Torrentz.eu Domain Name Suspended

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Torrentz.eu Domain Name Suspended

Posted by Unknown on Monday May 26, 2014 @09:04PM from the searching-is-now-a-crime dept.

First time accepted submitter S37Rigor Mortis (1601271) writes "Torrentz.eu, the largest torrent search engine on the Internet, has had its domain name suspended following a request from the Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit in the UK. The site continues to operate under two alternative domains, and is hoping to move the .eu domain to a new registrar." Update: 05/27 12:53 GMT by T : That was quick; the site is back, "after the owners pointed out that its suspension was illegal."

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Brits still think they own the world... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 21:07 · Score: 2, Interesting

The Fascist Police of London had a .com domain pulled from a Ukrainian website the other day...
1. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by sa1lnr · 2014-05-26 22:17 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Really, from what I've been able to read so far the City of London Police "made a request" and the registrar agreed to that request.
  Not saying this is right or wrong, just questioning the fascist bit.
2. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 23:16 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Fascists very seldom use violence, or even direct threat of violence. They create an environment where they don't need to.
  When you say "made a request", what exactly do you mean. "Made a request" means that it was implied that the registrar somehow would be held accountable or that they otherwise would be given a hard time if they didn't comply then it is perfectly fair to claim that the police has fascist tendencies.
  With the right intonation and in the right environment "It would be unfortunate if you didn't comply" or "I would be disappointed if you didn't comply" is far more threatening than "I will hit you if you don't comply"
3. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by mwvdlee · 2014-05-26 23:32 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  As I understand it, the Police of London is a very small, mostly corporate controlled entity with much less impact than they purport to have.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
  
  --
  Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
4. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Raenex · 2014-05-26 23:49 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Really, from what I've been able to read so far the City of London Police "made a request" and the registrar agreed to that request.
  Not saying this is right or wrong, just questioning the fascist bit.
  Let's say you live in an apartment. What if they "made a request" to your landlord to lock you out of your own apartment, and the landlord dutifully complied. Perhaps you might feel differently if your stuff was taken in such a manner.
5. Re:Brits still think they own the world... by Blue+Stone · 2014-05-27 05:01 · Score: 2
  
  The City of London is a defacto city state and an actual corporatocracy.
  The City of London police are their hired thugs.
  
  --
  Corporation, n. An ingenious device for obtaining individual profit without individual responsibility. - Ambrose Bierce
Now a redirect by Maquis196 · 2014-05-26 21:12 · Score: 4, Interesting

I got redirected to torrentz.ch and I can't tell if this is blocked by British ISPs like torrentz.eu was...
So no service problems. Good job internet.
1. Re:Now a redirect by Maquis196 · 2014-05-26 21:13 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  hate replying to myself, but after proxying through my home server (on BT infinity), torrentz.ch is certainly not blocked. Way to go UK!
2. Re:Now a redirect by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 23:04 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Thank you for reporting this problem. Our engineers our still working out some implementation details. This should be fixed shortly.
  -- BT Infinity
Criminal scum by AmiMoJo · 2014-05-26 21:14 · Score: 3, Insightful

These criminal scum need to be stopped. The City of London Police are abusing their power to enforce civil matters and shut down legitimate search engines. Apparently no-one is watching the watchers.

--
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
1. Re:Criminal scum by AmiMoJo · 2014-05-26 21:40 · Score: 4, Insightful
  
  Try googling "harry potter torrent" and see what links you get. It indexes content, legitimate or otherwise.
  
  --
  const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
  SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
2. Re:Criminal scum by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 21:43 · Score: 2
  
  'Legitimate? The site clearly promotes piracy.'
  As legitimate as BBC and other media companies openly supporting terrorists in Syria. Why not shut them down too on some kneejerk?
3. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-26 22:00 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Try googling "harry potter torrent" and see what links you get. It indexes content, legitimate or otherwise.
  No, there is a big difference because Google's main intent is not to promote piracy.
4. Re:Criminal scum by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 22:05 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Really? So all torrentz.eu has to do is a dual search engine ("search for torrents or cat pictures!") and force users to do one cat picture search before they can do a torrent search. This way only 49% of searches are illegal and the service won't be shut down.
5. Re:Criminal scum by bl968 · 2014-05-26 22:07 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  I did a search and if you are looking for copyrighted materials you can find them. But you find a lot of other stuff as well. Linux distributions, freely distributable music. Public domain materials etc. this is a search engine.
  
  --
  "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 51230 "-" "Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; Setec Astronomy)"
6. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-26 22:09 · Score: 2
  
  Heh, apparently the Slashdot piracy mob already quickly modded down my both messages.
7. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-26 22:29 · Score: 2
  
  The law doesn't work like that. There isn't a strict rule that "Below x% it's legal".
  
