AfterDawn: News

TorrentSpy shut down

TorrentSpy, formerly one of the most popular BitTorrent sites on the Internet, has been permanently shut down. After two years of court room drama, TorrentSpy lost the case against MPAA in last December. This however, was not the reason for shutdown. According to TorrentSpy founder Justin Bunnell, the decision was made by the site's administration to ensure the anonymity and privacy of former users.

TorrentSpy was found guilty without evidence that the court claimed were destroyed on purpose. TorrentSpy was defending theirselves, to no avail, by saying the actions were made to secure user privacy.



The greeting at torrentspy.com says, "Ultimately the Court demanded actions that in our view were inconsistent with our privacy policy, traditional court rules, and International law; therefore, we now feel compelled to provide the ultimate method of privacy protection for our users - permanent shutdown."

TorrentSpy is certainly not alone with legal issues. Amongst the ones in the line of fire is The Pirate Bay which is currently waiting for court hearing. "Today all big torrent sites are pressured somehow," said TPB admin Brokep. Brokep told TorrentFreak that TorrentSpy was closed because of the economical reasons of an admin, nothing more. He also convinces that this will not be the case with TPB.

---

Get regular news updates from AfterDawn.com by subscribing to our RSS feeds using the Subscribe button below. If you have been living in a cave for a few years now and don't know how to use RSS feeds, then Click Here to read a Guide on how to use RSS (and other) feeds.

Written by: Matti Robinson @ 27 Mar 2008 9:11

• Previous article

• Netflix will credit users affected by outage

• Next article

• Bell Canada was throttling P2P traffic

• 22 comments

• Postoast

  I use to go there quite often when about 2 years ago their search results and torrent file system got really messed up. I also got fed up with all the fake torrents and "spamverts." It wouldn't be a surprise if they shut down due to low traffic and their lack of enthusiasm when it came to site upkeep. But shutting down by saying they want to preserve client privacy is a nice way to say good-bye.

  27.3.2008 10:01 #1

• vinny13

  Ugh thank God... That site was garbage... Damn ESA got me on a torrent from there >:

  27.3.2008 10:40 #2

• dcity

  ARG!! nooooooo lool. Dang!! oh well, thats one site down, about 100 more to go lool. the only thing that annoyed me about torrentspy was when u'd click the text box on the main page, i'd get pop ups, and when i'd click a torrent, but appart from that it was ok. :'-( torrentspy u will be missed!!

  27.3.2008 11:57 #3

• dsgtrain

  I stopped using it after all of there legal trouble in the US. No great problem for me, I just use MiniNova!

  27.3.2008 12:51 #4

• bilbo65

  As they should......

  27.3.2008 12:58 #5

• PetahG

  I stopped using it once axxo left..he was the man..but he posts his stuff in other sites now

  27.3.2008 15:11 #6

• abcleaner

  torrentspy was a good a couple of years ago but has recently seen a great decline partly due to some of the stupid users that post daft comments on there, fake torrents and because of the overwhelming amount of pop ups and advertising. Sadly, this is one site that im not sorry to see go. There are excellent alternatives such as superfundo for high quality scene movie releases, mininova and isohunt.

  27.3.2008 20:50 #7

• NexGen76

  Originally posted by PetahG: I stopped using it once axxo left..he was the man..but he posts his stuff in other sites nowbingo

  28.3.2008 00:34 #8

• psplvanub

  just go to pspiso and shareiso for ur warez needz

  28.3.2008 04:54 #9

• chaos_zzz

  Originally posted by abcleaner: torrentspy was a good a couple of years ago but has recently seen a great decline partly due to some of the stupid users that post daft comments on there, fake torrents and because of the overwhelming amount of pop ups and advertising. Sadly, this is one site that im not sorry to see go. There are excellent alternatives such as superfundo for high quality scene movie releases, mininova and isohunt.
  
  i second that, i used for a couple o f months till some clowns starting posting fake torrents and fake comments.
  
  "Great movie ,Great quality " was not even it ... lame

  28.3.2008 06:07 #10

• 21Q

  As one goes down two more rise.

  28.3.2008 07:06 #11

• rainofire

  aXXo is the man, thee best Dvdripper out there. I use Mininova to get his torrents, it's a good thing he is back in business. :]

  28.3.2008 07:53 #12

• abcleaner

  I wouldnt deny that axxo is one of the best rippers out there, but there are also other rippers such as fxm , duqa etc which provide rips with similar, if not better quality.
  
  Check out the superfundo torrent site which provides guaranteed high quality scene rips.

  28.3.2008 08:51 #13

• dsgtrain

  Yes Superfundo is the place for aXXo (he has his own section)! His work is great and ALWAYS a very high consistent quality and he uses the real DixX codec not XVID so I can play it in my PS3.

  28.3.2008 10:04 #14

• slw3737

  Originally posted by abcleaner: Check out the superfundo torrent site which provides guaranteed high quality scene rips.I agree completely. I also like mininova.

  28.3.2008 11:11 #15

• slw3737

  Originally posted by abcleaner: Check out the superfundo torrent site which provides guaranteed high quality scene rips.I agree completely. I also like mininova.

  28.3.2008 11:11 #16

• skopas

  Well, I also used that site up until 2 yrs ago. It was a great site, along with the Demon. SInce the friggen US and all it's bullshit tactics and sanctions put a damper on the site, it made a steady decline that led to this. I still say Power to the Torrent users ...long live us. Thanks to Torrentspy for all the great shares and memories..peace

  29.3.2008 01:02 #17

• fgamer

  Torrentspy was a very good site until all the attention hit it then it really wasn't worth visiting anymore. As always most torrent sites are good at there beggining stages until the attention really gets on them then it's pretty much goes down hill from there.

  29.3.2008 11:20 #18

• dsgtrain

  Originally posted by fgamer: Torrentspy was a very good site until all the attention hit it then it really wasn't worth visiting anymore. As always most torrent sites are good at there beggining stages until the attention really gets on them then it's pretty much goes down hill from there.
  With one exception, The Pirate Bay!

  29.3.2008 18:57 #19

• xSModder

  ahh it was never that good of a site but it is kind of unnerving to see another one fall to their knees..
  
  whatever though the fake torrent sh*t got old reaaaal quick.

  29.3.2008 19:11 #20

• varnull

  Can't say I will miss them.. I never found anything I wanted on there, just crap and fakes.
  

  
  
  Free open source software = made by end users who want an application to work....

  29.3.2008 19:15 #21

• skopas

  Around 2 yrs ago and back they were a legit torrent site. I think they came to life just before demonoid came upon the scene and that was around the end of 04'. They had some great stuff on their, real clean and everyone shouted there. IT started to have a sense of community. Then i moved over to Demonoid. I remember just good things from there.

  29.3.2008 19:30 #22