Torrentz online 24 hours after police shutdown
May 28, 2014
Torrentz.eu, one of the largest search engines for downloads on file-sharing websites, was taken offline by the City of London police for linking to pirated content on May 26th.
Torrentz.eu was already blocked in the UK by a number of British ISPs, having been blacklisted in October 2013 alongside 20 other file-sharing sites, but the side’s domain name was removed entirely on Monday. By Tuesday, however, the site was back up following legal complaints from the owners.
The City of London police had contacted Torrentz’s domain name registrar, and asked it to suspend the site for linking to content which infringes copyright.
A City of London Police spokesperson said, “The Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) has recently contacted a number of domain registrars hosting copyright infringing as part of Operation Creative, and as a result several major copyright infringing websites, including Torrentz.eu, have closed down.”
However, the site is still live at other domain names. The force’s request has no legal force, but many registrars follow such requests anyway.
“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,” the City of London police spokesperson said. “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.”