TV Links RIP

[ONeill]

Major pirate website shut down


Katie Allen
Friday October 19, 2007
Guardian Unlimited


One of the world's most-used pirate film websites has been closed after providing links to illegal versions of major Hollywood hits and TV shows.

The first closure of a major UK-based pirate site was also accompanied by raids and an arrest, the anti-piracy group Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact) said today.

A 26-year-old man from Cheltenham was arrested on Thursday in connection with offences relating to the facilitation of copyright infringement on the internet, Fact said.


The arrest and the closure of the site - www.tv-links.co.uk - came during an operation by officers from Gloucestershire County Council trading standards in conjunction with investigators from Fact and Gloucestershire Police.

Fact claims that tv-links.co.uk was providing links to illegal film content that had been camcorder recorded from cinemas and then uploaded to the internet. The site also provided links to TV shows that were being illegally distributed.

Visitors to the site could get access to major feature films, sometimes within days of their initial cinema release. Recent links took users to illegal versions of the Disney/Pixar animation sensation Ratatouille as well as to most of this summer's blockbusters.

"Sites such as TV Links contribute to and profit from copyright infringement by identifying, posting, organising, and indexing links to infringing content found on the internet that users can then view on demand by visiting these illegal sites," said a spokesman for Fact.

The group's director general Kieron Sharp said TV Links was the first major target in a campaign to crackdown on web piracy.

"The theft and distribution of films harms the livelihoods of those working in the UK film industry and in ancillary industries, as well as damaging the economy," he said.

Roger Marles, from Trading Standards said sites such as TV Links allowed people to break UK copyright law.

"The 'users' are potentially evading licence fees, subscription fees to digital services or the cost of purchase or admittance to cinemas to view the films," he added.

The British Video Association estimates that at least £459m was lost to the video, film and TV industries due to piracy in 2006.

http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,2195407,00.html

[longball]

RIP  sad day for internet tv fans

[Louth Exile]

 

[ziggysego]

Guess I'm only one against piracy.

[Louth Exile]

Guess I'm only one against piracy.

Not in favour of the likes of newly released films being pirated (for a start they are normally s*it quality) and this is what must have ultimately lead to the demise of this site. You don't go ripping off pixar/disney and get away with it. I used it for watching and sometimes downloading old episodes of Malcolm in the Middle, Family Guy, Simpsons & Scrubs. Or for catching up/watching ahead on Heroes and personally don't feel like I was doing anything wrong here

[The Real Laoislad]

Very good site and I watched all the Prison Break and Heroes episodes on it..But there is loads of other similar sites

[Smokin Joe]

Very good site and I watched all the Prison Break and Heroes episodes on it..But there is loads of other similar sites

I don't use torrents.  I use Emule and over the past few months all the sites that I used to get links from have been shut down as well.

Soon there will be no similar sites remaining, IMO..............

[Square Ball]

the Simpsons 

[Bensars]

not to worry.

www.shows4me.com

[clarshack]

Guess I'm only one against piracy.

I used it for watching and sometimes downloading old episodes of Malcolm in the Middle, Family Guy, Simpsons & Scrubs. Or for catching up/watching ahead on Heroes and personally don't feel like I was doing anything wrong here

But the big studios do think you are doing wrong as they would rather you catch up by buying the DVD boxsets of scrubs, heroes etc. personally i think its ok to download tv shows but not newly released films.

[doofus]

I loved this website for catching up with murder she wrote.