Whirlpool

They have Decided to cease operations.

Friends of TorrentSpy,

We have decided on our own, not due to any court order or agreement, to bring the Torrentspy.com search engine to an end and thus we permanently closed down worldwide on March 24, 2008.

The legal climate in the USA for copyright, privacy of search requests, and links to torrent files in search results is simply too hostile. We spent the last two years, and hundreds of thousands of dollars, defending the rights of our users and ourselves.

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.

It was a wild ride,

The TorrentSpy Team

"Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order [.] and the like." - Justice William O. Douglas

How sad. All that facilitating illegal downloads has come to a grinding halt, too bad if you had partial downloads started just as they closed. Look at all the angst over partial downloads when Demonoid shut up shop. Similarly when OiNk closed.

This has been on the cards since they got there arses canned in the US.

RIP Torrentspy.

One torrent site goes down, more popup.

snoopinc writes...

One torrent site goes down, more popup.

Hmm no new indexing sites. The existing ones will pick up the slack.

Torrentspy went down the gurgler the moment they disabled comments years ago.

Torrentspy went down the gurgler the moment they disabled comments years ago.

Agreed. Also the amount of adds and popups were terrible.

TorrentSpy is owned by the same person that runs Isohunt, while the tracker itself isn't so great it's the largest index of trackers on the web, making it easy to search pretty much all trackers in existence.

I wonder if they will withdraw too, otherwise they should consider moving offshore to a better country.

Torrentspy's demise has been on the cards for ages

No great loss, only scraped public trackers.

Cugel writes...

No great loss, only scraped public trackers.

The big two and forget the rest. :D

They could always make a buck or two in looking after the grief tourists. :D

Like anything else, its day has come, and many BitTorrent users will undoubtedly look back fondly on their old TorrentSpy friend.

Looks like it has already started.

Reminiscent of the supernova days... U will be missed torrentspy.

vivadangermouse writes...

Torrentspy went down the gurgler the moment they disabled comments years ago.

The very point when I stopped using it.

mrd writes...

The very point when I stopped using it.

Ya. Also it was suprisingly full of adware, ads in general.
Even the comments were full of ads.
Its a pity, I remember torrentspy fondly, but it won't harm bitorrent.

schwinn writes...

U will be missed torrentspy.

Ululating over a closed down indexing sight. :D

vivadangermouse writes...

Torrentspy went down the gurgler the moment they disabled comments years ago.

Agreed, no comments no download

volupheles writes...

Also the amount of ads and popups were terrible.

Too right. Got very sick of the nsfw banners and popups.

Torrentspy was IMO the WORST torrent site out there, it had more fakes than a room full of paris hiltons, no comments, more ads than torrents and it mostly just linked you straight to other torrents sites (sometimes competent ones)
IT SUCKED!!! it won't be missed by anyone but domplayer, mpaa, riaa and n00bs

vivadangermouse writes...

Got very sick of the nsfw banners and popups

Heh, but you didn't actually surf to TSPY at work though... right??

DvDrip writes...

Torrentspy was IMO the WORST torrent site out there, it had more fakes than a room full of paris hiltons

What else is new, all Public Trackers are full of fakes.

It's so obvious to spot fakes, even without comments.

Unless I just have a gift, which I highly doubt. Most likely people that fall for these trolls have something lacking in the intelligence department.

An example would be a file that is not split into parts, lacks an nfo and includes a text document which references codecs. Pretty damn obvious.

The great thing about crawlers like torrentspy is they add several trackers to releases, so if one fails or doesn't have enough seeders there's no problem.

Delicious Cake writes...

Most likely people that fall for these trolls have something lacking in the intelligence department.

Yeh Kid Eagers are easily fooled.

Muad'Dib writes...

What else is new, all Public Trackers are full of fakes.

Not from my experience.

FlipFlopHippityHop writes...

Not from my experience.

You haven't publicly torrented properly then, both the big two are riddled with them. Thank god for comments.

Muad'Dib writes...

You have publicly torrented properly then, both the big two are riddled with them. Thank god for comments.

Yes, I always publicly a torrent properly. I like to do things properly. I don't believe in a god, so that part I will discard.

FlipFlopHippityHop writes...

