Batu69 Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 TorrentHound has decided to shut down its popular torrent site, voluntarily. "Finito," the site's founder informed us in a brief message. Following the demise of KickassTorrents and Torrentz, the surprise shutdown means that three of the ten most visited torrent sites at the beginning of the year are now offline. Founded in 2007, TorrentHound.com has been around for nearly a decade. With millions of visitors per month the site enjoyed a fairly large userbase, but it never reached the status of giants such as The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, and KAT. That said, copyright holders had no trouble finding the site. Over the years TorrentHound became the target of various industry complaints and the site was blocked in several countries. Nevertheless, it always remained online, until today. A few hours ago the site’s ‘founder’ sent us an email with an ultra-short message: “Finito.” A quick look at the website shows that this isn’t a prank. TorrentHound is the latest large torrent site to keel over this year. TorrentHound 2007 – 2016 At TorrentFreak we have been keeping a close eye on the torrent ecosystem for more than a decade, but never have we seen so many large sites going offline in such a short period. TorrentHound follows the ‘example’ of KickassTorrents and Torrentz, which went offline in July and August respectively. This means that three sites from our top 10 most-visited torrent sites, are now gone. Neither Torrentz nor TorrentHound have commented in detail on their surprise shutdowns. However, the fact that they followed shortly after KickassTorrents’ alleged operators were inducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, may not be a total coincidence. It’s unlikely that TorrentHound was facing concrete legal pressure as it’s currently linking to various “not terrible” alternative torrent sites on its current homepage. We asked our TorrentHound contact to shed some light on his decision and we will add an update if a response comes in. TorrentHound, a few days ago TorrentFreak Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Founded in 2007, TorrentHound.com has been around for nearly a decade. With millions of visitors per month the site enjoyed a fairly large userbase, but it never reached the status of giants such as The Pirate Bay, Torrentz, and KAT. That said, copyright holders had no trouble finding the site. Over the years TorrentHound became the target of various industry complaints and the site was blocked in several countries. Nevertheless, it always remained online, until today. A few hours ago the site’s ‘founder’ sent us an email with an ultra-short message: “Finito.” A quick look at the website shows that this isn’t a prank. TorrentHound is the latest large torrent site to keel over this year. TorrentHound 2007 – 2016 At TorrentFreak we have been keeping a close eye on the torrent ecosystem for more than a decade, but never have we seen so many large sites going offline in such a short period. TorrentHound follows the ‘example’ of KickassTorrents and Torrentz, which went offline in July and August respectively. This means that three sites from our top 10 most-visited torrent sites, are now gone. Neither Torrentz nor TorrentHound have commented in detail on their surprise shutdowns. However, the fact that they followed shortly after KickassTorrents’ alleged operators were inducted by the U.S. Department of Justice, may not be a total coincidence. It’s unlikely that TorrentHound was facing concrete legal pressure as it’s currently linking to various “not terrible” alternative torrent sites on its current homepage. We asked our TorrentHound contact to shed some light on his decision and we will add an update if a response comes in. TorrentHound, a few days ago TorrentFreak
straycat19 Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 There is pressure and then there is pressure. Sometimes the perceived pressure can be as effective as the real pressure to stop a specific activity. The owner may have been getting some type of indication that he is next and hopes to avoid any legal proceedings by shutting it down voluntarily now. He may have even been offered an olive branch to shut it down and not say anything (non disclosure agreement/gag order). I don't think most of these site operators are willing to risk years in jail just to provide a torrent site for others to download illegal data, especially if they think law enforcement is coming after them because they are making a profit, which seems to be the overwhelming factor on establishing targets for takedowns. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted September 15, 2016 Share Posted September 15, 2016 2012 File lockers closed like this because the feds took down megaupload and porn king (stop filelockers) kept turning them in there still are 100s left 1 closes 2 more takes its place , 2015 Many Private torrent sites closed because of new laws in some countries there still a 1000 left , Now its the public torrent sites . I dont see how it does any good because I never missed one single release ever because of any site closing. They can close because there already rich or no one visit there site ..Because i never used this site even though i knew it was there and new people who want too make money will open a better one When i 1st started fileshareing in the early days we didn't even need these sites our clients indexed the files with built in search . I never graced a warez site though my browser tell around 2006 . warez bb was the 1st site i joined then i left and went to appznet . P2P should of died out years ago and something harder to track should took its place . As long as it exist it will just hinder new safer methods of fileshareing to take its place and something always has all thorough history . