MPAA, FBI and U.S. Customs Shut Down EliteTorrents

[news=http://filesharingtalk.com/vb3/logos/bt.gif]In what was initially believed to be a hack and or a hoax, it appears the actions taken against EliteTorrents was indeed an enforcement action by the FBI and US Department of Justice. Indeed, all indications dictated the situation was not an enforcement action, considering the official word from EliteTorrent's administration stated they were simply hacked.

However, this would turn out to be part of the overall action by the MPAA, FBI and US Customs. When visiting the site, one is confronted with the following notification:

"This Site [EliteTorrents.org] has been permanently shut down by the Federal bureau of Investigation and U.S. Immigrations and Customs Enforcement"

"The individuals involved in the operation and use of Elite Torrents network are under investigation for criminal copyright infringement"

These are very serious words. According to the FBI press release, 10 search warrents have been issued against leading members of EliteTorrents.org.

"This morning, agents of the FBI and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) executed 10 search warrants across the United States against leading members of a technologically sophisticated P2P network known as Elite Torrents. Employing technology known as BitTorrent, the Elite Torrents network attracted more than 133,000 members and, in the last four months, allegedly facilitated the illegal distribution of more than 17,800 titles-including movies and software-which were downloaded 2.1 million times. "

The press release also explains why the administration of EliteTorrents initially believed this was the result of a DNS hack.

"In addition to executing 10 warrants, federal agents also took control of the main server that coordinated all file-sharing activity on the Elite Torrents network."

The MPAA was adamant about ridding the Internet of EliteTorrents.org, due to the fact it helped proliferate "Star Wars, Episode III: Revenge of the Sith." Star Wars' prerelease had the MPAA extremely frustrated, and vowed to pursue those distributing the movie. The MPAA made good on their promise, as elaborated in their press release.

"Carrying out what is known as Operation D-Elite, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed search warrants against prominent members in Elite Torrents’ membership," said Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) President and CEO Dan Glickman. "Elite Torrents was one of the first peer to peer networks to post an illegal copy of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith before the movie officially opened in theaters last Thursday."

The FBI press release elaborate, "For example, the final entry in the Star Wars series, "Episode III: Revenge of the Sith," was available for downloading on the network more than six hours before it was first shown in theatres. In the next 24 hours, it was downloaded more than 10,000 times."

This situation remains fluid, as the extent of the FBI and U.S. Custom enforcment is unclear. For now, only the administration is looking at criminal charges, however the initial take down notice did state "...and use of..."

Source: Slyck
[/news]

Just read this on Yahoo.

Sad day :(

Doubt they'll go after the little fish like us tho, not when they've got the owners.

what about torrentbytes???? did that site get shut down?? i shud have downloaded godfather 2 from et wen i had the chance.... oh well atleast i finished downloading the rambo 2 dvd... fuk lucas and 20th century fox... good thing i never payed a dime to see their movies..lol.

Quote:

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FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Wednesday, May 25, 2005

ILLEGAL BITTORRENT SITE THAT CARRIED
STAR WARS IS SHUT DOWN

Feds Squash Elite Torrents’ Illegal On-Line Movie Swapping Operation

Los Angeles - - The U.S. Departments of Justice and Homeland Security today announced that they have shut down one of the world’s largest BitTorrent websites, Elite Torrents. Carrying out what is known as Operation D-Elite, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) executed search warrants against prominent members in Elite Torrents’ membership. Elite Torrents was one of the first peer to peer networks to post an illegal copy of Star Wars: Episode III - Revenge of the Sith before the movie officially opened in theaters last Thursday.

“Today’s actions are bad news for Internet movie thieves and good news for preserving the magic of the movies,” said Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) President and CEO Dan Glickman. “Shutting down illegal file swapping networks like Elite Torrents is an essential part of our fight to stop movie thieves from stealing copyrighted materials. We hope and fully expect that people will spend this Memorial Day weekend sharing the motion picture experience with their families and not stealing movies from the Internet.”

