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May 25, 2005
Feds Take Down Elite Torrents, a BitTorrent Filesharing Site
Posted by Ernest Miller
BoingBoing has pretty good coverage (though I couldn't get all of their links to work) of the Dept. of Homeland Security's takedown of the BitTorrent filesharing website EliteTorrents.org, which now prominent displays a message from the government: THIS SITE HAS BEEN PERMANENTLY SHUT DOWN BY THE FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION AND U.S. IMMIGRATION AND CUSTOMS ENFORCEMENT (First Criminal BitTorrent Bust in USA: Elite Torrents). The statement from the government claims that
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.
Technically sophisticated? Maybe, but it doesn't take a lot of brains to realise that running a centralized BitTorrent site for 133,000 members makes you a big and relatively easy target for enforcers, whether Feds or the
MPAA. Unfortunately, there is little more that we know at this time.
As I've noted before, you infringe copyright with BitTorrent at your own risk.
CNN report: Feds Bite BitTorrent
Slashdot: Feds Shut Down Elite Torrents
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Ernest Miller pursues research and writing on cyberlaw, intellectual property, and First Amendment issues. Mr. Miller attended the U.S. Naval Academy before attending Yale Law School, where he was president and co-founder of the Law and Technology Society, and founded the technology law and policy news site LawMeme. He is a fellow of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School.
Ernest Miller's blog postings can also be found @
