{"id":70950,"date":"2023-02-03T09:01:51","date_gmt":"2023-02-03T09:01:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=70950"},"modified":"2023-02-03T09:01:51","modified_gmt":"2023-02-03T09:01:51","slug":"ace-delivers-major-blow-to-spanish-private-torrent-site-scene","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/?p=70950","title":{"rendered":"ACE Delivers Major Blow to Spanish Private Torrent Site Scene"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"adios<\/a>After building their sites almost from scratch and then populating them with the right kind of users, private torrent site owners understand the long haul. <\/p>\n

Private tracker users also tend to be more invested, partly due to a community spirit mostly absent from public sites. For these reasons and more, merging two private sites into one is a fairly rare occurrence.<\/p>\n

Private torrent trackers HDCity and HD-Spain did have things in common, not least a shared interest in Spanish-focused HD content, movies and TV shows in particular. <\/p>\n

Operating from a .li domain, HDCity had its own encoding team, and becoming a member was no easy task. Opinions varied, but some believed that HD-Spain had more to offer. Soon that would become undisputed.<\/p>\n

Time to Merge<\/h2>\n

Following a decision to merge the sites, the initial plan was for both to lose their identities and then reemerge as an ambitious single project, with fresh branding and a brand new name \u2013 Pixelados.<\/p>\n

When it became clear that the Pixelados project needed more time, users from HDCity were migrated to HD-Spain as an interim measure. In time, HDCity ceased to exist and in line with tradition, the site departed with the usual quote from The Hitchhiker\u2019s Guide to the Galaxy.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"hdcity-down\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

Those behind the merged torrent sites previously joked that the site would become \u201cSchr\u00f6dinger<\/a>\u2018s tracker\u201d \u2013 HD-Spain.com carrying the merged user data with Pixelados.tv the new domain \u2013 despite not actually being the Pixelados as planned.<\/p>\n

As recently as December 2022, both HD-Spain and Pixelados domains remained in use. A few days ago, all domains suddenly fell out of service. When they returned, any hope of Pixelados still being alive \u2013 or even both dead and alive \u2013 was removed. <\/p>\n

Another ACE Shutdown<\/h2>\n

Like hundreds of sites over the past five years, Pixelados\/HD-Spain had succumbed to the legal threats of the Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs you can see (or not yet, depending on how you refresh the hd-spain.com and pixelados.tv domains in your browser) the domains now point to a website owned by the \u2018Alliance For Creativity And Entertainment\u2019,\u201d an announcement by the sites\u2019 operator reads. <\/p>\n

\u201cCurrently, copyright laws in Spain allow websites to be sued for distributing files by any method that infringes copyright, whether or not there is a profit motive. If there is and it can be proven, the complaints would go through criminal proceedings with possible jail sentences and fines.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pixelados\/HD-Spain had always maintained a no-profit policy, but as its operator notes, even when there is no profit involved, claims under civil law remain viable and can lead to damages awards reaching hundreds of thousands of euros. Technically, that\u2019s not even the limit, but another option was also on the table.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

\u201cIn exchange for NOT UNDERTAKING ANY LEGAL ACTION against those responsible for the websites or those related to it, the \u2018Alliance For Creativity And Entertainment\u2019 has retained ownership of the existing domains and of course requires the activity of the websites to cease,\u201d the announcement adds.<\/p>\n

\u201cAnd that is how it will be done, it is well known to all that we have NEVER had any profit whatsoever, but this is a hobby, and as such at the moment that it may present a problem for any person in charge of the website or a relative, we close everything for real.\u201d <\/p>\n

With the domains transferred, all that remained was to finish the job. The announcement adds that everything has been destroyed; the website, hardware, and all data related to all users \u2013 nothing exists.<\/p>\n

\u201cThank you all very much for the time shared, both in good times and in bad.\u201d<\/p>\n

Another Site Added to The List<\/h2>\n

For ACE, this shutdown is just another day at the office. After sending investigators to approach the site\u2019s operator in Santiago de Compostela, Spain, an agreement was reached for everything to be shut down.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/center><\/p>\n

\u201cThanks to ACE\u2019s rapidly expanding global network and decisive action against illegal piracy operators, the legal marketplace for creative content has never been so well protected,\u201d says Jan van Voorn, Executive Vice President and Global Content Protection Chief of the Motion Picture Association and Head of ACE. <\/p>\n

\u201cAs we enter 2023, our coalition is better equipped than ever to target and shut down the pirates who threaten the legal creative economy.\u201d<\/p>\n

ACE reports<\/a> that 26,000 torrents attracted 300,000 visits to the domains each month, with almost all traffic coming from Spain.<\/p>\n

At the time of writing, the domains hd-spain.com and pixelados.tv are in the hands of the Motion Picture Association along with two other related domains \u2013 hd-spain.org and hdspain.org.<\/p>\n

From: TF<\/a>, for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.<\/p>\n

Powered by WPeMatico<\/a><\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

After building their sites almost from scratch and then populating them with the right kind of users, private torrent site owners understand the long haul. Private tracker users also tend to be more invested, partly due to a community spirit mostly absent from public sites. For these reasons and more, merging two private sites into […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":70951,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[308],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-70950","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-torrent"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70950","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=70950"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70950\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/70951"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=70950"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=70950"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cryptocabaret.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=70950"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}