Yes, I always publicly a torrent properly. I like to do things properly. I don't believe in a god, so that part I will discard.

Oops I meant haven't.

I wondered why it wasn't working the other day. Lol

Not sad at all to see this happen, these public trackers are only there for lechers anyway, long live private trackers.

This used to be my number one search site for torrents a few years ago when I was learning how to use Azureus. After I found better torrent websites I stopped going to TS, and only recently, about a month ago I checked up on TS.

It was bloated with ads and pop ups, the indexes didn't even work properly. The webmasters have only themselves to blame for the closure, their greed for money destroyed the website.

Auto writes...

their greed for money destroyed the website.

I doubt they made enough to pay off the costs involved. They relied on donations to cover the rest.

I think people overestimate ad revenue, especially for that kind of site no company wants to have anything to do with it except porn and scam sites.

People that run trackers, many have very strong beliefs about keeping things open source and unrestricted, fighting against privatisation and the power of the corporations over individuals.

While that's naive, I can sympathise with their views, and always feel sorry for them when they get busted.

Delicious Cake writes...

I doubt they made enough to pay off the costs involved.

Not on Loki's site, he ran off with 70 large took a holiday in the Grand Caymans. Plenty of dosh to be made in adverts on indexing sites.

Muad'Dib writes...

Not on Loki's site, he ran off with 70 large took a holiday in the Grand Caymans. Plenty of dosh to be made in adverts on indexing sites.

Didn't he get the money from a donation run, under the false pretense that it would be used to cover court costs and save the tracker? Also I'm wondering how you came up with that figure, unless you had access to his bank account information.

Nothing to do with ad revenue, and it's kind of a bad example since no tracker site would command that kind of generosity without already being under heavy litigation.

Delicious Cake writes...

Nothing to do with ad revenue, and it's kind of a bad example since no tracker site would command that kind of generosity without already being under heavy litigation.

The figure was widely publicised on Slyck.com, plenty of punters out there willing to part with dosh to finance sites, buying ratios is a lucrative cash earner.

Muad'Dib writes...

The figure was widely publicised on Slyck.com, plenty of punters out there willing to part with dosh to finance sites, buying ratios is a lucrative cash earner.

Slyck.com is an amateur news site, and I would ask them the same question about how they found that information, whether it was just rumours or they actually had access to the bank account (doubtful).

It's true that some private sites do exploit ratios in order to make extra money from leechers, for example paying for "ratio" in order to keep downloading content. That doesn't mean they make a profit or overcome the expenses of hardware and hosting.

However if they do profit the practice is frowned upon in the p2p community and makes them a primary target for raids, since it's all about proving that a site profited from their illegal activities. That's why they are few and far between, and will eventually dissolve.

Delicious Cake writes...

Slyck.com is an amateur news site, and I would ask them the same question about how they found that information, whether it was just rumours or they actually had access to the bank account (doubtful).

Amateur news site. ROFLMAO.

I seem to recall a Senior Mod on this forum referred to Slyck.com as an excellent source for all things Global P2P news.

From memory they interviewed Loki before he did a runner and told them of the amount in his "fighting" fund.

Delicious Cake writes...

However if they do profit the practice is frowned upon in the p2p community

Who in the P2P community frowns upon it? The MAFIAA?

The slack of the "Spy" being slam dunked has been taken up by the "Big Two" business as normal, the grief tourists have come and gone, BT life goes on.

Muad'Dib writes...

I seem to recall a Senior Mod on this forum referred to Slyck.com as an excellent source for all things Global P2P news.

Sory but I don't see how being a senior moderator automatically gives someone credibility, especially for something like this unrelated to whirlpool.

Slyck is amateur in every conceivable way as a news source, the people that run it are just average people, slyck himself possesses no journalistic merit and clearly has no understanding of the concept.

Much of the news they report on is just a regurgitation from other sources.

From memory they interviewed Loki before he did a runner and told them of the amount in his "fighting" fund.

I wouldn't trust that, but even so people are known to exaggerate.


Who in the P2P community frowns upon it? The MAFIAA?

Alot of people do, making profit off things that are intended to be distributed as free is by many standards wrong.

It's very similar to fansubs, people volunteer their time to do this for anime fans when usually the work would cost thousands, yet they do this for nothing.

