TV LINKS was Shut Down by MPAA
TVLINKS - an awesome link site was shut down by MPAA and forced to relocate to a server in Netherlands. From their website:
TVLINKS has been forced to switch data center’s from MPAA threats. Now we need your help. Please consider donating. Apparently it is now illegal to link to a website that displays illegal content. But what about the sites that are actually housing the video uploads? Oh wait, they’re owned by Google, and sites like YouTube have already paid off the MPAA to turn their head.
Yep, their crime was to linking to copyrighted material hosted on YouTube, Google Video and similar websites. Seriously - all the copyright owners need to do is go to straight to the source and send them a DMCA lawyergram. Hell, this is easier than dealing with torrent sites because each of this videos is hosted by a corporate entity! But I guess it is just easier to bully the little guy.
I really liked this website because it allowed me to catch up on Scrubs episodes that I missed (yeah, ever since Comedy Central started airing it I have been addicted to it!) and allowed me to check out different anime series. Instead of downloading a whole season via torrent, I could just watch a single episode to see if I liked it. TVLINKS was nice because it would organize the listings by show and season and tag the links with the correct titles and episode numbers. It was much more convenient than searching the video sites and trying to find the episode you need. Meh…
Go donate if you can. I hope they will be back online soon.
Apparently there are two existing mirrors of that site:
http://tvlinks.50webs.org/ and
http://www.tv-links.co.uk
There is some shady stuff going on with their host apparently. Don’t donate. See the comments for details.
Matt found another mirror/copycat site here. I have to admit that I’m totally confused by this whole situation now. Anyone knows what is the deal with all of these sites?
Related Posts:
November 24th, 2006 at 4:17 am (1742) [Quote]
Hi I run the tv-links.co.uk mirror the main servers was only take off line, Please DO NOT DONATE!!! the current host from what we can see if trying to exploit the normal user
see http://tvlinks.50webs.org/ for details
and www.tv-links.co.uk for show
Sin
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 11:28 am (1743) [Quote]
I thought they relocated once before! Well, now that they’re moving to the Netherlands, does this mean we get it back? In the meantime, you could always use peekvid though.
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 12:51 pm (1744) [Quote]
aww crud, I liked that site (although Dailymotion itself is the greatest and all link sites be mere cataloguers
)
But that was definitely one of the better links sites (luckily I copied all the Scrubs links to a document on my pc, being similarly addicted, and the South Park, Family Guy, Futurama and Simpsons links I got from Dailyepisodes.com after the guy had decided to stop running the site but before it was actually taken down - he put an sql database up for download)
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 3:38 pm (1746) [Quote]
Thanks for the info Sin! I updated the post to reflect your comments.
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 3:50 pm (1747) [Quote]
hmm.. I forgot just how many shows are linked to from tv-links
)
Posted usingaccordingly I’d like to update what I said earlier to include an appropriate amount of praise for tv-links (long may it live
November 24th, 2006 at 4:56 pm (1748) [Quote]
http://www.yourtvlinks.com/
@sin, is that one of yours as well? It appears to have the same links, theyre arranged into the same columns (shows, cartoons, animé) but the rest of the design is kinda different
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 7:48 pm (1749) [Quote]
Matt - that’s a good find. I’m totally confused now as to which website is the original, which ones are mirrors, and whatnot.
Sin, could you give us the scoop here? What is the deal with these TV sites? Are you guys just mirroring each other for redundancy, or what?
Matt - you got the Scrubs addiction too? Heh… Few of us over here started watching it lately and we all are loving it.
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 8:06 pm (1750) [Quote]
hehe.. Scrubs appeals to the surreal side of my sense of humour, the janitor is the best on that score - very weird but very funny
I seem to be increasingly able to feed TV addictions through the computer, which makes things much easier because on the internet things dont have to run to a schedule
South Park I download, same for Family Guy, Futurama I recently watched all the ones I hadn’t seen on TV via Dailymotion. The Simpsons, I did the same - saw all the ones I’ve missed, but for the new ones I either need to find a good streaming site (Dailymotion appears to be suffering from a case of the copyright nasties) or download from various sources
hehe.. anything is available on the net if you look hard enough
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 8:22 pm (1751) [Quote]
Janitor rules! Btw, I don’t think anyone in that hospital even knows his name.
I get my Familly Guy and Futurama fix from Adult Swim. It’s the adult cartoon block that airs from 10pm till dawn on Cartoon Network. They show So every night they show at least 1 Futurama, and 1 Familly Guy episode.
Heh… If you give me a quote, or a frame from one of those shows I will probably be able to tell you which episode it was from.
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 8:28 pm (1752) [Quote]
hmm.. sounds like a challenge to me, now I must think of a fiendishly difficult quote that shall never be identified, eveeeer!!! mwoahahahaha!
