What.cd is closed

A few hours ago it became known that what.cd , the largest indoor music BitTorrent tracker, had closed. Apparently, this is for a long time, most likely - forever.

A message on the main page indicates that all user information has been destroyed. At the same time, “recent events” are mentioned without further explanation.

On what.cd on Twitter, the information was confirmed, but the details are still not enough. What.cd has denied the hijacking version of the database.

However, there is no particular secret. Wikipedia already has a message saying that police arrested an OVH server in France yesterday.

On November 17, 2016, 12 servers were seized from OVH in the north of France. [4] [16] Shortly afterwards, the site announced their closure on both the index page and Twitter, saying "Due to some recent events, What.CD is shutting down.

History and significant events

For the first time I learned about this tracker from the then-paper "Computerra" ( online version here ). It is written interestingly, I recommend it for reading.

What.cd opened in October 2007, the closing day of the famous audiophile torrent tracker Oink . Immediately “refugees” began to flock there from the closed OINK. The user base, the number of torrents and the volume of traffic grew rapidly and already in 2010 there were more than a million torrents on the site. For closed BitTorrent trackers, this was a record .

A distinctive feature of what.cd was its exceptional demand for rip quality. Much attention was paid to ensure that users upload audio files to the so-called. lossless formats flac, without loss of quality of the original recording. There were detailed instructions on how to achieve high quality rips. To do this, it was recommended to use the EAC program and upload cue log files so that other users could see possible write errors.

The site could be accessed only by invite. Outsiders could earn an invite based on the results of the interview on the team’s IRC channel. Invites to what.cd were quite rare and very popular among audiophiles.

In 2009, what.cd leaked COFEE from Microsoft , which I wrote in hot pursuit then. Soon, the administrators, frightened, closed the distribution, but the program was already distributed on the network. However, as far as I remember, there was nothing sensational or valuable in it.

The site did not live easily, their DDoS or in every possible way tried to block the oxygen of financial income. All methods of payment, sponsorship were harassed by the IFPI .

We do occasionally have legal issues. Our main problem lately has been with donation processing services - every time we get a new method of accepting donations, the IFPI is very fast to send threatening emails to the service and cut off our revenue stream. It's very difficult to find a payment processing service which will offer us the privacy and protection we need.

Another Pyrrhic victory of the oligopoly of large copyright holders. Is this a final victory? I don’t think so. Knowing something about computer networks and tcp / ip, I am convinced that any attempts to block digital content are absolutely useless if there is a critical mass of users who are resisting.

Astalavista what.cd, we will remember your insolence, refinement and perfectionism.