Elite Torrents received 8.5 million hits a day and was frequented by over 100,000 users daily. The site posted several thousand movie titles including House of Wax, Kingdom of Heaven, Unleashed, Monster-in-Law, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and Kicking and Screaming. It also carried many television shows including the full seasons of “Desperate Housewives” and “Lost”. Operation D-Elite is being conducted jointly by ICE and the FBI as part of the Computer and Technology Crime High Tech Response Team ("CATCH") which is a San Diego task force of specially trained prosecutors and law enforcement officers who focus on high-tech crime. Federal and state member agencies of CATCH include ICE, the FBI, the Department of Justice, the San Diego District Attorney's Office, San Diego Police Department, the San Diego Sheriff's Department, and San Diego County Probation. The Operation was coordinated and will be prosecuted by the Justice Department's Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section, with the assistance and support of Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) coordinators in San Diego and U.S. Attorneys' Offices in Arizona, Illinois, Kansas, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Texas, Virginia and Wisconsin.

Former Deputy Assistant Attorney General in the Department of Justice and current Senior Vice President for Worldwide Anti-Piracy at MPAA John Malcolm said "I applaud the work of ICE, the FBI, CATCH and the San Diego Computer and Technology Crime High Tech Response Team for close coordination on Operation D-Elite. Their hard work in pursuit of these movie thieves will help preserve jobs in the entertainment industry and protect the quality of movies for everyone. Protecting the movies means protecting American ideas."

The MPAA has been successful in bringing down more than 90% of the BitTorrent type sites it has filed lawsuits against. Earlier this year, LokiTorrent was put out of the business of facilitating illegal movie swapping. In early May, the MPAA brought lawsuits against six new sites focused largely on facilitating the illegal swapping of television shows. Four of those six sites have already shut down, including the very popular http://www.shuntv.net/ and http://www.btefnet.net/. The MPAA will continue its efforts to work with governments and law enforcement officials to shut down BitTorrent sites across the world from Sacramento to Stockholm.

Glickman said that the MPAA estimates that the film industry lost approximately $3.5 billion to movie piracy in 2004, a total that does not include losses due to illegal file sharing online. According to a Smith Barney study, that number is expected to jump to $5.4 billion in 2005. By deeply cutting into revenues, movie piracy limits the choices for consumers at the box office. Sixty percent of all movies never recoup their production and marketing costs which average well over $100 million. Piracy also hurts the hundreds of thousands of individuals, whose jobs depend on a vital movie industry, including sound and lighting technicians, carpenters, and theatre and video store employees.

About the MPAA:
The Motion Picture Association of America, Inc. (MPAA) serves as the voice and advocate of the American motion picture, home video and television industries from its offices in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. These members include: Buena Vista Pictures Distribution; Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios Inc.; Paramount Pictures; Sony Pictures Entertainment Inc.; Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation; Universal Studios from Universal City Studios; and Warner Bros. Entertainment Inc.

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http://mpaa.org/MPAAPress/

I think your Homeland Security has it's priorities wrong.

They should concentrate on shutting down Al-Queda, not filesharing sites. WTF??

Looks like bad news for all the other torrent sites out there as well if multiple agencies are willing to conduct an operation like this

"You know what capitalism is? Getting Fucked!" - Tony Montana..
ET i will miss you, snuff snuff... i gotta go back to torrentspy.com now. God help us , please....

Looks like torrentspy removed all its star wars episode 3 files.... shit.. but i already seen the movie.


we better start looking for a new p2p alternative. luckily we still have puretna.com and empornium :D

this is fucking bullshit, Homeland Security is a joke, they don't have anything better to do. either way, i'm gonna miss ET :(

Just saw this by going to http://elitetorrents.org/ !!! OMFG!!!

ONE WORD: "PEERGUARDIAN"

block spyware, government, and bad P2P!

youd think mininova would be the first to go since its like the son of suprnova which was taken down by major companies, its a public site not a register only, and it has quite a lot of files. And they went for elitetorrents.org? Hmm....

Should we all just back off from leeching/seeding from everywhere?

Should we keep doing what we were doing and forget about this?

R.I.P. www.suprnova.org & www.elitetorrents.org

nah, ET's tracker , keeps the user logs. So the mpaa could look through that and see all the people who were seeding the file, especially the star wars 3 file... RIP ET...

I know its easy for me to say (coming from the UK and all) but fuck 'em!
Can they provide hard evidence of a crime/civil violation occuring?
I've always got a nuke disc sitting in my a drive just incase.
Without physical evidence they have fuck all but a few isp logs that mean squat.
All thats gonna happen is the dissaperence of filesahring on a visable level. Push us underground but they'll never stop it.