Then someone comes along and makes a site, distributing that fansub for a profit, how is that not wrong?

Delicious Cake writes...

Sory but I don't see how being a senior moderator automatically gives someone credibility, especially for something like this unrelated to whirlpool.

Whatever you reckon, perhaps you should tell Corey about his credibility as he is the Senior Mod concerned. :D

Torrent Spy just another notch in the MAFIAA belt in it's quest to close down sites that faciliate illegal downloads. OinK, Demonoid, Torrent Spy, and probably soon Torrent Spy's parent site.

i miss OinK :(! was the best

Awww that was my favourite for a while because it was noob friendly. I'm a torrent noob.

Aw, that sucks, even though I didn't use it. Any torrent site is a torrent site...

The site you just mentioned is still active, although the rules aren't very clear you're not allowed to mention any torrent sites which are still active, dead ones are fine. :)

Muad'Dib writes...

I seem to recall a Senior Mod on this forum referred to Slyck.com as an excellent source for all things Global P2P news.


I remember being deleted for mentioning the site only!!!!! - reason = illegal.

Brian White writes...

"Big Brother in the form of an increasingly powerful government and in an increasingly powerful private sector will pile the records high with reasons why privacy should give way to national security, to law and order [] and the like." - Justice William O. Douglas
mm indeed..
Zip Zap Zoobity BOP! - Bill Cosby

This is a fight the corporations are never going to win... the interwebs is too strong for them.. At the end of the day it's a collection of companies vs the world.. + mooners (people from the moon). You can't beat that.. more torrent sites will pop up in torrentspy's place.

Muad'Dib writes...

Look at all the angst over partial downloads when Demonoid shut up shop. Similarly when OiNk closed.

At least with OiNK it's only small sizes, and there's always Waffles etc. to take-up the slack.

Mind-you though... I've not touched TorrentSpy for months really. It became a horrible minefield of advertising & impossible to browse quickly & effectively anyway. Each of the public trackers have their benefits over each other, but they're all a waste of time anyway compared to private.

I've never been able to find a private tracker that has everything I want on it.

I've found that public trackers always have what i'm after. Yeah, they're not as fast... Being being moderately paced is still better than not being able to download at all.

Damn.. Was the first site i used and occasionally still checked.. RIP :(

At least my usual BT site hasn't be shut down... yet.

Download as much as I can b4 it meets the same fate.

A year ago I would have been upset to see TS go.

now, I can not feel anything but "about time".

I stopped using it about chrismas completly and some time before that started my move to a different indexing site. The changing of the links that made you have to go to a second site to get the torrent, which normally ment surfing the other site normally (for me anyway).

to add salt the inconsitancy of it sucked with the buttons moving or changing (in firefox to take care of the popups) sucked.

The icying was I noticed that new torrents where not being indexed or added, even popular files did not update. Once the "latest" file added reached 2 weeks, I deleted it from my sites to search for stuff with.

I can only say thanks for the start out in torrenting, but glade it died as it was very sick at the end.

MOVIE STUDIOS WIN $110 MILLION JUDGMENT AND PERMANENT INJUNCTION AGAINST TORRENTSPY

Los Angeles – In a significant victory for the major Hollywood studios, a federal judge in Los Angeles has issued a $110 million judgment for the infringement of thousands of popular copyrighted motion pictures and television shows. The court also issued a permanent injunction prohibiting defendant from further infringing any of the studios’ copyrighted works. This is the second decisive defeat for TorrentSpy in the case. Late last year the same federal court entered a default order and found the TorrentSpy operators liable for copyright infringement. The TorrentSpy website was permanently shut down on March 24, 2008.

Man 110 million smackers phew that ain't chump change. :D

Slyck.com article

MPAA Defeats TorrentSpy

R.I.P torrentspy

when 1 site dies 2 take its place.

Muad'Dib writes...

Man 110 million smackers phew that ain't chump change. :D

As if the owners would have that much money. All of their cash is probably in off-shore accounts anyway.
I hope the MPAA gets nothing.

Urgh - I hate the MPAA, mainly because without piracy, the prices would be jacked up so high that it's not funny.

However from a legal point of view, TorrentSpy could have possibly broken the DMCA. BUT,

Remember the days before broadband, how a new release game would cost $100? and look at now?

