While this doesn’t spare the users from legal threats, they relieve websites hosting the links of some legal threat since they no longer need to store torrent files on their servers. These are different from torrent links in that their associated files are not connected to any specific website, rather, they connect users directly. One of the leading websites for illegal downloads, The Pirate Bay, recently did away with torrent files altogether, and has moved to magnet links. Similar sites were warned to close down or be next, according to TorrentFreak. Last month, the private BitTorrent website Swedpiracy.nu was taken offline, and its operators are being taken to court. But these sites have been unable to escape. Some users ran to private torrent networks-places where they could exchange files with other users with slightly less paranoia. After the arrest of Kim Dotcom, others were trying to weed out illegal content from their servers. Last month, RapidShare slowed its download speeds to drive away pirates, according to TorrentFreak, one of the leading (albeit one-sided) sources on file sharing news. Thus, the shutdown of Megaupload came as a shock, and similar websites have been scrambling to free themselves of illegal content to avoid the same fate. People downloading the content would then use other software to compile the various files into their complete form. They would get the download links from third-party websites listing the name of the movie or software and giving the download link for each part. One trait of these services is they often have limited file sizes, so digital pirates were uploading movies, software, and other content in various parts. It seemed unlikely they would be targeted, since the websites often host both legal and illegal content, and have paid subscribers using their services to store and transfer private files. Many users were calling file download websites-such as Megaupload and RapidShare-the next stage of piracy. These cases have brought a cloud a paranoia over the community, and digital pirates already began searching for alternatives years back. Hundreds of thousands of other users have been taken to court and slapped with smaller fines, typically around $2,000. A Boston federal jury ordered him to pay $675,000 in 2009, but this was reduced in 2010 to $150,000. He was facing a $4.5 million fine for downloading and distributing 30 songs through the KaZaA peer-to-peer network. Joel Tenenbaum was among those hit hardest. The amounts being talked about aren’t just the $12 or $30 you may pay for a movie, either. The problem with torrents-from the pirate perspective-is they expose the user’s IP address and companies who own rights to the content have regularly tracked the location of file sharers and sued them for the downloads. These work through websites like The Pirate Bay where users can download torrent trackers and collectively download the selected content from each other. The end of file sharing through torrents has been a long time coming. It was a surprise not just because of the large crackdown on illegal downloads, but also because download services like Megaupload were viewed as the next stage of digital piracy-the castle they would all flee to once peer-to-peer torrents went down. The arrest of Kim Dotcom and the shutdown of his Megaupload empire came as a serious wake-up call to the file sharing community.
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