedown request from Web Sherrif because someone in our comments posted download links for your new album. We removed the links but this Web Sherrif sent the request to our hosting and bandwith provider as well – and they didnt bother to check anything. They just completely turned off all our servers without any notice. It's offline for 3 days already and they don't even bother to talk with us anymore.
Quite a turnaround from your recent appeal to pirate music and admitting you do it too.
I and other 8 editors lost a website and 3 years of daily work. 350 000 people lost their favourite daily read.
Hope you are happy.
Martin, (former) RLSLOG admin
[/quote]
Let's hope RLSLOG will be fixed as soon as possible.
RLSLOG is such a great site. I too use both sites zerosec and rlslog. I found RLSLOG much more faster since Christmas time. And their forums are amazing. With smart members and people get their answers to questions within hours. They even gotten a temp section up on the forum still after all this making them faster with a few releases.
I hope they will come back asap. Thanks for the great articles you guys post.
I've not heard of RLSLOG before now, and thanks to Web Marshall they will be added to my reading list as soon as they get back online.
IMHO the Service provider should press charges against Web Sheriff, though it was their own fault mostly false jibberish about non-existing laws that doesnt affect the site or provider should be penalized somehow..
Hopefully the provider will get its act together and ignore+read sutch future accusations and looking up if the information applies to them and their customers first.
If one can simply imply something to get a site, a BIG SITE that doesnt do anything illigal, taken down completely like this for days, and make it loose advertising income and visitors then theres something wrong somewhere.
Id talk to the provider to get the letter they sent, and then take legal action against web sheriff for damages they caused.
The provider will help, just give them a change.
Also another thing. After reading more about this topic i noticed that they did not warn RLSLOG in anyway. They sent Martin a different URL, its like them sending a notice to RLSLOG.net but they write RLSLOG.com. Which in a way Web Sherif could be sued.
It's like a cop walking into a home without knocking to see someone doing a unlawful act, the man could sue the cop, for entering his house.
Anyways i hope the site gets back up online. The forums are acting up a little for me but it's surferable.
The server on which is hosted the forum it's a little bit saturated (hence why some of you notice some lag), but you should be able to browse it just fine. :)
Well its in the afternoon in the Netherlands so shouldn't the hosts responded by now.
Fuck rlslog, ZeroSec.WS ftw, martin is a nub
Perhaps this is something typical of hosts. As soon as they sense some threat of legal action, they just drop a website.
You should try zerosec.ws – they have a big button to hide all TV releases…
Totally OT:
Is the Relakks VPN login server (pptp.relakks.com) down? Their website is loading fine, sign-up and login over there is possible. I'm quite surprised that they ran into troubles again, after they switched their payment provider earlier this year and fixed the payment issues VPN login speed improved, random disconnections didn't occur anymore and even the possible max. bandwith rose compared to last year (probably less users on their servers).
one domain: scnsrc.net
Agreed Freddy, best site now.
rofl Waldo, spoken like a true Zerosec knob…. your site has been so slow on every release for like a month and a half now
please keep things civil, we don't want to delete comments but we will if we have to
same as my comment to waldo – let's keep things civil and nobody's posts will have to be removed. cheers fellas, appreciated
Maybe but LW isn't really a "typical" host. Of course it's common knowledge that the Netherlands are no safe haven anymore and many sites moved away to .lu .ru etc over a year ago from there, but kicking such a customer especially after he (partly) followed the take down notice is just ridiculous. (usually they gave at least 24h to shut a site down).
Well even more of a reason to get the site up and working again as soon as possible and seeing that they already seemingly moved to .cz (same host as Waldo :P) i guess/hope that wont be too long.
Not a typical host? Is it any better on a typical host in the Netherlands?
The host was a pussy. I mean if it was on a server like ecatel, they would of fought against it. Like they did with WarezScene.org
shouldn't one of your editors be posting Notorious (2009) or W (2008)? RLSLOG doesn't have a site Online but does notify users in a time like this.
The site is not working only for the moment. Besides, they are not the ones culpable for this since was not their decision to take it down; it was their host that did this.
Sucks to see it down. Really hope they can bring it back up asap.
True, Scenereleases.info is one of the best out there, clean and easy to use as well.
Thats what these idiots dont get, they take down one sitting stone, we just hope to the next one that is only too happy for us to sit on.
What does surprise me is that "web sheriff" was able to actually do something!!!!
Guess they got up on the wrong side of the bed and drank some energy from the bottom of a Jack Daniels and finally got a dumb host that they could do something about.
