MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) on Wednesday, 4 November, confirmed that torrents sites YTS (aka YIFY) and the online media streaming portal Popcorn Time are now officially dead.
The trade body said their 16 October injunction plea in the Canadian court came through this week, enabling them to take down the Popcorn Time website and a similar case registered in New Zealand also bore fruits resulting in the shutdown of YTS.
"By shutting down these illegal commercial enterprises, which operate on a massive global scale, we are protecting not only our members' creative work and the hundreds of innovative, legal digital distribution platforms, but also the millions of people whose jobs depend on a vibrant motion picture and television industry," Agence France-Presse quoted Chris Dodd, MPAA's chairman (& chief executive), as saying.
Soon after the YTS torrents went offline, some fake sites surfaced on the Internet, hoodwinking unsuspecting torrent users.
One such site is yts.ag. Its user interface is strikingly similar to the original YTS site. "The Official Home of YIFY Movie Torrent Downloads- YTS," reads the title of page.
And the green and black hued movie reel with YTS insignia on the site's banner is uncanny [check above].
But, Torrent Freak warns that this site is a fake and the aforementioned page is actually created by the very scammers responsible for the death of another popular media content sharing portal EZTV, earlier this year.
With YTS, EZTV and Time Popcorn sites have permanently been shut down. Here are the eight alternate torrents sites that are still active to help find your favourite media content (courtesy, Torrent Freak).
1. Kickass Torrents
2. Torrentz
3. Extra Torrent
4. The Pirate Bay
5. RARBG
6. ISOHUNT.TO
7. 1337X.to
8. Lime Torrent
