Largest TV Piracy Site Shut Down, Staff Arrested – dailytech.com: Marking the first closure of its kind against a UK-based piracy site, TV-Links.co.uk was raided and shut down by British authorities late last week. According to the United Kingdom (FACT), the raid also culminated with the arrests of the site’s 26-year-old webmaster and part of the site’s moderation staff. The raid was carried out through a coordinated effort involving investigators from FACT and the local police.
Yes, that’s quite nice that they shut down a link site that hosted no content whatsoever…
“It’s a pity the Gloucestershire Police started with such small fry. There are a couple of multibillionaires called Larry Page and Sergey Brin — the founders of Google — who provide vast numbers of links to content that is being illegally distributed,” wrote Jack Schofield, a blogger and commentator for The Guardian. “Indeed … they actually host plenty of illegal content on their own video site, YouTube, which has a UK operation.”
“This effectively makes the entire internet illegal,” wrote ‘Rich’ of The New Freedom. “A man is now in prison because he runs a site where other people can link to low-resolution TV shows, hosted by Google. FACT did not raid Google, they raided a site which merely links to TV shows.”
I guess a site like this one, that sometimes features youtube videos, could become a target for the authorities.
The UK takes the TV license very seriously. About 120 £ per year for every color set.
NOooOOOoOO…..
that site rocked! i lived off that site…. i havent watched tv in over 6-7months since i found it…. they had the best documentary section ever!
wtf is wrong w/these people!
ever since those idiots knocked down the WTC, my TV reception has been the pits. -as i will NEVER PAY for cable programming that has commercials.. i dont watch enough brainwashing TV to warrant paying…period.
this is truly depressing. i should throw my tv out the window in protest…
::sigh::
this is truly a sad day…
#2, There is a top story in one of the social news websites (I’m not going to tell you which) which mentions that there are 32 different alternatives.
Do not provide any links here please!
OK, G, we’ll just have to dig it out ourselves!
#5, Nice pun…
Try this:
[ed.- Link removed]
another good one:
[ed.-Link removed]
this one is actually the best, I use it all the time:
[ed.-Link removed]
Damn it. I loved that Site. It was my TIVO. I used to catch shows I missed of had to go away from to do work. At least some of the studios are now posting full episodes on their sites and in better quality. But still not all show.
Great. Yet another truly useful and enjoyable website shut down. Many of those shows weren’t available anywhere else at any price. So how is this helpful?
Well if they are deliberately linking to illegal content, I would call that illegal.
I never used the site.
Look people – they’re using gestapo scare tactics. Whenever a method of piracy becomes mainstream (or at least very popular) it becomes a target of the authorities. Of course, the exception to this rule seems to be Google and Youtube.
Piracy will always be an issue. However, going after someone who has merely linked to questionable content is stretching it a tad.
This takedown ruffled our department at work last week because all of us designers have two monitors at our station – perfect to work on one and watch podcasts and tv shows on the other.
What sucks is that I was watching a lot of British television shows on that site. Now there’s nowhere that I know of to get that content. Not available on iTunes, not on the BBC America channel, not on the BBC site. Great.
MikeN – Except it’s not. So you’d be wrong.
Well – I was gonna list some links for ya #2, but seeing as how they’re all edited out I wont provide the FULL link
try:
Guba
QSS
stage6
openflv
joox
now ya gotta go look up the full adresses 😉
I love how no one cares about what this MEANS.
xD
It’s illegal to tell people where to go?
So that would make it illegal to tell someone where to get drugs, right?
Laws confuse me.
I say they go after Google if they go after my favorite movie site.
hi again, i’d like to thank everyone who posted links and/or keywords to alternate sources, but please no need to potentially get Dvorak in trouble over this.
#13: i must agree with you on the BBC comment.. i have found BBC produced documentaries, to be in my opinion superior to what i find here in the USA.. they i’m not sure, but it seems to me that BBC content (relative to USA/NOVA content) is less “candy coated and PC” than what i have here. i also feel overall, they are more accurate and better produced as well.
i typically only seek/watch documentaries so i cannot comment on commercial TV show quality.
maybe i’m just tired of being spoon fed dumb-downed content. -nonetheless, hats off to the BBC’s documentary prowess and esp to David Attenborough’s strong sense of integrity and pride when it comes to the accuracy and portrayal of his science and nature documentaries…
btw, ballookey, i have found another link site that appears to have a fair amount of BBC content in good quality divx format. -if you like email me at my gmail account by the same user name i use here on dvorak’s blog and i will relay the information to you..