What surprises me even more that no one has upped the album to TPB, once that happens its game over for mr. Sheriff, the last beating they took over there was like seeing a 400pound gorilla bitch slapping a … Indiana Gregg ;))
Cheers!
http://www.eZee.se
P.S Anybody notice most of the pro filesharing comments are being marked down by some morons?
True, Scenereleases.info is one of the best out there, clean and easy to use as well.
Thats what these idiots dont get, they take down one sitting stone, we just hop to the next one that is only too happy for us to sit on.
What does surprise me is that "web sheriff" was able to actually do something!!!!
Guess they got up on the wrong side of the bed and drank some energy from the bottom of a Jack Daniels and finally got a dumb host that they could do something about.
What surprises me even more that no one has upped the album to TPB, once that happens its game over for mr. Sheriff, the last beating they took over there was like seeing a 400pound gorilla bitch slapping a … Indiana Gregg ;))
Cheers!
http://www.eZee.se
P.S Anybody notice most of the pro filesharing comments are being marked down by some morons?
rlslog still posting in forums till site is back it looks like
http://www.rlstalk.net/index.php?showforum=71
Actually, I believe that someone has uploaded a torrent to TPB already.
I believe that someone has uploaded a torrent to TPB already.
The marking down of the comments is quite mysterious indeed.
I was going to buy that album too. But if they are going to be like that, I am going to just steal it and give it to all my friends. I am going to burn 100 cds, print the cover art and leave them randomly around my town too. Hahaha.
Well before summer 2007 LW was hosting about every second torrent/warez site and fought for them in court. I guess that garners you a certain reputation and one should be able to expect a company that obviously condoned what rlslog did for years not to shut them down without any warning or chance to defend themselves.
I would like to see TorrentFreak compile a list of hosting companies that have disabled sites at the request of WS and other coporations-own-the-world-fuck-you-normal-people groups, without bothering to check if the complaint was valid, or even legal. Those hosting companies may then be avoided by those who care.
You wouldnt happen to have that URL would you Roze?
I think its important we link to it from http://www.eZee.se, linking to urls is not illegal and its time people took a stance and fight for their rights rather than let them be eroded by what the morons force onto you and say its law.
But it's their decision which host they choose and if you choose a host (heyho @ ZS …) who's notable for kicking warez sites at random because he's been loosing court cases for years you gotta blame yourself at least to some extent.
A simple Google search returns this:
http://thepiratebay.org/torrent/4638284/Franz_Fer...
zshare adblocking fix : @@|http://www.zshare.net/adsense.js <——— add that filter to your adblockplus
That's a bitch eh? They win this round!
Very strange!
I found that exact link but when i clicked on it i was getting an error page :-o
But thanks for the link Roze.
Well, this shows Web Anti-Sheriff to be the little child in the corner stamping his feet, doesn't it? I thought sheriffs were supposed to keep the justice in westerns, perhaps a change of name is in order? Something like Web Bully?
arseholes. Rlslog was a genuinely really great site, resource and community.
I wasn't gonna d/load this album cos i think the band sucks…but i'm going to now and get all me mates to do the same…as ben said…burn em off and give em away free…fk you Domino Rercords!!!
scenereleases.info seems to be down now wtf
RLSLOG BLOWS CHUNKS, great site if you want to get hit with full page ad`s, pop-unders and warnings from your AVG about worms from their page ad`s…………..
but i dont condone what their hosts did to them just on the words from some web sherriff with a tin badge
Well, that about guarantees that I will never pay por Ferdinand whatever album. Fuck them.
And fuck the web sheriff, if they think they can stop anything like this in the long term.
What I’d love to know is who was hosting rlslog. I’d certainly never pay a company that drops your website when some idiot comes saying “hey, I’m the web sheriff and that web is illegal”. Shameful.
That's due to server probs, not our beloved sheriff
DDOS web sheriff website.
That's good news
Best releaselogs out there – Torrentleech. You get info about release (about a year earlier by my calculations) and a megafast download of the file u want.
Yes I use adblock, but some sites now like zshare will not let you view content unless you turn adblock off, but hopefully adblock will find a way round this on the next update
That site blows. The writing is terrible and the site is run by angst ridden teens. Not to mention the spam. Zerosec.ws and scenereleases is much better.
I like rlslog a lot use it everyday.. but ha ha on them. they continually have java ad redirects and pop ups galore.. so ha f'n ha! pay backs a bitch..
This is going to be buried/probably ignored, but ANY filesharing related site, regardless of whether or not they host copyrighted files or not, should have a contingency plan should their host decide to pull the plug.
