
btjunkie says goodbye - jmilloy
http://btjunkie.com/goodbye.html
======
chimeracoder
This is the scary part about bills like SOPA. Who cares if they're
constitutional, who care if they could stand up in court, who cares if the
public supports them? They do their job anyway, even if they don't pass.

Glenn Greenwald was right about this - we didn't win the SOPA battle; we lost
it. The very next day after all the hullabaloo and protests, the government
went ahead and showed that the powers that SOPA would have been redundant - it
already has those powers anyway.

~~~
pyre

      >  it already has those powers anyway.
    

It didn't take Megaupload down without a trial, without due process. They took
them down as part of a _2 year long investigation_. While it's possible that
they timed the takedown with SOPA, I would err on the side of coincidence.
This wasn't an operation entirely within the US. They had the coordination of
law enforcement in other counties. This isn't something where they just had a
late-night idea that they decided to act on.

~~~
nknight
It doesn't matter how long they run for, how thorough they are, or what they
find, investigations are not trials, nor do they constitute due process. Your
statement is obviously false on its face.

~~~
InclinedPlane
And? Megaupload has only been shut-down _temporarily_ due to a court
injunction. If they succeed in court then they could be back online.

~~~
downandout
This is perhaps the most naive statement I have ever read on Hacker News.
Domain seizures don't have temporary consequences, and law enforcement knows
this. Once they've seized the domain, they've done all the damage they need to
do. Everything else is just window dressing. Tomorrow morning, the feds could
release Kim DotCom, give him all of his money, apologize, and immediately
return their domains, and it wouldn't matter. The site, and the multi-million
dollar business behind it, are dead.

As much as prosecutors would love to, we don't put people to death before they
are found guilty. We should not allow the equivalent to happen to websites
without giving them the opportunity to present counterarguments to a judge.
They should be given notice that the domain is going to be seized, and
arguments should be scheduled. Domain seizures are far too easy to obtain
given that they mean the absolute and total destruction of the target
business, without recourse, regardless of the ultimate outcome of any trial.
That is hardly fair and certainly not the way the US system of "justice" is
supposed to operate.

~~~
scott_s
_Tomorrow morning, the feds could release Kim DotCom, give him all of his
money, apologize, and immediately return their domains, and it wouldn't
matter. The site, and the multi-million dollar business behind it, are dead._

I find that difficult to believe. If tomorrow, the people behind MegaUpload
were released, and their assets were released, _and_ they were told they could
go back to running MegaUpload as they had done so, I suspect they would, and
the users would flock back to it.

Your claim is that websites require unique protection with regards to
seizures. I have difficulty granting that, because if you seize all of the
assets of _any_ business, that business is, at the least [1], temporarily on
hold. So, unless you can provide an argument for why websites are unique, then
the process you propose would have to apply to all businesses. I have
difficulty with that.

[1] I mean "at the least" literally, as a lower-bound. I don't want to get
into a side argument about the likely fate of MegaUpload, since my point is
that MegaUpload's fate is no different from that of other businesses.

~~~
downandout
I think an argument can be made that domains do require special protection.
Web-based businesses are living, breathing entities that are permanently
damaged when offline. Simply look at the before/after traffic statistics of
the few sites that have been wrestled back from the claws of the government
after seizure. The sites are dead.

The real world equivalent of domain seizure isn't temporarily restraining a
business from certain questionable activities. It is to fire missiles at the
corporate headquarters the moment they are indicted, destroying the building,
and then posting a billboard on the empty land saying how the company that
used to be there and all of their customers are criminals even if they haven't
yet been found guilty. If they are found not guilty, then, after more legal
wrangling, they'll get the empty lot back. They are then "free" to resume
their former operation.

~~~
jonhendry
It's more like shutting down a restaurant for sanitation violations.

If they open up, they might have trouble getting business if everyone thinks
there are probably still rat turds in the food. So they need to advertise,
maybe "change management", maybe change the name.

Who cares if the old domain is dead, if a new one can be set up that runs the
same way and is just as popular?

------
dwyer
Hacker News double standard:

* A company like Zynga who runs a completely legal business and employ thousands of people with good wages and benefits by copying game concepts is generally considered evil.

* A torrent tracker or file locker that makes a handful of employees rich by ripping off thousands of artists, musicians and filmmakers and serving spammy aggressive popup ads shut down and are considered martyrs.

Somebody care to explain?