But on a side note any site that had SW3 torrents on its server were just asking for trouble.
Its gonna be this years biggest film made by Lucasfilms which is worth billions and no one thought Lucas and the MPAA would be a little pissed seeing its early internet release? I had a felling the shit would hit the fan with this. The mugs.

under the new patriot act laws we are all terrorists and they have given themselves the power to surreptiously enter our homes, log onto our computers and install tracking software without our knowledge and this is the stuff they do thats legal imagine what they do under the radar

I can say to the pricks come and get me want my address MPAA??? PM me here if your reading this you fucking cunts at leat your doing your job unlike the RIAA

anyway Bit torrent is dead time for a new P2P to be created

shit i just dled from ET... am i screwed?

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monkeee

shit i just dled from ET... am i screwed?

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I guess time will tell, but I doubt it, it appears they are going after the "big" people

Truly a sad day....

Things come and go

Suprnova, ET etc...

whats next?

:(

i'm scared now ><

what happened to torrentbytes.org, with 42000 members... was that busted also ?

it's torrentbytes.net and it's still up

damn, they are just taking everything down...

Suprnova, TvTorrents, BTefnet, Lolkitorrents, Elite Torrents.........

Geez, why dont the FBI, Home Land security and US Customs focus on real threats?? <_<

http://tazzes-play-ground.org/thread...tuser=0&page=1

is an interesting topics with more info about this issue...

Quote:

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Originally Posted by kurse

ONE WORD: "PEERGUARDIAN"

block spyware, government, and bad P2P!

youd think mininova would be the first to go since its like the son of suprnova which was taken down by major companies, its a public site not a register only, and it has quite a lot of files. And they went for elitetorrents.org? Hmm....

Should we all just back off from leeching/seeding from everywhere?

Should we keep doing what we were doing and forget about this?

R.I.P. www.suprnova.org & www.elitetorrents.org

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Hello!

PG does not do shit to protect you on BT. The IP's are given to everybody in a swarm by the tracker so only connections to you are refused but still they will be able to see you in the Swarm!. PG are only somewhat functional for DC,Kazaa and ED2K people!!.

With regard to the topic discussed I think it is indeed a sad day for us BT users but hopefully a replacement will arrive!!. I think it was pretty stupid though by the site owner to host it in the US so that the feds could get to him!!.

I recommend The Pirate Bay the worlds largest tracker and it is swedish and the feds cant get to it:

http://www.thepiratebay.org/frame.html

Feel free to download the latest Star Wars there just to mess with the feds!!.

And dont forgett to read their legal threats section :naughty: :D :lol:

Have fun downloading!!

Fuck the FBI!!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RPerry

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monkeee

shit i just dled from ET... am i screwed?

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I guess time will tell, but I doubt it, it appears they are going after the "big" people

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how "big" is big ET was was my main torrent site for about two months :ermm:
I done file sharing! The last thing I need it a big fine or jail time, its not worth it.

Well it would seem that they have gone after the big sites and have yet to attack individuals that I know of as perhaps they learned from the music indutries mistakes which only created very bad image for them.

Its also common sense that if they get the big sites down then there this stuff just wont be as accessable to the public as it is now since after all bt is just way to accessable now and just an irritant to them in a big way.

The clear drawback of the entire app seems to be that it requires a tracker and that in theory it becomes a cetralized item which goes back to what took down Napster for that matter. It would seem for bt to survive it must become trackerless which there are already moves towards this now. The sites with trackers and the like just are to easy of a target and really no suprise that this has happened and that most likely will continue...

The latest I've heard, and I can't confirm its accuracy, is that this whole thing has to do with a stolen workprint version of StarWarsIII. Thats why The FBI, and DHS and US Customs are involved :unsure:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RPerry

The latest I've heard, and I can't confirm its accuracy, is that this whole thing has to do with a stolen workprint version of StarWarsIII. Thats why The FBI, and DHS and US Customs are involved :unsure:

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Thats sounds as if to suggest someone at ET was connected then...

:ohmy: :ohmy:

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RealitY

Quote:

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Originally Posted by RPerry

The latest I've heard, and I can't confirm its accuracy, is that this whole thing has to do with a stolen workprint version of StarWarsIII. Thats why The FBI, and DHS and US Customs are involved :unsure:

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Thats sounds as if to suggest someone at ET was connected then...

:ohmy: :ohmy:

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Based on some things I have heard recently, I wouldn't doubt it. But I'm betting on what I said last as being the root cause, I have it on pretty good word. What happens after the criminal investigation is another thing.