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted September 16, 2016 Administrator Share Posted September 16, 2016 On 15/9/2016 at 5:33 PM, Batu69 said: At TorrentFreak we have been keeping a close eye on the torrent ecosystem for more than a decade, but never have we seen so many large sites going offline in such a short period. I personally feel the same. In last decade or so, never have I seen so many big torrent sites being closed in such a short time. Now it's the responsibility of other site owners to not only be better than the previously closed sites, but do it in a correct way or so. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 there was a update to this post and seems this site closed because of low traffic and not making enough money to pay there bills . Quote Update: TorrentHound’s founder was willing to provide some additional detail. “It’s a combination of less traffic, less revenue and our bills piling up. Then add on constantly getting bugged by anti piracy agents, just wasn’t worth the headache anymore.” I was reading at TF the guy that run this site has been looking for and excuse too get out of it for a long time . What is a better excuse than when some site gets raided that serves the same kind of content that way everyone will blame on what happened to the other site instead of the site owners? . Everyone will blame something . At lest he gave a reason TorrentZ didn't even do that. they just left everyone hanging to make you amuse the worse. Right now its more people looking for sites than ever before and he had low traffic he says . Now they have a excuse to quit .. We will see witch sites are serious are just looking to quit. TPB went down in 2015 and none even quit and KAT took its place . Now Kat went down in 2016 we will see. its not like the Feds busted anyone else this year.. there just quitting on there own free will KAT most likely will be back one day and these looking for a excuse will never be back . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
straycat19 Posted September 16, 2016 Share Posted September 16, 2016 3 hours ago, steven36 said: “It’s a combination of less traffic, less revenue and our bills piling up. Then add on constantly getting bugged by anti piracy agents, just wasn’t worth the headache anymore.” None of those sites are having a revenue problem. With everyone looking for someplace else to go after KAT their revenue should be rising. Now I can see where 'anti piracy agents' might be taking a closer look, since the revenue streams are rising, and if you are detecting this then you might be feeling a little self preservation motivation to close the site. And in the fallout give a misinformed excuse to further try and put off the anti privacy agents by declaring you weren't making any revenue. You just can't believe anything anybody says on the internet since most are self serving. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 2 hours ago, straycat19 said: None of those sites are having a revenue problem. With everyone looking for someplace else to go after KAT their revenue should be rising. Now I can see where 'anti piracy agents' might be taking a closer look, since the revenue streams are rising, and if you are detecting this then you might be feeling a little self preservation motivation to close the site. And in the fallout give a misinformed excuse to further try and put off the anti privacy agents by declaring you weren't making any revenue. You just can't believe anything anybody says on the internet since most are self serving. URL Metrics list he got around 3,820,215 monthly visits and his site was worth over $2 million face value. http://ca.urlm.com/www.torrenthound.com#server_two It was making around 238,958 $ a month ad revenue And yes it seen a surge in traffic all public torrent sites have but that's just 238,958 $ a month ad revenue some other site will get now this guy is gone ..Like i said he was just looking for and excuse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
edwardecl Posted September 17, 2016 Share Posted September 17, 2016 I guess he has accumulated enough money to retire on. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
pc71520 Posted September 18, 2016 Share Posted September 18, 2016 One more down = fewer choices Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Administrator DKT27 Posted September 18, 2016 Administrator Share Posted September 18, 2016 While I cannot comment on how much he might actually be earning, but all these ad revenue statistics are fake. Speaking from personal experience here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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