~~~
pyre
The flaw in your logic is that you're treating a group of people as if they
are a single person with a singular set of ideas, views and motivations.

~~~
ahelwer
It's not a flaw so much as having too broad a scope. It is certainly the case
that a sizeable subset of people here hold such views, which are in turn
upheld by upvotes. When called out they should respond, not fail to appear.

------
someone13
Wow. Btjunkie was in the Alexa top 500 too (#390) - it wasn't exactly a small
site.

Here's a screenshot of the Alexa ranking, for posterity:

<http://imgur.com/U7dex>

~~~
m_eiman
You probably shouldn't rely on imgur for posterity… Put it on a server that
you control.

------
ericflo
Anyone remember Suprnova.org?

~~~
joenathan
There has never been as site as good as Suprnova, it made thepiratebay look
like junk, Mininova was my next favorite...

------
8ig8
Some background: BT = Bit Torrent (search engine)

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BTJunkie>

------
matmann2001
Does anyone else suspect that this shut down was not as "voluntary" as stated?
Now is the moment in history where people need to speak up for the protection
of their rights on the internet, and before the culmination of these struggles
has even begun, btjunkie is throwing in the towel? Do they know something we
don't?

~~~
jonhendry
"Now is the moment in history where people need to speak up for the protection
of their rights on the internet"

People are. They're just not speaking up for the "rights" you are thinking of.

------
vy8vWJlco
I feel like I have been working to train and support people, and giving people
legs in the form of networks and software just so they can turn around and
kick me with them. Did we do this to ourselves?

------
rangibaby
Another one bites the dust... and TPB sails on!

------
alan_cx
Do people think that shutting down the site prevents prosecution? I don't.

My assumption here is that they, and possibly others, have been told to shut
down or face Megaupload treatment.

I wonder if we will see few others make the same "decision".

~~~
furyofantares
There are only finite resources available to pursue prosecution. If the choice
is between prosecuting the owners of a site that continues to operate versus
one that has ceased operation, I expect the choice would be to go after the
one that continues to operate.

------
bitsoda
Meanwhile, The Pirate Bay is still up despite it being shut down numerous
times. It truly is the boy who cried wolf of torrent indexes.

~~~
dagw
It's worth noting that people involved in TPB have been fined millions of
dollars, sentenced to jail and fled their country to avoid justice. Not
everybody is willing to go those sorts of extremes to run a website.

~~~
bj0rnbj0rn
fled their country? AFAIK they're all still living in Sweden.

~~~
dagw
Last I heard non of them where Swedish residents. Fredrik Neij lives in
Thailand and last I heard Svartholm Warg lived in Cambodia of all places. I
believe the other two defendants live in Switzerland.

------
citricsquid
Wikipedia states that the site was commercial, considering the amount of
traffic it had does this mean they were making money from it or was it a
volunteer organisation using adverts to cover costs? I've never used the site
and Wikipedia doesn't explain any of that.

~~~
WalterSear
commercial venture.

------
zokiboy
Isn't there a way to create a database of torrents without using http
protocol, by relying only on peer2peer network? It would be much harder to
shutdown each peer individually.

~~~
icebraining
That's what Tribler[1] claims it does. I've never used it.

And while it doesn't use bittorrent, eMule has had completely decentralized
file searches using the Kad[2] network for years now.

[1]: <http://www.tribler.org/>

[2]: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kad_network>

------
spoiledtechie
So incredibly sad.... Anyone know who started the site or how to get in touch
with them? I would love a crack at their code base....

------
known
What next <http://www.usniff.com/> ?

------
oliveoil
Wouldn't it be enough to just move sites like this to for instance Russia?

~~~
Elhana
Your assumption there is no law against piracy in Russia is false. Russia is
not a great idea, our gov took torrents.ru domain away without any trial as
well. They are not so active as in USA, but since Russia is on the way to WTO,
btjunkie wouldve been closed rather fast if it would be demanded.

~~~
jonhendry
And if not the government, organized crime would likely demand a cut.

------
LefterisJP
Another one going down makes you think how exactly did we win with SOPA and
what we are going to do with ACTA

------
xpose2000
Sad news. :(

------
krambs
End of an era.

~~~
pyre
As was the shutdown of Napster, and the shutdown of other trackers like
SuprNova (as someone else mentioned). I'm actually surprised that some sites
have made it this long. It's not like the MAFIAA hasn't taken down sites in
the past. But the last few years seem to have been somewhat quiet on that
front. Seems like they were spending their time getting the FBI and Congress
to fight their battles for them; the government just moves at a slower pace.

------
szcukg
btjunkie will be missed

------
zobzu
its been a long ride, bye!

------
slapnuts
The end is nigh.

~~~
mattdeboard
The end of...?

~~~
nuttendorfer
Smaller trackers that will be targeted next.