I can do a similar thing with South Park - I can pin down most (memorable) quotes to the episode it was in, in some cases also the person or what was going on at the time
Posted usingNovember 24th, 2006 at 8:35 pm (1753) [Quote]
I should be able to do that with South Park too. In fact South Park/Futurama/Familly Guy references entered the common language for me and my brother.
Posted usingNovember 26th, 2006 at 11:28 pm (1780) [Quote]
Hello all! Anyone know of any live US TV websites for watching live football games, tv shows, etc?
Posted usingNovember 26th, 2006 at 11:36 pm (1781) [Quote]
Maximo, check out TVU - I think you might get ESPN on that. I was able to get Comedy Central, HBO, Cartoon Network and etc..
Posted usingFebruary 10th, 2007 at 3:09 pm (2904) [Quote]
Thanks for the info! There also another site that has some of their links:
Posted usinghttp://www.movchannel.com
February 10th, 2007 at 4:02 pm (2907) [Quote]
Thanks!
Btw, the uk version seems to be working fine so far:
http://www.tv-links.co.uk/
Posted usingFebruary 10th, 2007 at 5:42 pm (2911) [Quote]
@ Luke, sorry for the slow reply :S the current TV streaming news,
1, FOX have send alluc a legal threat
“I have been receiving mail from several lawyers lately…
FOX , Paramount pictures have threatened us to start lawsuits against us.
After some discussions with my lawyer we decided that we have to take down links to content owned by these companies.
” read more at there site.
This has caused alluc to remove the following shows, oh speaking with Fink I’ve also decided to removed the listed show (well for the time being anyway)
24 Hours
American Dad
Angel
Arrested Development
Bones
Borat
Braveheart
Buffy the Vampire Slayer
Cheaper By the Dozen
Dark Angel
Eragon
Family Guy
Firefly
Futurama
Garfield A Tail of Two Kitties
Girls Next Door ( playboy mansion )
How I Met Your Mother
Ice Age The Meltdown
John Tucker Must Die
Like Mike 2
My Name is Earl
Night at the Museum
Office Space
Phone Booth
Prison Break
Super Trooper
The Hills Have Eyes
The Omen
The Ringer
The Simpsons
The X Files
Titanic
Walk The Line
WKRP in Cincinnati
X-Men
X-Men The Last Stand
2, Lots and Lots of mirrors or copy cats sites have sprung up, to be honest I’m not bothered, more distribution means it’ll be harder to close down.
3, TV Links will be re-launching our website. New features, but still keeping in mind the usability, non of the 6 clicks to get an episode.
4. Peekvid are re-designing there site.
I think there is more news but I can’t remember, if to comes back to me I’ll post here.
Thanks
Sin – Tv-links.co.uk
Posted usingMarch 3rd, 2007 at 6:22 am (3186) [Quote]
Ok, I hate this. Wtf are they shutting down thewse sites for? Damn, most of these shows probably never air in my country, and won’t be on DVD either. So should I just forget about them?? And my connection is too slow for dl full torrents etc. If the shut all of these sites, I’ll still NEVER buy ANY of their stupid DVDs!! GRRR!
Posted usingApril 9th, 2007 at 2:39 am (3985) [Quote]
Movies Directories are full of deadlinlks, i prefer http://www.vidjay.com/ vidjay.com
Posted usingApril 9th, 2007 at 4:36 pm (4015) [Quote]
Hmm… I don’t exactly see what vidjay really does. It seems to provide search links for various services such as video sites, torrent sites and etc. Doesn’t seem very usefull yet - it does the same thing as me searching for the movie separately on each webiste.
And it requires almost as many clicks to do it. Now if it pulled and aggregated the data internally somehow and presented me with digest it could be worth while.
Posted usingApril 21st, 2007 at 2:31 am (4209) [Quote]
So, anyone have an update on what’s going on with tv-links.co.uk and assorted mirrors?
Posted usingJune 4th, 2007 at 2:11 pm (4671) [Quote]
As of just the other day forum.tv-links.co.uk is officially down: A) for some unknown reason, B) for some unknown reason, c) for maintenance, or d) Raided by MPAA or some other butt pirate organization.
I’m pinging the server now, and running some diagnostics to see if I can contact the forums, but I don’t know whats going.
Posted usingJune 4th, 2007 at 5:46 pm (4674) [Quote]
Hmmm the site and the mirrors mentioned before are down… i havent tried the forums but im guessing thats gone to…
Posted usingJune 4th, 2007 at 6:12 pm (4677) [Quote]
Yea its really lame that they are down right now, I keep checking but it seems grim… I tried pinging them eariler to no avail. Just stay hopefull that it will be back
Posted usingJune 4th, 2007 at 8:56 pm (4678) [Quote]
I just checked and http://forums.tv-links.co.uk/ seems to be up and running. At least for me. Whatever was going on, it was not permanent.