For RLSLOG to be completely oblivious of the potential for this type of action shows tremendous short sidedness. How hard is it to back up a friggin blog?
zerosec.ws? there a bunch of wankers remember when they highjacked rlslog? that really sucked and wasnt funny.. so glad that there having problems to! ha ha pay back is a bitch.
Thank you for Torrentfreak and all the commentators for their input. Rlslog is a brilliant site and I am sure they'll be up and running in no time. The more release sites there are the better, so thank you once again and you guys know who you are ;-)
^^^ Released-A-Log fanboi
We're not having any problems.
rlslog is lame, controlled by a money hungry syop (Martin). I pretty much stopped visiting the site after MARTIN decided to include all of those annoying and intrusive ads which actually use to crash my browser. Ask the former volunteers about Martin and his greed.
Also, martin being the punk that he is removed the links…. Go to scnsrc.net for some decency.
another great way to search for music on google is the following:
For Songs replace the X's with the song title and copy and paste the string into google:
XXXXX intitle:"index.of" "parent directory" "size" "last modified" "description" [snd] (mp4|mp3|avi) -inurl:(jsp|php|html|aspx|htm|cf|shtml|lyrics|mp3s|mp3|index) -intitle:"last modified" -intitle:"intitle"
For albums/artists replace the X's with the song title and copy and paste the string into google:
XXXXX site:zshare.net OR site:rapidshare.net OR site:rapidshare.com OR site:megaupload.com OR site:updownloadserver.de OR site:sharebigfile.com OR site:upload.sc OR site:bigfileupload.com OR site:upload2.net OR site:mediafire.com OR site:filestube.com -intitle:("users") -inurl:("tag|users|games|video")
credits to JimmyR.com
Sorry guys, someone changed the apache limit and we crashed again.
Nothing to do with web sheriff, and I trust OVH isn't as stupid as leaseweb.
Damn, the hell is with everyone today? Half of the sites i visit stopped working at the same time.
Intrawebs is done for.
stupid web sheriff, your plastic sheriff star that you bought at the dollar store is meaningless in the real world
man i am so going to ddos that sheriff site i just got sick of the hypocritical bulshit all over that page. Is there anything whorse then a sheriff yeah i found the anser and it is called a fucking fake websheriff man.
This is excellent, thank you much =D I keep this saved to my post-it widgit
I was a big Rlslog reader for about 2 years until one day I was on a machine without ad-block. I was bombarded my bullshit scripts and ads. I kept reading until another day people started complaining about a crack for a game that was infected. A crack that Rlslog staff uploaded to the site for people to download. I understand that mistakes happen but it was left up there for two weeks. Unacceptable.
Now I go to Zerosec and don't dick around with sites that might possibly be getting paid to host malicious files.
Also they uploaded a copy of WinRar one day (this was before that infected crack I mentioned in the above post) and it was an old version too. I immediately thought what the hell? Guess what? The dumb asses who downloaded it started complaining that their PC's were now infected. Martin or one of the staff started apologizing and then posted a program to get rid of the spyware.
What I want to know is how in the hell does an old infected version of WinRar end up on your site? Was it pre'd on your channel? No. Was it put there by staff who might be able to make a quick buck? I don't know but I was tired of wondering.
Actually, if you have read the article, you would know that they actually do have a contingency plan. Contingency plans are not things that can instantly be carried out.
Actually, if you have read the article, you would know that they actually do have a contingency plan. Contingency plans are not things that can instantly be carried out, especially considering how some things, like name-server addresses, require some time to update.
so which scene release info websites u guys use?
zerosec.ws of course.
http://www.rlslog.net/is now back online.
great :D
Rlslog is back!
Why in the hell didnt RLSLOG Owner(s) make offsite back ups? Pretty amateurish if you ask me. Any decent site would be back up on a different host within a few hours.
cool this take down actually made me find great rlslog alternatives like
http://www.filenest.comhighly recomended
Too you long to enough to report this… /rolls eyes
the site is online douchebag
I don't like rlglog anymore, the news is slow and I find better things on forums.
slow? they are just as fast as any of the other release sites except for zerosec cos they are like a day behind everything LOL
Typical, web sheriff managed to get the site down for a mere day, are they going to attack the next web host now? They should realise they'll never win, we'll all end up moving our servers to countries like Korea where they will have no power to censor information.
RLSlog is down again..
Oh nevermind, now it's up and running
Album
http://moviefox.org/franz-ferdinand-tonight-franz...
its down again:-(
yup down again 27/1 why wont they get another host… =/ all this down times and stuff arrrgh…
Yep its down for me to. Jan 27th 09
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