The Torrentz.eu file sharing site was taken down after a request from the British Police to the website’s Poland-based web hosts
Nazwa. The request came from the City of London’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit because the site allegedly linked to pirated content. The site was taken down for a period 24 hours and then restored at the advice of Nazwa’s legal team, who suggested the request was unlawful. However, at the time of going to press, the site was not accessible via the Internet.
“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," suggested a police representative at the time of the action, as reported by the UK’s Guardian newspaper.
Torrentz.eu had already been blocked by a number of British Internet Service Providers (ISPs). Although the British police have no legal recourse as far as websites linking to pirated content is concerned, most ISPs comply with police requests. The site was among 20 file-sharing sites blacklisted in October last year.
“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,” continued the police statement.
What is your view on such sites? Should they be eradicated or are they inevitable?
