‘IFPI Advertising’ Boosts Visitors To Blocked File-Sharing Site
Written by enigmax on March 12, 2008Last week a court ruled that Israel’s largest ISPs should block access to HttpShare, a BitTorrent and http hyperlink site. Thanks to what the owners call “IFPI advertising”, the site is now so busy they’ve had to upgrade their hardware. TorrentFreak caught up with them as they cracked open the champagne.
Haifa District Court Judge, Gideo Ginat: “I order the respondents, that is Israeli internet service providers, to systematically block access to the illicit site, HttpShare, so that surfers cannot enter this site and utilize it in in order to impede upon the claimants’ copyrights.”
In response, the site owners state: “According to Dutch law, sites providing external links allowing surfers to download movie, music, games and program are perfectly legal. Sites cannot store these illicit files on their internet servers, and that is precisely what we do not do. The site merely provides links to file sharing sites that host BitTorrent files or http downloads.”
This fact doesn’t seem to have influenced the judge when he ordered the blocking of the site.
Unfortunately for the IFPI, this block has achieved nothing other than boosting the popularity of the site - dozens of news outlets wrote about the block and the result so far is that visitors are now up to 70,000 a day. HTTPShare even had to get new hardware to cope with the demand - “Big Thanks to IFPI Advertising” says a note on the site.
TorrentFreak caught up with admin ‘Andre’ to hear more:
TF: Please tell us a little about the history leading directly to the creation of HTTPShare.
HTTP: Before HTTPSHARE there was a warez site back in 2003 called ELICOMP.CO.IL. The site’s owner was Eli Amar. Eli had to join the army and could not continue running the site, however he met me and I agreed to fund the site and keep it running. The site indexed HTTP links on all sorts of servers, then we grew in size and developed a crawler which job was to track fast speed .torrent files. The crawler was added to the the site which made it even more popular. We created the VIP zone in which users get fast and direct links (min. 500KB/s) to cover the servers and the programmers cost.
TF: When did your legal problems with the IFPI begin?
HTTP: About 9 months ago, Eli got a package with IFPI prosecution documents, including a court order to shut down the site. Eli didn’t know what to do so he mailed the files to me and I canceled the domain and opened a new one - HTTPSHARE.COM. Then 150K of emails were sent to previous members telling them about the new site and it wasn’t long before search engines like Google and Yahoo picked us up.
TF: Obviously changing the domain name and owner didn’t persuade the IFPI to leave you alone, so what happened next?
HTTP: The IFPI kept sending sending emails demanding us to shutdown the site. I never did so because the site is legal, we do not upload illegal stuff to our server [do not host any infringing media], and what we are doing is not against the law of the country in which we are hosted [Netherlands].
TF: How did the ISP block come about?
HTTP: After the IFPI understood that they are dealing with a new owner they asked the Israeli court to order the ISPs to block the “www.httpshare.com” domain. We all know that the legal system in Israel is corrupted and driven by money and power of the share holders. How can you accept such a ruling from a judge whose son was suspended from his job as a lawyer because of counterfeiting documents and money blackmail?
TF: Why do you think you became an IFPI target?
HTTP: We were a target of the IFPI and similar organizations even at the time of Elicomp. I think we were targeted because of the huge amount of bandwidth my site used while providing Direct external links. At that time the ISPs blocked us, but were then forced to unblock as a result of complaints from their subscribers.
TF: What actions have you taken to try to counter the block?
HTTP: For now we changed the IP of the server and released a program (browser) for the members that uses a server with 10 IP ranges so that it will be a lot more difficult to block it. Since we introduced the browser, the number of visitors has doubled. Also, thanks to the huge amount of publicity we got from the IFPI and sites like yours, we have added an English language forum to the site and translated the names of the forums to make the site easy to use.
TF: Thanks for taking the time to speak with us.
Suing individual users doesn’t work, bullying site owners doesn’t appear to be effective and ISP bans simply create more traffic and popularity for the target site. All this on top of reduced funding for chasing copyright infringers. So where next for the IFPI?
Previously: TorrentLeech is Down Due to DoS Attack
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43 Responses
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Nice article might check that site out.
First…
Gud on them! the IFPI can suck our balls THEY LOSE haha!
HTTP/1.1 200 IS OK!1
when will the anti-piracy companies realise they’re only giving these ‘piracy’ websites more money for better, faster hardware and services?
@4.
when media industries realised that they are going nowhere and stop funding anti-piracy group and thier lawyers,which means,far-far away in the future……in a distant galaxy…that might last 6 episodes long……..that got torrented in the end………………………… . . . . . . .
“he result so far is an extra 70,000 visitors a day”
Their website says “News: Over 70.000 Visitors per day, we upgraded our network” so I do believe it is 70,000 visitors overall and not 70,000 more than usual (”extra”).
Christmas came early, thanks IFPI.
So far all the IFPI has really acomplished is more traffic and more users, really quite hilarious.. the whole world laughs at you.. you are pathetic.. what a joke.
FACT:
Investing in the IFPI is like throwing your money in the trash.
