Yify / yts shuts down forever

YIFY/ YTS SHUTS DOWN FOREVER – THE END OF A PIRACY ICON

Popular torrent release group YIFY and its official YTS website have shut down permanently, trusted sources have confirmed to TorrentFreak. The unexpected shutdown marks the end of an era that started at the turn of the decade. More information about the precise circumstances will become public in the near future.

Ten days ago the popular movie torrent site YTS stopped working.

The downtime raised concern among many BitTorrent users, not least because the site belongs to movie release group YIFY, which has dominated public BitTorrent sites for several years.

Today we can report that this reign has come to an end. YIFY and YTS have shutdown permanently, as predicted earlier this week.

A lot of information has been made available over the past several days and multiple sources have now confirmed that YTS and YIFY will not return. The entire operation has stopped which means that no new official YIFY movie releases will appear on any torrent site, anywhere.

TF has received additional explanatory details from trusted sources, but we have been asked not to reveal all of the information just yet. However, our sources confirm without doubt that the shutdown is permanent.

The operator of YTS/YIFY, meanwhile, remains silent.

The news marks the end of a remarkable era. YIFY first arrived on the scene in 2010 and the group has shared over 6,000 releases since.

The group’s website (YTS.to) also gained popularity in recent years. Earlier this year the operator informed TF that they had close to a million unique visitors per day, generating six million pageviews.

The YTS/YIFY shutdown doesn’t mean that piracy will end anytime soon, but it’s one of the most significant changes to the landscape in recent history. YIFY releases were consistently among the most-pirated movies, week after week.

In an interview in 2013, YIFY attributed this popularity to the presentation and consistency of its releases.

“I personally think that many people are following and downloading YIFY encodes due to the consistency we offer in our releasing. Everything from the consistent film cover art, to the information layout, and ultimately to the file-size of our encodes,” YIFY said.

“I believe this is important because people like stability and assurance with what they are downloading. By adding consistency to a reasonable file-size, we have filled a spot in the community, which seemingly has a lot of demand,” he added.

YIFY also played a crucial part as the primary movie supplier for many Popcorn Time forks. The size of the shutdown fallout will become apparent during the weeks to come.

Over the past several days many people have been misled by fake YIFY websites, Facebook accounts and impostors. These should not be trusted and are trying to profit from the confusion.

To be continued.

Quote from Honcho

will have to go see if the yifi page is gone on xbmc/kodi
hope there not dead like maven after his jail sentence :(

OMG, someone else remembers Maven :thumb:

FOUND A NEW YTS / YIFY SITE? IT’S A FAKE
BY ANDY ON NOVEMBER 4, 2015

The TorrentFreak inbox is bursting with news that YTS and YIFY are making a comeback. Granted, the sites we're being linked to look like the real deal but they are fakes, every single one of them. Even the people who carried out a hostile takeover of EZTV are getting in on the act with their own replica. Gotta grab that traffic!

fakeDespite concerns from BitTorrent elitists that the site was a cesspit of poor quality rips, YTS was one of the world’s most popular torrent indexes for a reason.

Simple to find, publicly accessible, nice to look at and bulging with movies, YTS carried thousands of the world’s most popular titles in an easily digestible, convenient format.

Previously the home of YIFY rips, YTS is no more. The site was shuttered by a multi-million dollar lawsuit filed in a New Zealand court by the MPAA and it won’t ever be coming back.

However, considering the number of tips received at TF this morning you’d think nothing was wrong. Email after email has declared that “YTS is back!!” and in fighting form too.

But to the disappointment of all YTS and YIFY fans, the above site is a fake. It’s located at yts.ag and it’s being promoted by the same people who carried out a hostile takeover of EZTV earlier this year.

However, as pointed out by a TF reader, the site does indeed index some old YIFY rips. That may be, but in the same way that EZTV no longer carries genuine EZTV releases, YTS.ag won’t have new ‘genuine’ YIFY rips either, since YIFY is no longer in business.

It’s a blatant attempt to cash in on the void left by the demise of YTS and rest assured it won’t be the last. If they aren’t already appearing, torrent sites will soon be flooded with fake torrents claiming to be from YIFY. They won’t be, guaranteed.

Of course, there’s a certain irony in declaring a clone site as a bad player on the basis that it’s pirating another pirate site’s image. But, nevertheless, if a site can’t make it on its own merits and is prepared to mislead now, who’s to say what other tactics it will employ when it has a nice unsuspecting userbase on board.

Copying is the name of the game, no doubt, but being upfront about it is probably a better long-term strategy.

BIG UPDATE...

YTS / YIFY SIGNS UNPRECEDENTED SETTLEMENT WITH MPAA
BY ERNESTO ON NOVEMBER 5, 2015 C: 6
BREAKING
For several years YTS/YIFY has been one of Hollywood's biggest arch-rivals but both sides came to an unprecedented agreement in recent weeks. Instead of going to trial over the alleged widespread piracy facilitated by the site, the MPAA signed a deal with its operator, ending a multi-million dollar lawsuit before it really got started.

YTSThis week the MPAA ended the mystery surrounding the unexpected shutdown of the torrent site YTS.to and its associated release group YIFY.

While the announcement answered a lot of questions it also raises a few more.

The alleged mastermind behind the operation, a New Zealand citizen, was facing a multi-million dollar lawsuit. However, the dispute was already settled before the case got properly underway.

