Andre Yoskowitz
31 Jul 2008 18:43
The IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry), along with Italian authorities, have announced the shut down of Colombo-BT.org, Italy's largest BitTorrent site.
Over the course of two days, the tracker's servers were seized and two bank accounts associated with the site have been frozen. The administrators of the site have been charged with multiple counts of criminal copyright infringement and can face large fines and prison time.
Visitors to the site will be greeted with a new splash screen, "Access denied in execution of an Italian Court Authority injunction."
"Colombo-BT.org was Italy's version of The Pirate Bay," said FPM (anti-piracy group) president Enzo Mazza. "Its operators deliberately facilitated availability of copyright infringing content to line their own pockets. The gang of three now face potential prison sentences and hefty fines as a result of their activities. This police action sends a strong message that Italy will not tolerate serious online music piracy so criminals looking for get rich quick schemes should consider other options."
Although there are hardly any sites on the planet that can compare with The Pirate Bay, Colombo-BT did have a large presence, especially in Italy. The site had an "extensive collection of Italian music and multimedia, 390,000 music files and 500,000 movie files, including numerous pre-release titles. The illegal service had more than 400,000 registered users and 800,000 unique user accesses each month."
Although those almost 1 million files are now unavailable, 400,000 users will be looking for a new torrent site to call home. And the cycle begins.