Or China, where a legit of MS Flight Sim X costs 60RMB, which is about $10AUD. (I know it's legit because it's boxed, has the whole MS packaging, and some anti-piracy crap)

Without piracy, the prices would be only up to the studios.

le-foot writes...

(I know it's legit because it's boxed, has the whole MS packaging, and some anti-piracy crap)

That can be counterfeited. Torrent Spy should have upped stumps ages ago, but no they decided to fight on, silly move.

So my torrentspy cap has just become a collector's item...woo hoo...I'd better put in on eBay and sell it to some poor sucker.

le-foot writes...

Remember the days before broadband, how a new release game would cost $100? and look at now?

Actually the price is still around $100.

Back when we were all on dial-up, technology wasn't advanced so possibly producing the game was more expensive.
I also think that if piracy was not an issue, prices of games and other multimedia would drop. The higher prices now are probably there to make up for the losses of illegally downloaded copies.

Just my thoughts.

Ay eN De whY writes...

Actually the price is still around $100.

Then why is it that a copy of a game retails in the states for around 60-70 dollars?

not_using_telstra writes...

Then why is it that a copy of a game retails in the states for around 60-70 dollars?

Because we are from Australia, and most things that come to Australia come after most other big countries, and we also get it for a higher price. I blame the government for this, not piracy.

Muad'Dib writes...

That can be counterfeited.

Yeah but if that was a counterfeit, it was a GOOD one. normally pirated games don't come in a box with printed instructions, either, i don't think.

Ay eN De whY writes...

Actually the price is still around $100.

Nah, it's around $70 unless it's really popular. I don't believe that the price would drop: what is the incentive to drop the price? They're the sole supply, even if the hike the price, people would still buy it.

aero-leach writes...

noticed another major site

yep, but the few times I have checked it it appears slower, is down for maintainance more often (restart blues?), advertising is more questionable to what it was

A day after a U.S. judge dinged TorrentSpy with one of the largest fines in copyright history, the lawyer for the torrent-tracking search engine said Thursday the $111 million judgment won't get paid.Nevis-based Valence Media, the owner of TorrentSpy, filed for bankruptcy protection in England last week "and has no appreciable assets," attorney Ira Rothken said. "This was a Hollywood publicity stunt."The Motion Picture Association of America sued the search engine in Los Angeles federal court, alleging the site facilitated copyright infringement of Hollywood movies. "It certainly is not a lesson for other search engines to look at what the rules are as they relate to dot-torrent files," Rothken said. "There was no analysis of the copyright."Elizabeth Kaltman, an MPAA spokeswoman, said "We will pursue enforcement of the judgment."

Click here ...

I thought most people "like me" just typed what they wanted in google and put "torrent" after it..It works.

Makes you wonder how long before they shut off RapidShare.

Flaming_Bubble writes...

I thought most people "like me" just typed what they wanted in google and put "torrent" after it..It works.

Interesting thought. Since most torrent indexing sites, simply give you links to the sites actually hosting the torrent, maybe The Movie Industry should shift their targets to Google? Since Google is effectively doing the same as other Torrent search engines.

What a shame.

Torrentspy was the first place I went when I started using BT.

You can shut us down but you can't stop us reforming :-)

-Venom- writes...

Makes you wonder how long before they shut off RapidShare.

there is a world of difference between torrentspy website and rapidshare

RIP torrent spy, my first ever torrent i downloaded. i havent used it in months, but i still miss it

The MPAA's crusade against P2P index sites is one of the most futile legal vendettas in living memory. The more sites they shutdown, the more new sites appear. P2P is an unstoppable juggernaut, short of forcing ISPs to filter/block P2P transfers.

And sometimes they're not even new, they reappear under exactly the same domain.

Octavius writes...

The MPAA's crusade against P2P index sites is one of the most futile legal vendettas in living memory.

At least they've got Whirlpool on their side.

Everyone is complaining about ads and banners etc on torrentspy...I dont know why these guys don't just give away content and sell the ad space.would you go for free full downloads in exchange for an ad? but no spam rubbish ?

check out the times online - british gov in talks with ISPs...http://technology.timesonli­ ne.co.uk/tol/news/tech_and_web/the­ _web/article3353387.ece