Another week, and another BitTorrent site has been shut down. This time round, it"s LokiTorrent - with the site being replaced with a message from the Motion Picture Association of America, warning: "You can click, but you can"t hide".
"There are websites that provide legal downloads," the message says. "This is not one of them. This website has been permanently shut down by court order because it facilitates the illegal downloading of copyrighted motion pictures. The illegal downloading of motion pictures robs thousands of honest, hard-working people of their livelihood, and stifles creativity. Illegally downloading movies from sites such as these without proper authorization violates the law, is theft, and is not anonymous. Stealing movies leaves a trail. The only way not to get caught is to stop."
LokiTorrent, of course, was different from some of those shut down in that the site"s administrators were raising money through the site to try to defend the case. Thousands of dollars had been donated by users. The site was taken down after a Dallas court agreed that Hollywood lawyers would be allowed access to LokiTorrent"s server records which could let them single out those who were sharing files illegally. It"s also being reported the MPAA is attempting to shut down hosts who operate central servers for the eDonkey network - a more traditional peer-to-peer system.
The trackers shut down so far - Suprnova being the most high-profile - served all sorts of different files. Of course, the MPAA is particularly interested in the films being shared, many of which are only just out at the cinema with others being ripped off pre-release DVDs and all but indistinguishable from a genuine copy. It"s easy to see why they wanted to crack down on the problem. But where next for movie downloads?