Two Popular French Trackers Shut Down: Two More Open

October 21, 2009 by sharky

Hot on the heels of Guiks.net who pulled the plug on themselves - likely forcibly due to legal pressure from French authorities (at least the military wasn’t involved this time), two other popular French private trackers have now followed suit. Reload-Paradise and sister site HDParadise are also now fini - but the good news is they’ve already announced two new replacement trackers, both of which could be up as early as today.

It seems that France doesn’t want to play nice with torrent trackers anymore. But we didn’t need to tell that to their posthumous #1 tracker SnowTigers who were apparently raided in Gestapo-esque style by the French military back in June. Next up was the successful Guiks who "closed" on Oct. 12th, and finally Reload-Paradise and HDParadise who willingly shut down their trackers on or around Oct. 19th.

Here’s a snippet from both RP & HDP (some of it Google-translated, some Sharky-translated):

The death of a Tracker always gives rise to something better

 

Thus the closure of RP / HDP should be interpreted.

 

Since the beginning of the short history of P2P, the conclusion is: the impossibility of control by the authorities. One site closes and three others open, a technology is being undermined, another one more powerful and secure appears. Thus, although the current trend in French P2P is a reduction of sharing sites, do not think it’s the end for all.

 

Behind RP and HDP two new trackers will see the day, I am convinced that, will do their utmost to ensure the sharing of French content in large numbers. Rest assured like Reload and HDP, that if these sites were to close one day in their turn, others will resume back and so on.

 

It appears that nothing can be done to stop sharing, HADOPI or not, or any other Act of lobbyists and corrupt politicians with money and power…

While it’s not officially known if there’s a direct connection to Guiks, Reload-Paradise and HDParadise, however the timing of each closure would suggest so. In their epitach both RP & HDP refer to HADOPI; France’s new anti-p2p legislation that’s said to be the toughest in the world. And Guiks left a not-so-subtle message linking to Parti Pirate on their website, which definitely suggests foul play - or at least coercion - in relation to all three sites. Both RP and HDP are hosted by Globotech, and Guiks on Leaseweb.

Two New Trackers Opening Soon

At least some French trackers are finding greener pastures elsewhere, having taken a page from the Swedes whose trackers have rebounded nicely. Look for Reload-Paradise’s replacement at http://www.play-the.net and HDParadise’s at http://www.hd-life.net.

Both Play-The.net and HD-Life.net are slated to be launched on October 21st, although this is subject to change. Look for both sites to start off with a membership limit high enough to accommodate all prior members respectively on each, and registration to both will be freely available to anyone who wants to sign up.

Archived by FSFmirror