Sources have informed TorrentFreak that the operator and the movie studios reached a private agreement. It’s unclear what the terms are but judging from previous deals it’s likely to involve a damages payment as well as some type of information sharing

The news of a quick resolution is corroborated by local MPAA representatives who informed the NZ Herald that the case against the YTS/YIFY operator was settled out of court.

To many this deal comes as a surprise, as the MPAA previously preferred to send a strong and deterring message. In this case, however, other factors may have weighed stronger.

It could be that the operator has very valuable information to trade. It’s also possible that the MPAA wanted to avoid another piracy case besides Megaupload in New Zealand. Or they might simply want to settle the case without incurring large legal fees.

Whatever the case, the settlement is unprecedented when compared to other MPAA cases that dragged on for years, including the ones against isoHunt, Hotfile and TorrentSpy.

It also stands in sharp contrast to the criminal referrals the MPAA made against Megaupload, NinjaVideo and the IMAGiNE release group.

Since YTS/YIFY was both a release group and a major torrent site, it was certainly just as big of a target as the aforementioned, if not bigger.

TF contacted the MPAA for information on the decision to settle as well as further details on the agreement. The movie group said it couldn’t comment.

Thus far the YTS operator has remained silent. Perhaps we’ll hear the true story from him one day a few years from now…

YTS REACHES MPAA DEAL BUT DOTCOM FACES DECADES IN JAIL?
BY ANDY ON NOVEMBER 8, 2015

How does YTS, one of the most organized and notorious public torrent sites, strike a deal with Hollywood despite being listed as a notorious market by the U.S. government? We're all curious to know more, but spare a thought for Kim Dotcom. He's in the same country as the YTS operator but faces decades behind bars.

After reporting on thousands of file-sharing related stories around the globe for almost ten years, the folks here at TF have a ‘feel’ for how certain scenarios play out. With that in mind, something doesn’t feel right with the ongoing drama involving YTS / YIFY.

When sites as big as YTS get taken down by the MPAA, RIAA, or their partners around the world, these organizations usually order their PR departments to repeatedly bash the big button marked “CONGRATULATIONS TO US”. Yet for weeks following the YTS shut down there was complete silence.

Details of the multi-million dollar lawsuit supposedly filed in New Zealand are nowhere to be found either. And if one was expecting the usual “Shut down by ICE/FBI/DELTA FORCE” banner to appear on YTS.to instead of the usual YIFY movie rips, then there’s only disappointment there too.

Ok, the MPAA have this week admitted they’re behind the shutdown, but the way it’s being handled is extremely puzzling. The announcement from MPAA chief Chris Dodd was muted to say the least and the somewhat compulsory gloating at having taken down one of the world’s most important piracy sites is almost non-existent.

This is odd for a number of reasons, not least when one considers the nature and scale of the operation. YIFY / YTS released as many as five thousand copies of mainstream movies onto the Internet. Between them they were shared dozens of millions of times, at least. Over the past decade those kinds of numbers – and a lot less – have seen people jailed for up to five years in the United States and elsewhere.

Yet according to credible sources the operator of YTS – a 21-year-old who for unknown reasons isn’t even being named – has already settled his beef with the MPAA. This, despite running a site that has been repeatedly listed as a worldwide notorious market in the USTR’s Special 301 Report.

Of course, the operator of YTS isn’t in the United States, he’s in New Zealand, but geographical boundaries are rarely an issue for Hollywood. Take the drama surrounding Kim Dotcom and his former site Megaupload, for example.

Like the operator of YTS, Dotcom also lives in New Zealand. Importantly, it’s never been claimed that Dotcom uploaded anything illegal to the Internet (let alone thousands of movies) yet he was subjected to a commando-like raid on his home by dozens of armed police. He’s also facing extradition to the United States where he faces decades in jail.

Now, think of the flamboyant Dotcom what you will. Then feel relieved for the admin of YTS, who by many accounts is a thoroughly nice guy and has somehow managed to save his own skin, despite providing much of the content for global phenomenon Popcorn Time.

But then try to get a handle on how differently these two people are being treated after allegedly committing roughly the same offenses in exactly the same country. One case is still dragging on after almost four years, with tens of millions spent on lawyers and no end in sight. The other was a done deal inside four weeks.

Earlier this week TorrentFreak spoke with Kim Dotcom who told us he’d been following the YTS story in the media. Intrigued, we wanted to know – how does it feel to be raked over the coals for close to four years, have all your property seized, face extradition and decades in jail, while someone just up the road can walk away relatively unscathed from what would’ve been a slam-dunk case for the MPAA?

“It’s a double standard isn’t it?” Dotcom told TF.

“I think our case has chilled law enforcement and Hollywood against pursuing the criminal route in cases such as this. Quick civil settlements seem to be the new way to go.”

Dotcom may well be right and the fact that New Zealand already has a massive headache because of his case may well have been a factor in the decision not to make a huge example of the YTS operator. At the moment no one is talking though, and it’s entirely possible that no one ever will.

That makes a case like this all the more unsettling. Are we witnessing Hollywood’s ability to switch on a massive overseas law enforcement response in one case and then reel in the United States government in another? It’s worth saying again – YTS was a ‘notorious market’ in the eyes of the USTR yet apparently that be dealt with privately these days.

But with all that being said, it is quite possible that the U.S. government has learned lessons from its heavy-handed actions in 2012 and doesn’t want to repeat them again, least of all in New Zealand, a country whose judges must be growing tired of the Dotcom debacle.

“As the DOJ admitted the Megaupload case is a test case. The test isn’t going well for them,” Dotcom concludes.

And for that the guy behind YTS must be thanking his lucky stars.