  You'd have to be a complete idiot to think that the users actually want those cat pictures rather than the copyright infringing files. This is why the law uses a human element. We can use our judgement. You'd also have to be a complete idiot to believe that torrentz.eu isn't primarily interested in facilitating copyright infringement.
8. Re:Criminal scum by 91degrees · 2014-05-26 22:31 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Me too:)
  
  I think a lot of Slashdot users can't cope with the fact that the law and software algorithms work differently.
9. Re:Criminal scum by Opportunist · 2014-05-26 22:52 · Score: 2
  
  Piracy or not, last time I checked copyright violations were not in the CRIMINAL code. So what's the police doing there? Enforcing the interest of a PRIVATE party?
  
  --
  We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
10. Re:Criminal scum by gl4ss · 2014-05-26 22:56 · Score: 2
  
  that doesn't matter.
  google is largely geared towards finding copyrighted porno.
  
  --
  world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
11. Re:Criminal scum by CurryCamel · 2014-05-26 23:33 · Score: 3, Insightful
  
  Wait, this search engine located at youtube.com - is that not primarly used for pirating music and videos? At least that is what I use it for, almost to 99%. And youtube.com is a service run by Google.
12. Re:Criminal scum by Noryungi · 2014-05-26 23:35 · Score: 2
  
  You mean like this?
  https://torrentz.eu/525245e5e3...
  Or this?
  https://torrentz.eu/156b69b864...
  Or this?
  https://torrentz.eu/4d75347442...
  Or that one maybe?
  https://torrentz.eu/e67f4ebb4c...
  Hey, what do you know? They actually distribute some legal content! Amazing!
  
  --
  The right to offend is far more important than the right not to be offended. (Rowan Atkinson)
13. Re:Criminal scum by radio4fan · 2014-05-26 23:40 · Score: 2
  
  The City of London Police are abusing their power to enforce civil matters and shut down legitimate search engines.
  And what's really odd is that this domain is blocked in the UK by the big ISPs anyway. It was blocked along with a bunch of others back in October 2013.
  If I try to access it on my current ISP, I get redirected here: http://assets.virginmedia.com/site-blocked.html.
  So the City Police are trying to take down a domain that you can't even access directly in the UK.
14. Re:Criminal scum by Anonymous Coward · 2014-05-26 23:41 · Score: 2, Insightful
  
  "possibly more thqan 99% of users- use torrentz.eu purely for copyright infringing uses. I know I do, and so do most of my friends. I'd also estimate that less than 5% of Google users are looking for infringing files."
  But if looking at absolute numbers the amount of people searching for infringing files in Goole is way larger than in torrenz.eu. Basically you are saying the corner dealer has to go to jail because he sold drugs to 99 people and his sandwich to one, where Walmart is ok because they sold drugs to 5000 people, but also sold sandwiches to 95000 people. Either indexing content is ok or it isn't.
15. Re:Criminal scum by jones_supa · 2014-05-27 00:05 · Score: 2
  
  That's like saying that a sex shop is a general-purpose convenience store if they happen to sell some candy too.
16. Re:Criminal scum by matthias.loeffel · 2014-05-27 00:10 · Score: 2
  
  On the other hand, they do remove content based on complaints
  Which of torrentz.eu cannot do even if they wanted to, as they don't host any content.
17. Re:Criminal scum by bzipitidoo · 2014-05-27 01:56 · Score: 2
  
  You are talking like a law and order person who never questions whether copyright is good, fair, and balanced. You just jumped right to an examination of whether torrentz.eu aids others to infringe on copyrights as if its beyond question that that's Bad, and declared that its so obvious that torrentz.eu does so that anyone who tries to argue otherwise is being stupid, and that there's no doubt torrent sites are Guilty Guilty Guilty.
  Of course they link to pirated material! But is that so bad, really? It's actually the opposite. The right to share knowledge is fundamental to our civilization, and we should not allow some private interests to buffalo us into accepting a false equivalence between property rights for material things and copyright law. Every time someone asserts that copying is stealing, that's what they do. Piracy is good. The real crime is the suppression of our rights, and the criminals are not torrentz.eu operators or even users, but this police force and their real masters who seem to prefer to remain in the shadows.
  Evidently these masters don't like the glare of publicity, and the most probable reason for that dislike is that they know the public would strongly disapprove of their conduct and motives. From what I've read elsewhere in these threads, this City of London Police is a weird little police force more answerable to corporations than the public. Well now they've done it. They've called international attention upon themselves. They've clothed themselves as police, as guardians of law and order, and it's not at all clear that they should be allowed to continue to do so. I should not be too surprised to see talk of reining in this "police" force and forcing them back under the rock from which they crawled. And if they won't back down, then they will be changed, perhaps disbanded.
  