(as an aside..if the entertainment industry had half a clue and was genuine about the whole “lost revenue” angle, they would leave all the link sites up and broker deal to collect revenues from their ads and donations)
[soapbox]
-to comment on the piracy debacle as a whole. by looking at who the powers that be target for piracy, that this has nothing to do with piracy and all to do with slowly finding ways to pass legislation to lock down the internet on the whole, all in the name of DRM and of course, on the other side of the fence, protecting all the “innocent
children” from predators and the like. -not to mention our governments new favorite blank check-Umbrella Policy word: Terrorism
its quite obvious to me that the Internet poses a grave threat to any and all large institutions, corporations and yes governments here and abroad. -especially in the past several years with the major growth of social networking sites and blogging.
its far too easy now for the average joe to get “unfiltered” news and information that is based solely on the facts and truths at hand. (well, at minimum, least we can pick our favorite flavour of spin now)
in just about 10 short years or so, all the power brokers of the world went from having pretty much total control of what news and information the general populations of the world were spoon fed to having maybe 60% control or less, depending on how you look at the big picture.
of course most of us are brainwashed and will never believe any information that does not come from CNN, the AP news wire or other similar major media players around the world, nor will they ever doubt the validity of what these major players push to your favorite media device, -but hey thats what we have the little squirrels like Dvorak.org/blog for. 🙂
anyway, i digress, -but there you have it..
[/soapbox]
-s
Isn’t it a pity that I actually bought DVD’s of documentaries I saw on tv-links. I wouldn’t have seen them, known about them….certainly would not have purchased them without the link.
Exactly Terrence,
I found a lot of shows on tv-links.co.uk that I would never have heard of otherwise. Whitest Kids You Know, Flight of the Conchords, The Sarah Silverman Show etc.
Mainly smaller indie shows that will never be broadcast over here in Britain (except conchords which is on bbc4, but I keep missing because of work).
I have either purchased these shows on DVD or are about to, or ask for them for christmas. The fuckups at these big companies don’t realise how much free advertising they are getting.
It is so sad.
No, what you naysayers do not understand, is that linking is not illegal. Though deeplinking is CONTROVERSIAL, there are no laws (at least in Canada) against it. This is like if a person where to ask where a bank is, and I point. When this person robs the bank, they arrest me for showing him. tv-links hosted NO content!!! They link to other sites that DID, but all they did was point us in the correct direction. I can not believe divx.stage6 or veoh or youtube weren’t taken down, as they HOST the content, and ARE guilty of said infringements. UK FACT makes me sick. Sick all the way to the toilet. Bullshit.
Bummer men..!! 🙁 it’s totally unfair. he wasn’t doing anything illegal, just linking, not hosting… everybody links, are we all outlaws now..?!!? LOL Anyway, i found the best replacement: http://www.sidereel.com they have all the tv series and tons of movies and music vids… there’s also stage 6 or dailymotion… we have plenty of alternatives.. he he
We start over again! This is denying information to be indexed.. @ google or whatever might one “loose” content or ” blur” films uploaded – and “spam” the viewer.. This section was like al ibrarary.. I HATE it that they closed this site!! It was absolutely amazing archive..
If this man goes to jail for this – theres something really, really scary going on…
I cannot believe we have to distribute information in the outmous secret way, today – for the BROAD spectre of information FREE information to come true!!!!!!
RIP tv-links
Thanks for so much entertainment, I haven’t been exposed to TV ads in months thanks to you
those websites like http://www.boxsweeper.com this website has all the pirate video clips from 10 or maybe 30 other websites…its like a one stop for all the pirate sites! you could even download too! dont even need a software like bitorrent!
netvlinks.com
I can\’t believe this happened. Where\’s democracy, where\’s the freedom of speech?
Linking is to the web as speaking about something, how can they limit our rights to speak ?
Well, there are still other good sites around. Check out http://www.flickpeek.com for example:)
Every search engine out there has user submitted links to all kinds of stuff including illegal stuff. So why not go after them also. Oh I am sorry thats right they have lots of money and make FACT lots of money. FACT is nothing more than a bunch of uneducated dimwits. Greedy people is all it comes down to. And unless everyone is willing to stop going to movies and buying movies for at least one month then it will never change. We are the ones they make their money off of. I say lets boycott both the music and movie industry since they do not seem to hear us as clearly.
Hyperlinking is simply not illegal it should be the provider of the content that is targeted. The BPI and IFPI couild have used tv-links to their advantage to track what content providers were hosting which shows and episodes? But hey thats to easy to think of eh?
For some good alternatives p2pvine has a nice list.
Dam Dam Dam everytime i find something good they get to it. Whats the problem anyway you couldnt down load just watch are they jelous Dam now I have to find something new.
There is no Tv where I am 🙁
Fucking idiots, if they brought down a good website like that, why NEVER they brought down terrorist websites and forums on british servers! ! !
Anmar
IRAQ