Quote:

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The search warrants are not public, said Zuieback, a U.S. Immigration and Customs spokeswoman. She said the raids were directed at individuals known as "first providers," or those who initially made the copyrighted material available online.

Zuieback did not say whether Wednesday's action was directly tied to the "Star Wars" theft.

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http://money.cnn.com/2005/05/25/technology/piracy/

nooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!
/lucas

I bet he was pissed...

I dont really think it mad a fk of a difference although I would think he would be...

what does RTJKJAS mean? If you go to the bottem of the page of elitetorrents and high light it it shows "RTJKJAS"

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Monkeee

what does RTJKJAS mean? If you go to the bottem of the page of elitetorrents and high light it it shows "RTJKJAS"

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Still remains a mystery as that why it was first though to be a hack then...

It would seem TorrentSpy has been forced remove items realated to Star Wars if you search...

Quote:

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There has been an error with your search

This search query has been blocked at the request of the copyright holder, in compliance with
the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA")

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http://www.torrentspy.com/search.asp?query=Star+Wars

From their IRC channel -

Quote:

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[11:29pm]«@ [Bleach]» Ok this is the deal people listen closely

[11:30pm]«@ [Bleach]» This whole ordeal started with a STOLEN workprint form lucas films
[11:30pm]«@ [Bleach]» This promted a FEDERAL investigation on that particular release
[11:30pm]«@ [Bleach]» Now MPAA could not touch ET (civily) but because a CRIMINAL
[11:30pm]«@ [Bleach]» CASE was issued that now changes the RULES
[11:31pm]«@ [Bleach]» lucas wanted someones head on a platter
[11:31pm]«@ [Bleach]» Said it cost the film Big dollars making it a felony
[11:31pm]«@ [Bleach]» Said it was taken over seas to foreign countries
[11:31pm]«@ [Bleach]» thus bringing in ICE
[11:32pm]«@ [Bleach]» NOW someone from ET leaked to the WRONG people that ET had this release up
[11:32pm]«@ [Bleach]» 6 hours prior to its first showin
[11:32pm]«@ [Bleach]» And that it was DL 10k times
[11:32pm]«@ [Bleach]» This focused the CRIMINAL case on to ET
[11:33pm]«@ [Bleach]» (thinking it was probably someone here) BUT NO IT WAS NOT ANYONE FROM ET WHO STOLE THE MOVIE
[11:33pm]«@ [Bleach]» FBI shuts ET down issue warrants for admins PC
[11:33pm]«@ [Bleach]» NOT ALL WARRANTS WERE ET STAFF
[11:33pm]«@ [Bleach]» TWO admins were raided and ONLY their PC was taken
[11:33pm]«@ [Bleach]» NO arrest have been made
[11:33pm]«@ [Bleach]» No other details have been leaked
[11:34pm]«@ [Bleach]» Right now there is still a CRIMINAL case going on with the SW3 WORKPRINT RELEASE
[11:34pm]«@ [Bleach]» Those who DL may have something to worry about
[11:34pm]«@ [Bleach]» BUT for now only those who made it AVAILABLE has to worry about it
[11:35pm]«@ [Bleach]» NOw I DO NOT
[11:35pm]«@ [Bleach]» KNOW what is to become of the logs with the star wars DL
[11:36pm]«@ [Bleach]» I DONT KNOW what Kryl0n is doing
[11:36pm]«@ [Bleach]» or gone to
[11:36pm]«@ [Bleach]» This came from a MOD who called to update someone on what happened to the 2 admins
[11:36pm]«@ [Bleach]» That is it for now

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Hmmm... How many torrent sites are there? How many P2P programs are there? All of these have the Star Wars movie on them, how many times has it been downloaded between all of them? I bet many more than it was from just Elite Torrent. Probably Ten-Fold.

Why ET would keep logs is anybody's guess.

No verifieds site should be doing that

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Samurai

Why ET would keep logs is anybody's guess.

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Maybe for the stats although I dont think theres a whole lot that they can do with it as its just the name of some file attached to you although if you were on the tracker at time that could be an issue although I think theyre primarily looking at the releasors perhaps...

this is so fucking gay! all this shit for a shitty release? the workprint might have been released before the movie, but it's still a shitty release. so much turmoil over a shitty unviewable release. wtf


whoever did this fucked with the wrong guy. hell, lucas can maneuver the entire mpaa. he's rich, and he's got connections with all the big names in hollywood. sigh