  --
  Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Since when... by CaptainOfSpray · 2014-05-26 21:21 · Score: 4, Insightful

...does City of London police have any jurisdiction outside City of London? Registrar should not have caved in.

I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent on something so monumentally stupid as a Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. And I suspect that its creation was an idea planted, bought, and paid for by You-Know-Who.

--
"Cock Up Your Beaver" does not mean what you think. This sig is intended to clog filters and annoy do-gooders
1. Re:Since when... by Pieroxy · 2014-05-26 21:24 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  ...does City of London police have any jurisdiction outside City of London? Registrar should not have caved in.
  I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent on something so monumentally stupid as a Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit. And I suspect that its creation was an idea planted, bought, and paid for by You-Know-Who.
  Voldemort? Already?
  
  --
  Write boring code, not shiny code!
2. Re:Since when... by Grantbridge · 2014-05-26 21:42 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  City of London Police are a very strange entity, since the Corporation of London isn't really a democratic body, and their police force should be viewed as serving the interests of their corporate masters, rather than the people at large. As such, I wouldn't obey any instruction from them without a court order.
  http://www.theguardian.com/com...
3. Re:Since when... by serviscope_minor · 2014-05-26 23:03 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  I should like to point out that I, a registered voter and taxpayer, have never been asked whether I want my taxes spent
  IO take it you don't really know much about the City of London, then. Since I now walk through it daily I thought I'd do a bit of reading. It is a very, very strange place (and the police are an arm of it). To refer to it as "well dodgy" is a massive understatement.
  So firstly, it's older than the England you know: the administrative system (known as the Corporation of London) predates the Normal conquest of 1066, though they had their charter re issued after since it was lost at some point. The Corporation of London is some weird hybrid between a local council, an ancient government, a company and a secret society.
  This means it's embedded in the legal system in weird and woderful ways. For example, they have a representative in the house of commons (not an MP) to make sure that parliament is acting in their interests. Also, the registered voters not only include humans, but businesses too and in proportion to the number of employees within the city. This means that bisuness vastly out vote the local residents. And for part of this you're only eligible to run for office if you've already been given the freedom of the city, making it a massively closed system.
  The dodgyness continues. The manifestation of this in the dody dealings of the City of London police is only the tiniest tip of a very large iceberg. About the best thing you can say about the City of London police is they sometimes wear those rather anachronistic Policeman's capes which look kinda cool.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
4. Re:Since when... by serviscope_minor · 2014-05-26 23:12 · Score: 4, Interesting
  
  their corporate masters
  In case anyone reading this believes this ios hyperbole or some left wing rant, it is literally true. The companies in the City get to vote in proportion to the number of employees and so vastly out vote the citizens.
  
  --
  SJW n. One who posts facts.
5. Re:Since when... by mwvdlee · 2014-05-26 23:47 · Score: 4, Informative
  
  In case anyone reading this believes this ios hyperbole or some left wing rant, it is literally true. The companies in the City get to vote in proportion to the number of employees and so vastly out vote the citizens.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/C...
  civilian votes: 7.000
  corporate votes: 32.000
  Basically, corporations determine what the City of London Police's policies and priorities are.
  
  --
  Slashdot social media options: AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber and Mobile Text. Why no MySpace?
6. Re:Since when... by coofercat · 2014-05-27 00:22 · Score: 5, Informative
  
  Going on... The City of London is often also called "the square mile" because it's a really very small part of the blob of the UK called "London". All of the London councils dwarf the City in both number of people resident and square miles covered. The rest of london has somewhere between 6 and 10 million residents.
  The City has a population of something like 7000 people, yet has something like >5,000,000 visitors every working day. To some extent, it makes sense not to let 7000 people define the local government policy for so may visitors (just about all of whom work for one of the areas employers).
  However, by the same token, those employers shouldn't be defining local government (or in this case, local police) policy. The City Police have asked for things like this before, and mostly been rebuffed, as seems reasonable, given who/what they represent.
  As the GP notes, We the People have never been asked if we'd like this sort of thing to go on - but then we actually don't pay for the City Police directly, as it is really paid for by the Corporation of London, who are paid for by the businesses within it. Hence we have this fscked up setup where there's a (small) police force for hire by whomever pays the most. That wouldn't be so bad if they just stayed in the square mile, but sadly they're starting to see their remit as "the Internet" as well. We the People could argue that the actions of the City Police brings the actions of the wider police force into disrepute though, I guess (not such a bad idea actually, now I think of it).
  The moral of the story is: If you receive an "official" communication from some police force or other, politely decline to do what they ask unless they can provide a court order. This will keep you out of trouble for longer than trying to be "helpful". Our judges might not be perfect, but for the most part they won't furnish the City Police with a court order for something as flimsy as this.
7. Re:Since when... by mlk · 2014-05-27 00:59 · Score: 2
  
