One of the oldest torrent websites, Torrentz.eu, has shut down its operations. The reason behind this surprise development is unknown. The meta-search engine, which hosted links to other torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, announced its closing down on Friday afternoon, in a message to its fans and clients, “Torrentz will always love you. Farewell’.
The home page of the website now bears a message, “Torrentz was a free, fast and powerful meta-search engine combining results from dozens of search engines”.
Founded in 2003, Torrentz had become one of the most visited torrent sites on the internet. Recently, Kickass Torrents, one of the most popular torrent websites, was closed down after the US government arrested Artem Vaulin, the alleged owner of the site in Poland, and charged him with criminal copyright infringement and money laundering. In addition, a federal court in Chicago ordered the seizure of several KAT domain names.
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According to a December 2015 TorrentFreak.com report, the US government, as per the inputs provided by industry groups and copyright holders including the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) and MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America), had pinpointed some of the largest piracy websites and other copyright-infringing venues. The list included ExtraTorrent, Torrentz, Rutracker, KickassTorrents (KAT). Streaming portals like 4Shared.com, Putlocker.is, Cuevana.tv, Watchseries.it, and Nowvideo.sx also featured on the list.