Posted on July 20th, 2010
A wordpress blogging website known as blogetery.com with a user base of over 70000 blogs was shut off recently by its web hosting provider. The web hosting company in question BurstNet, told Blogetery that its operations were being terminated at the behest of a law enforcement firm but they wouldn’t take any names. The reasons for this sudden termination are also unknown and an email correspondence from BurstNet vaguely pointed out that they were powerless and had to close down the website.
BurstNet was quick to point out in a correspondence “Please note that this was not a typical case in which suspension and notification would be the norm,”. They further added, “This was a critical matter brought to our attention by law enforcement officials. We had to immediately remove the server.”
The higher ups at BurstNet chose to remain tight lipped on this issue.
Although, this issue is still shrouded in mystery, a blog called TorrentFreak that regularly posts about file sharing and other web issues originally brought this news to the forefront and suggested that anti piracy operations by the US Government may be at fault. This might be the case as only three weeks ago some federal law agencies such as the US District Court for New York and the US immigration and Customs which is linked with the department of home land security, held some properties of Web sites that were designated as illegal files transfer and sharing websites. Previously, President Obama too had played tough by saying that the administration is going to get tough with pirates and those involved in counterfeiting.
On Sunday, the ICE denied that they were involved in this current action, although they reiterated that they were committed to stop internet piracy.
The Recording Industry Association of America also jumped into the debate by denying any information of Blogetery’s closing down, meanwhile the motion Picture Association of America altogether denied the existence of Blogetery.
The MPAA and the RIAA may be telling the truth, since they normally throw out warnings before any action takes place, and their previous record with Torrentspy, napster and Isohunt shows that they go through courts before anything takes place. As far as the copyright issue is concerned, BurstNet would have the safeguard of the digital Millennium act if needed, as this is designed to provide safety to the web service providers in case a user is held responsible for any misconduct.
Meanwhile The Blogetery provider insisted that it followed the rules and they always followed the copyright laws. Any links which posed some copyright issues were removed within 24 hours.
But, still there are various lingering questions whose answers are unknown. Had the law enforcement agencies anything to do with this? or if BurstNet was at fault. Still, the reasons are unknown and it doesn’t look like a common case of copyright violation.