Several days ago it was revealed that YIFY torrents had been shut down. The group was basically behind the release of many a movie and if there was ever a movie you wanted to torrent/pirate, chances are they had it. However at that time, the reason for the shut down was unclear, only that the website stopped working and went dark.
According to a report from TorrentFreak, we think we finally have our answer. It turns out that the major movie studios of the MPAA were behind the shut down. According to MPAA boss Chris Dodd, “This coordinated legal action is part of a larger comprehensive approach being taken by the MPAA and its international affiliates to combat content theft.”
He adds, “Popcorn Time and YTS are illegal platforms that exist for one clear reason: to distribute stolen copies of the latest motion picture and television shows without compensating the people who worked so hard to make them.” This is pretty much what we had suspected at that time.
This seems to be similar to what has happened to other popular torrent sites in the past. For example The Pirate Bay had its servers raided, essentially knocking it offline. Another popular website IsoHunt was also forced to shut down when they were handed a very expensive fine. That being said if there’s one thing we’ve learnt is that torrent websites and groups come and go, and chances are eventually we will see a new dominant group.
Until then, the folks at TorrentFreak have cautioned users against websites claiming to be YIFY or the YTS group as they are fake.