Posted usingJune 6th, 2007 at 9:25 am (4703) [Quote]
Hi All,
We had dns and server problems all happened on the same day!! That’ll teach me for having a weeks holiday
All sort now
Thanks
Posted usingSin [Tv-links]
June 6th, 2007 at 9:46 am (4704) [Quote]
Murphy’s law - it never fails. In my experience most server problems occur 20 minutes after I leave work on Friday, especially on a weeks when I take the Monday off.
Posted usingJune 29th, 2007 at 10:26 am (4996) [Quote]
[…] TVLinks vs. MPAA – TVLinks relocated after it was threatened by the MPAA […]
Posted usingJuly 5th, 2007 at 9:25 am (5084) [Quote]
If TV Links goes down, the next to be nailed by the MPAA will be FanPop.com. Although the site is for TV and movie fans of any kind, it does have a specific directory of links pointing to copyrighted contents and another one that regroups embedded movies. Anyway, there also are two great blogs: www.jonhs.net/freemovies and venividi.blogsome.com.
I don’t think the MPAA could find a way to get around this new big problem, except trying to find another business model.
Posted usingJuly 5th, 2007 at 11:01 am (5091) [Quote]
Nado said:
Agreed. Especially since going after link aggregation site is a horrible waste of resources. They would be much better off going against dailymotion and all these places where the videos are hosted. But I guess they can’t do that because those sites always comply with DMCA claims and take down infringing content when asked…
Posted usingJuly 6th, 2007 at 6:57 pm (5108) [Quote]
Maybe they can. After all, YouTube, DailyMotion, Veoh and probably several others clearly say users grant them the right to use their uploaded materials to whatever they want. Video share community take down copyrighted videos, but as they’re the owner and the ruler, they need to take identify the illegal content by themselves. And the problem is that many illegal videos aren’t easy to spot.
Besides this, there’s another problem to rule. How long a video needs to be before turn into an “illegal” uploaded content? Many trailers are 3-minute long. But if you break a 150-minute regular movie into 50 smaller video samples, link aggregators can sum them all and the whole movie still remains available.
Posted usingJuly 12th, 2007 at 2:40 am (5174) [Quote]
Man what a joke! Don’t know what the deal is with this YouTVpc site is all about but Peekvid
doesn’t install any software at all that I have seen. Not to mention it only provides links to sites like YouTube who HOST the content so where does the MPAA get off attacking some site just listing links ??? Why not hit at the heart of the matter and go after the sites that allow uploads of this “illegal” content rather than some little linking site who’s only profit is from advertising not through sales or subscriptions even to their site?
If the content was UPLOADED and STORED on YouTube and other same type sites isn’t that where the attack should be directed? Sounds to me like they have a big problem but are scared to go after the real criminals, the people who UPLOAD and or STORE that content on their servers! It’s like they want to kill the birds
because they didn’t eat enough bugs to keep their garden pest free if you ask me…
Just a little more than slightly moronic in my opinion. I have links to other sites on the net
and I’d be pretty upset if one of those sites wasn’t right, but to hold me liable for something they have would really tick me off and I’d be suing for anything and everything I could get even if it was a loosing battle on my end just to make this point, “You don’t kill the messenger for bringing you bad news”!
Find the actual source and rip out the heart of the problem and leave the people just trying to make a living alone! If linking is a crime then we’re all in big trouble out here on the net.
I can’t ever remember being on any site that doesn’t have outside and 3rd party links to go to and I can’t hold those sites liable for the content on the links sites outside theirs, how would that be possible? I have been to a lot of sites that tried to stick me with viruses, trojans, worms, bad scripts, oh heck an endless list of problems out here attacking me but I never held a site responsible unless they purposely sent me to that bad link like PCH did once to a site that tried to breach my browser security, I complained and they ditched that advertising company almost immediately!
Maybe the MPAA should rethink what it’s doing before making it’s self look pretty damn stupid!
Peace Out!
Posted usingSR386
July 12th, 2007 at 3:31 pm (5178) [Quote]
Doesn’t matter if the movie is hosted on YouTube or in China. The real question here is : Is it illegal to hotlink to some copyrighted materials? And I guess the MPAA will be using this flaw to attack Peekvid.
Posted usingJuly 12th, 2007 at 3:44 pm (5180) [Quote]
Nado said:
I don’t think it’s illegal. But it is certainly in the gray area where you may or may not get in trouble. It really depends on how good your lawyer is, and how well the judge understands the internet, and technology in general.