Well I never heard of them before. Btw “suing individuals doesn’t work”. True enough but it’s what they do and will continue to do, as it’s an extra source of income for them. Be great for them if they could go on suing people forever. That’s why they must be stopped, and it will happen one way or another.
If they threaten to sue, never pay them anything. Let them waste their money on lawyers and courts, and if they win, declare bankruptcy and pay them nothing.
“Suing individual users doesn’t work, bullying site owners doesn’t appear to be effective and ISP bans simply create more traffic and popularity for the target site. All this on top of reduced funding for chasing copyright infringers. So where next for the IFPI?”
now you just made someone from RIAA cry :(
Hahahah… Oh. Should I be laughing at something I saw coming from a mile away?
From the moment the Haifa District Court was bribed… Err, ruled… To block HttpShare, this outcome was obvious to anyone.
Except for the IFPI, that is.
It’s just pathetic. If they stopped devoting all of their efforts to terrorism, and instead focused on growing a braincell or two, perhaps the IFPI could adapt with the times and ensure their survival in the age of P2P.
But instead, those greedy dinosaurs choose to fight against the times, ensuring their own obsolescence, and ultimately a slow, inevitable demise.
Natural selection at work, folks.
@9
ahahahaha, exactly! let me bathe in their tears mwahahahahaaha!
@6
TF say, and i quote; “so far is that visitors are now up to 70,000 a day”
UP TO means thats their top amount per day, not that it has increased by this amount, read the article carefully, i know its hard, but do it anyway.
Really, i never knew about HttpShare.
HttpShare is good so far.
Thanks IFPI for interducing HttpShare for me :)
Long Live to our Jacka$$ friend IFPI LoL
Fantastic news.
The IFPI always seem to manage to achieve the opposite of what they aimed to do.
Congrats httpshare!
Word has filtered down that the authorities tracked down Deimos when he tried to move the site to Malaysia. A front was allegedly set up in Malaysia and Deimos fell in the trap. Word is the tracker was never up legitimately, only to track IPs for demographic information for analysis of the nature of the BitTorrent problem, and to disseminate IPs to the authorities in those countries interested in prosecution. This info came from a knowledgable source on the official #demonoid channel on irc.p2p-network.net. Stay safe, fellow P2Pers
how bout that?
….
get yourself informed about things
http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=182
11.03.2008
By Benjamin Smith-Kavanagh
Shocking and disturbing times ahead in 2008 for the average music and video lover.
In Ireland the Government has introduced new laws that will be brought in by the end of March as was reported by the Irish Independent, which allows our Internet Service Providers ( ISP’s ) to keep track of everything we do on the internet, including music we listen to and downloaded.
[quote comment="310051"]how bout that?
….
get yourself informed about things
http://www.wiseupjournal.com/?p=182
11.03.2008
By Benjamin Smith-Kavanagh
Shocking and disturbing times ahead in 2008 for the average music and video lover.
In Ireland the Government has introduced new laws that will be brought in by the end of March as was reported by the Irish Independent, which allows our Internet Service Providers ( ISP’s ) to keep track of everything we do on the internet, including music we listen to and downloaded.[/quote]
I read this kinda news everyday, they show off but can’t do anything!
How the fuck they monitor 10000s of customer ?
Think your self, they don’t know what they are writing, alittle rethink will be good before posting.
I would like to see them monitor encrypted traffic.. oh wait thats impossible never mind.
I’m going to check out http://www.httpshare.com/ now. Doubt it will be as good as mininova :)
oh dear….. hebrew. Oh well, mininova here I come
The world goes around and around, The game never ends, Ahhh lets get high and download some movies. Ahhh lets burn the movies to a disc and we will sell them on the street. Ahhhh lets get high and continue to do what ever the fuck we want. Ahhh lets get high and invite over some bitches and we will throw in some porn we just downloaded. Ahhhh lets get high and READ HOW US PIRATES SAIL OUR SHIPS TO COMPLETE VICTORY !!!!!!! Arrrr
@19….. see the little US Flag with the Word ENGLISH under it? Thats ya key to Success!
So far though, pretty good site, so Props to IFPI.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=3×7pUhf__Pg
You know, the stupidest thing is, these drooling retarded dinosaurs (your “mafIAA”) are just shooting themselves in the face, over and over and over.
For ten years they’re slapped in the face by hundreds of millions of people who go “hey, I like this and I want it”; if that’s not a loyal customer base, I don’t know what is.
It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out you can make money off of this - hell, stu-stu-stuttering John could make money off of this; but they insist on shoveling shit onto their products and shooting at any of these potential customers that get within 600 feet of the front yard.
Really, it will be a great step forward for humanity when these guys finish hemhoraging money and just, disappear. They were always the middle men, never creators, and the world will be a lot better off without them.
[quote comment="310040"]Word has filtered down that the authorities tracked down Deimos when he tried to move the site to Malaysia. A front was allegedly set up in Malaysia and Deimos fell in the trap. Word is the tracker was never up legitimately, only to track IPs for demographic information for analysis of the nature of the BitTorrent problem, and to disseminate IPs to the authorities in those countries interested in prosecution. This info came from a knowledgable source on the official #demonoid channel on irc.p2p-network.net. Stay safe, fellow P2Pers[/quote]
bullshit
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