BTjunkie 'voluntarily' shuts down

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Popular bittorrent site closes in wake of demise of Megaupload, QuickSilverScreen and others

One of the most popular bittorrent sites, BTjunkie, has been "voluntarily" shut down in the wake of last month's closure of Megaupload.

The operators of BTjunkie, which launched in 2005, said in a message on the site: "This is the end of the line my friends. The decision has not come easy, but we've decided to voluntarily shut down.

"We've been fighting for years for your right to communicate but it's time to move on. It's been the experience of a lifetime, we wish you all the best!"

The founder of the site told TorrentFreak that legal action against other filesharing sites, such as Megaupload and The Pirate Bay, had played an important part in his decision.

The move follows the closure of other sites such as QuickSilverScreen, with more expected to follow.

Megaupload was taken offline on 19 January after US prosecutors accused seven men behind the site of cheating copyright holders out of $500m (£317m) in revenue over five years.

The site offered users a "one-click" upload for content and claimed 50 million daily visitors shortly before it closed.

Prosecutors have described it as "among the largest criminal copyright cases" ever brought by the US government.

BTjunkie was one of the search terms censored by Google because it was related to piracy.

One visitor to the reddit.com feed about the site's closure wrote: "This is like seeing a library that was burned down with all its books inside … This was my go-to for torrents."

"Damn," said a reader on the TechCrunch site. "Guess we're just going to have to start paying for shit now."

• Filesharing
• BitTorrent
• Internet
• Computing
• Piracy
• Digital media
• Media business

John Plunkett

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