Until recently, Sweden was a popular safe heaven for both public and private BitTorrent trackers. However, the outcome of the recent Piratebay trial and the introduction of the IPRED law seems to have changed this perception. Soon after the Pirate Bay lost in court, several private BitTorrent trackers hosted in Sweden have decided to voluntarily shut down their operations fearing legal action. Some of these sites have entirely closed down while some have shut down only the BitTorrent tracker.
Over 10 Swedish private torrent trackers have so far closed their doors during the few days since TPB verdict was given. Popular trackers such as Swebits, Nordicbits, Swepiracy, ZineBytes, Piratebits, Wolfbits, Swebay, MP3Nerds and even the popular ratio free tracker Seedit are among those that have shut down. Talks of a possible shut down have surrounded the HD torrent tracker SceneHD as well (EDIT: SceneHD is not closing down).
Following message is quoted from Nordicbits homepage:
We have to shut down the site now due all circumstances. We don.t have time to do anything to the code, we don.t have interest to it, we don.t have any more money and the biggest reason is The Pirate Bay info.
We want to say thanks to everyone who made NordicBits possible, users, uploaders, seeder, moderators and administrators.
Hopefully the page will come back online late, but we new design, new information.
Thanks for us and keep the leeching up!
RIP Nordicbits (2005-04-10 - 2009-04-17)
And the following news post can be found on Swepiracy:
Honored members!
Swepiracy is now one of several filesharing sites shutting down the tracker after the conviction of The Pirate Bay. Of course we are all very sad making this decision, but as you can understand, none of us want to risk that much for a non-profit activity that Swepiracy always has been.
The site will remain, but the tracker will for now be closed. Maybe we one day are able to open it again!
We want to thank all faithful members which have been supporting us with donations and making the activity possible.
Yours sincerely Staff
Meanwhile Seedit have released a torrent with all info related to the shutdown (RiP.SeedIT.We.Have.always.been.the.best.of.the.best.Love.love.love.XXX-RIP) . Following is a partial translation of the text included in the torrent:
Today April 20, 2009, we at Seedit.org Down because of piratebay's conviction.
I (Vearstingen) would like to thank all other staff members for a wonderful fun & nice cooperation.
All days and nights we worked hard together to get all our secrets, which eventually dissolved.
Similar messages are posted on several other sites that have shut down/planning to shut down. Some trackers however have completely closed down by now and are not accessible anymore.
This does not mean that Sweden no longer hosts private torrent trackers. Some of the large and well established sites hosted in Sweden such as SweDVDR and RARBG continue to function normally. Ironically, the site involved in the case that triggered mass shutdowns, The Pirate Bay, too is still online.
