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Newzbin2 pirate links closes

November 30, 2012

Newzbin2, once one of the most popular sites with links to pirated content, has closed down. It comes 15 months after a UK court ordered ISPs to block the site, and amid global pressure from copyright holders.

In a statement, Newzbin2’s owners said it had struggled to cover costs because payment providers had “understandably lost their nerve”.

The Creative Coalition Campaign, which represents groups such as the Motion Picture Association (MPA) and record industry body the BPI, welcomed the announcement.

Christine Payne said. “Pirate websites should not be allowed to trade as this undermines the ability of legitimate businesses to recoup their considerable investment and threatens jobs in the creative sector.”

Newzbin2 was the follow-up site to the original Newzbin1, which was sued by the MPA, leaving it with massive debts. The site was taken over by a group of hackers known as Team R Dogs who resurrected the site as Newzbin2.

In July 2011, a court ruling meant the site had to be blocked to users in the UK. It attempted various techniques to circumvent the ban, but users began to head elsewhere.

“Newzbin1 was said to have had 700,000 registered users,” the site’s statement said. “In fact that was the total number of people who ever signed up in the history of Newzbin from 2000 onwards.Only a fraction were active, loads of people dropped out and went to other sites.”

The administrators defended their record on tackling piracy, saying they had been willing to comply with requests to remove pirated content – but that copyright holders had never sent them a “single complaint”.

Categories: Articles, Content, Piracy