Say Goodbye to BTJunkie

Say Goodbye to BTJunkie

The war between pirates and copyright holders continues. Bit torrent search engine BTJunkie has voluntarily decided to cease operations permanently. BTJunkie itself has never been charged or targeted directly by copyright holders, but the latter's recent hard-line tactics are sure to have played a part in the site's decision.

After SOPA did not pass, we saw the US Department of Justice take down popular web-locker service Megaupload. As founder of the file storage site Kim Dotcom sits in jail, other similar services such as FileSonic decided to quickly change their operating procedures so that they may not draw the ire of the authorities. We think BTJunkie just wanted to quit while they were ahead.

We will let you decide whether or not the actions against Megaupload and the domino effect they seem to be having can be classified as a new form of  "e-terrorism". But something seems wrong with the fact that BTJunkie had to stop operations simply due to the fear of excessive legal ramifications without actually being charged with a crime. Things are definitely heating up between copyright holders and file hosting providers. And unless an agreement between the two parties is reached, we can expect a lot of collateral damage.

Source: BTJunkie via Arstechnica and TorrentFreak