  > That just isn't how it works. However, you probably should make your MP aware of what is wrong
  https://www.writetothem.com/
  > and Boris too
  https://www.london.gov.uk/cont... (includes an email address)
  You can also contact the Lord Mayor (City of London) spokesmen.
  http://www.cityoflondon.gov.uk...
  > It can't be much harder than posting to Slashdot can it?
  Not much harder but you have to sacrifice anonymity and supply a UK postal address.
  > Obviously I didn't read the article. And am just rambling.
  Best way to do it.
  
  --
  Wow, I should not post when knackered.
It's Back ... by ellocotheinsane · 2014-05-26 22:15 · Score: 5, Insightful

Torrentz.eu is back in full swing (1200 hours CET on May 27.) ...
1. Re:It's Back ... by bigalzzz · 2014-05-26 23:39 · Score: 2
  
  Sure they'll benefit from all the free publicity, sometimes you can't help but think people do more harm to themselves than good
Re:Republicans Attack the Economy by _merlin · 2014-05-26 23:07 · Score: 2

It's taken from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged. The Conservopedia people worship this book.
Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-26 23:37 · Score: 5, Interesting

Granted, this whack-a-mole game with individual torrent sites makes for a fun show sometimes. But I find it embarrassing that the online community has to work around these issues time after time, and that some good people get caught up in legal battles.
Are there any good alternatives to bittorrent for private, anonymous file search and exchange? I heard about several "darknet" projects, but they never seem to gain traction for some reason. Given a huge number of hobbyist hackers who support free exchange of information, I am surprised.
Is there a fundamental reason why we cannot have free, anonymous file exchange? Or is everyone just happy with the status quo?
1. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by ultranova · 2014-05-27 01:11 · Score: 2, Informative
  
  Is there a fundamental reason why we cannot have free, anonymous file exchange?
  
  Most people have things they don't want to have freely available (child porn, for example) and prioritize suppressing them over free availability of other things, thus they shy away from free, anonymous file exchanges.
  That's the problem with anarchy in general: everyone's free to do what they want, including things I don't want them to do.
  
  --
  Forget magic. Any technology distinguishable from divine power is insufficiently advanced.
2. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by countach · 2014-05-27 01:43 · Score: 2
  
  bittorrent is not a scheme for file search. It's a data transfer protocol. How you find torrents is not within the realm of bit torrent. If your aim is to suck down huge amounts of data, there is no competitor.
3. Re:Do we have a better file sharing solution? by Katatsumuri · 2014-05-27 02:36 · Score: 5, Insightful
  
  Because the software market would completely tank if large file sharing was legal.
  There is so much wrong with this post:
  1. File sharing in general is legal. Sharing certain specific files may be illegal in certain jurisdictions.
  2. The legal side of the problem is separate. In many spheres of life there is an area of untracked relations between people. Small cash transfers, personal presents, favors, discussions, meetings. I understand that the governments want to control, censor and tax all of this as much as possible, and at least ask for voluntary self-reporting in many cases. But I feel this "breath room" is important to keep the society sane, and we should have an equivalent in the digital world.
  3. The software market would not tank even if file sharing became easier. There are risks in downloading software from untrusted sources, and people who can afford it (or cannot afford the risk) normally buy it. Then there is also support, upgrades, special deals and so on. Media market has more to worry about, but also not as much as they claim.
Torrents? Ew! by jaeztheangel · 2014-05-27 00:08 · Score: 2

The Police are well aware of the futility of this gesture; as much as they know it will please their political masters.
I was previously unaware of torrentz.eu by Roxoff · 2014-05-27 01:37 · Score: 2

But now, thanks to the Metropolitan Police, I've been made aware of it. That's the police having the -exact- opposite effect of the one they wanted!
Thanks, Mr Plod.

--
"Is the Chief Priest an Offlian? Do dragons explode in the wood?"
Re:City of London Police paid by by Arker · 2014-05-27 02:42 · Score: 5, Informative

It's a very old arrangement actually, dating back to the middle ages. 'The City of London' is not the city of London, it's a medieval corporation whose territory encompasses a small stretch of the most expensive property in London, and whose constituents are not the handful of people that live there, but the medieval guilds and the big corporations that own property there.

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