Studio pressure shuts down movie websites

A popular peer-to-peer file-sharing website has closed down amid mounting efforts by the movie industry to crack down on online piracy.

14:45 20 December 2004

A popular peer-to-peer file-sharing website has closed down amid mounting efforts by the movie industry to crack down on online piracy.

The Suprnova website was one of the most popular places for people swapping and sharing links to illegal copies of films on the BitTorrent network.

A recent study showed that more than half of the peer-to-peer traffic during June was for the BitTorrent system, which allows files to be shared among multiple users at the time.

In a message posted on Suprnova.org yesterday, the site's controllers said the website was "closing down for good in the way that we all know it".

The message adds: "We are very sorry for this, but there was no other way, we have tried everything."

Suprnova states that, if the site does return, it will no longer host any more torrent links.

Phoenix Torrents, another popular BitTorrent site, has also decided to shut down and last week Finnish police raided a BitTorrent site that reportedly let 10,000 users share pirated films, software, music and games.

The closures follow news that the Motion Picture Association of America has launched a campaign to sue the people behind the sites that provide information and links to illegal copies of films.

It has also filed suits against users of file-sharing programmes BitTorrent, eDonkey and DirectConnect in the US and Europe.

"The message today is clear: if you illegally trade movies online, we can find you and we will hold you accountable," said MPAA senior vice president John Malcolm.

The MPAA claims that more than 3.5 billion will be lost to film piracy this year, excluding the losses from online file sharing.