530 China BitTorrent sites shut down
p2pnet news view P2P | Politics:- Chinese downloaders have flooded and, in some cases, crashed major P2P and torrent sites “after rumors that the government would be effectively disabling all media downloads in the country,” said ReadWriteWeb recently.
But it was more than rumours.
“Statistics show that currently more than 530 BitTorrent (BT) websites have been closed, including the major download search engine BTChina.net,” says China Daily.
“The State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) has closed hundreds of file-sharing sites since last week as part of an ongoing effort to fight piracy and porn,it ” says going on >>>
However, many users say these sources are one of few ways to access films, books, and music banned in China, whether the media is lewd or merely politically dissident. What will media-seeking Chinese citizens do when their links to the wider world are finally severed?
After hundreds of websites offering free movie and music downloads were shut down, China’s State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT) said over the weekend that the sites will have to solve the “copyright problem” if they want to reopen.
An unidentified official is quoted by state news agency Xinhua as saying “regulating online audio and video services is a ‘long-term task’, and as long as these websites do not solve the problem of copyright, they will not be allowed to reopen.”
But, “The shutdown of BT websites, however, has prompted an increasing number of people to buy pirated DVDs,” says the story.
Meanwhile, “As our loyal readers may recall, China’s ongoing censorship of content and restriction of free speech earned it a spot on our Top 10 Failures of 2009 lis6t,” says ReadWriteWeb, noting:
“Although it is hardly the in the domain of a humble blogger to dictate national policies on media, we feel a great deal of empathy for those who download content not only because it’s free online but because they have no other way to access it.”
If p2pnet has value for you, help me keep it online. Cheers! And thanks : )
(If you don’t fancy online payments, please email me at p2pnet @ shaw dot ca and I’ll send you my snail-mail address.)
First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win ~ Mahatma Gandhi
ReadWriteWeb – Downloading Frenzy in China: Gov’t Blocking All Torrent Sites Soon?, December 10, 2009
China Daily – More downloading websites going down, December 15, 2009
Use free p2pnet newsfeeds for your site. It`s really easy!
Subscribe to p2pnet.net | | rss feed: http://p2pnet.net/p2p.rss | | Mobile – http://p2pnet.net/index-wml.php
Net access blocked by government restrictions? Use Psiphon from the Citizen Lab at the University of Toronto. Go here for details.
December 14th, 2009 at 6:43 pm
It does not matter since BT no longer work on centralized server just like eDonkey so.
December 14th, 2009 at 6:51 pm
I believe that we should expel all the entertainment corporate parasites to china or north Korea since they obviously hate freedom and love communism.
After all extreme capitalism equal communism. In the later the government control everything while in the former few mega corporations take this role. In both case there is no freedom.
We have to destroy the mega corporations who are a clear and present danger to our democracies and our way of living starting with the entertainment industry NOW!
December 14th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Is there a list somewhere of the 530 sites?
December 14th, 2009 at 10:08 pm
A Communist government defending corporate copyright. What a fucking irony.