Largest BitTorrent Porn Websites Closed Down

A couple of the Internet’s largest porn BitTorrent sites have announced that they permanently shut down. Empornium and PureTNA, having over 2.5 million members between them, when closed will leave a significant number of porn fans empty handed.

It started a few days ago, when the sites’ members discovered that the largest BitTorrent adult trackers PureTNA and Empornium have been routing to 127.0.0.1. Of course, the members of both services have been worried, because those 2 giants connected by the same management boasted a huge number of users.

For example, PureTNA had more than 1,330,000 members, and its fellow Empornium had a close number. Recently PureTNA’s database was almost 67 thousand torrents servicing around 630 thousand peers. Meanwhile, Empornium listed over 82 thousand torrents and 660 thousand peers. That is a huge amount of porn, just how their members liked it.

However, the sites’ users face the sad reality now, with the management of both sites confirming that they went permanently offline. The demands for elaboration have been declined, but the management of both trackers said briefly: “Such is BitTorrent life.”

The event was quite unexpected by the community, because both BitTorrent trackers had continued to grow, in terms of both torrents and membership. The rumours are that because of the lack of investment in code development, PureTNA and Empornium have become vulnerable to virus attacks, which led to one or both of the trackers being hacked a few days ago. Instead of pumping money into the services to prevent the attacks happening again, trackers’ owners chose to wipe hard drives in order to protect user privacy. Or, at least, so the story goes.

Another rumour (and a sounder one) is that the services buckled under legal pressure. A few weeks ago many porn websites and studios have issued legal orders to the sites. Curiously enough, PureTNA is still listed by Google, while a search for Empornium brings up a complete blank, creating an impression that the site doesn’t exist.

Regardless of the reason, whether it is hackings, legal pressure, or both, the BitTorrent trackers will not come back, which certainly marks the end of an era for BitTorrent porn consumers. In the end the sites’ owners could simply lose interest in developing further.

UK Providers Worrying About Porn Filter

US government seems to inspire a number of pro-copyright organizations to pressure credit card companies, along with online payment services, to cut off sites like MegaUpload and similar, engaged in file-sharing and streaming. The first move was made towards cutting off Wikileaks, and now the US entertainment industry decided to try and get Mastercard and others to do the same. Critics suggest this can be part of an innovative strategy for the conglomerate organizations.

Reportedly, the Recording Industry Association of America, in cooperation with the Motion Picture Association of America, is discussing with MasterCard and others the option of cutting off file-sharing services and streaming websites. One of the main targets to cut is MegaUpload, a hosting service storing files too large for e-mail.

The representative of RIAA mentioned that MasterCard especially deserved credit for their approach to addressing rogue services engaged in duping consumers. The company is reported to have reached out to the entertainment industry to find out what they think would be a productive cooperation.

While sites like cyberlockers usually offer their services for free, they also provide premium services for increased bandwidth and charge for them. But at the same time MasterCard actually earns profits from different transactions that occur every day. This means that in case systems like Visa, Mastercard, and AmEx cut off their services to cyberlockers and streaming sites, they can simply switch to other payment methods, such as Flattr or any other smaller systems from abroad.

Moreover, a very interesting fact is that there’s very little difference between MegaUpload and YouTube, if you consider that MegaUpload possesses a system for deleting copyrighted content. In fact, MegaUpload already complies with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, just like YouTube. The only thing that separates them is that MegaUpload hosts any kinds of files, while YouTube only streams videos. Meanwhile, both services earn money from files whether infringing or not, but YouTube just manages to create less negative image of itself than MegaUpload.

Considering all this, it becomes clear that the only sides to lose out on this deal would be payment services that agree to cut off file-sharing sites.