Posted usingJuly 13th, 2007 at 3:34 am (5190) [Quote]
Luke, I agree. For me too, it’s not illegal and it shouldn’t be. Million bloggers hotlink to each other. Even newspapers use it. But the court has to rule on how far Peekvid intends to lead its visitors to online piracy by hotlinking to those resources. And as a matter of fact, they’ve built the Keepvid service for everyone to download flash-based videos. Both sites are not clearly linked, but it’s easy to check they’re made by the same company.
Posted usingJuly 13th, 2007 at 3:10 pm (5204) [Quote]
keepvid is NOT owned by the same person as Peekvid!
Posted usingI know the OWNER of Peekvid!
Opps someone got some misinformation….
July 14th, 2007 at 4:51 am (5218) [Quote]
OK. Funny one.
Posted usingJuly 25th, 2007 at 5:17 pm (5423) [Quote]
I’m SICK of hearing about lawsuit after lawsuit filed by the MPAA…friggin’ bureaucrats trying to take yet another dollar from my paycheck. “If you don’t pay for cable, and sit through all their commercials, or pay to rent or buy a DVD, you’re not allowed to watch this. SCREW YOU! Try and stop me! Shut down all the sites! But you should have learned from the Napster war: we will ALWAYS find a way! Get with the program, MPAA! We aren’t interested in giving you any more money! Before the Net was born, information was free. Going to the movies was maybe ten bucks, and you could rent movies for three. Now, the rental is ten, and, in some theaters, you have to pay $30 just to get in the door! Guess what? Information is still free, and the Net is the provider. Send me a threat, Mister MPAA, and watch me laugh my @$$ off at you, copyright 2007 by Hard2Find!
Posted usingJuly 28th, 2007 at 5:38 pm (5459) [Quote]
hey hard2find what kind of method do you use to keep yourself in a low radar… and what website do you own? mines www.boxsweeper.com
Posted usingJuly 28th, 2007 at 6:34 pm (5460) [Quote]
hard2find, I wouldn’t bother that site will be down in a day or two! Trust me!!
Posted usingAugust 11th, 2007 at 5:55 pm (5601) [Quote]
Speaking of lawsuits, I am the owner of moviethis.com and here is what i got from the lawyers representing the MPAA. I took down all my streaming movie links and entire content section of movies.
http://www.moviethis.com/v2/e107_plugins/forum/forum_viewtopic.php?977 .0
Posted usingAugust 11th, 2007 at 7:03 pm (5603) [Quote]
Scissorman, Sorry to see another sites been hit, I heard about your problems a few days ago, also Alluc was slapped with the same earlier this week if I remember. Personally I’d move your site off US soil, it’s asking for trouble and knowing godaddy they’ll close you down! I’d also move away from godaddy I’ve heard stories of them suspending domains and not allowing transfer.
When it comes to the Law, I’ve no idea what country you’re in, as you already know the law changes from country to country. Interestingly the MPAA letter doesn’t actually state what section of the copyrights law you are in violation off!
If you need any help feel free to send me a mail
Sin
Posted usingAugust 11th, 2007 at 7:08 pm (5604) [Quote]
Wow, this sucks. I fucking hate DMCA. But as Sin said, I wonder how much legal weight is behind this letter. They don’t specify the exact paragraph of the law - they just throw around general threats.
Posted usingAugust 16th, 2007 at 10:46 am (5702) [Quote]
I just found another mirror: http://www.movies-on-demand.tv
Hope, you guys like it, I think its a new site so give it a while and the movies will start flowing like tvlinks. I think they are also moving their servers to Netherlands.
Posted usingAugust 18th, 2007 at 10:35 am (5778) [Quote]
NSR hosts many FTW sites, take a look
Posted usinghttp://nosubscriptionrequired.blogspot.com/
September 5th, 2007 at 4:36 am (6056) [Quote]
This is another alternative. http://online-tv-dramas.blogspot.com
Posted usingSeptember 18th, 2007 at 11:16 pm (6231) [Quote]
found something similar - http://www.moviesdesk.com
is this also owned by tv-links?
Posted usingSeptember 19th, 2007 at 1:02 am (6235) [Quote]
You can find the Top 25 sites like TVlinks here;
Posted usinghttp://blog.buttermouth.com/2007/08/buttermouth-top-25-sites-like-tvli nks.html
September 20th, 2007 at 2:45 am (6242) [Quote]
so if i were thinking about starting one of these sites, what host should i use?
and when they say move your site out of the us, it just means the host, not where the person lives, right?
Posted usingSeptember 20th, 2007 at 10:18 am (6245) [Quote]
Well, definitely not a US based one. It’s really hard to pick since every country in the world seems to be eager to kiss MPAA’s ass. Sweden perhaps? PriateBay had a pretty good luck so far if you don’t count the illegal raid, and unlawful seizure of property by the authorities some time ago.
Meh… Maybe fucking Sealand: http://www.havenco.com/. They can actually sell you hosting plans directly from Sealandweb.com
Posted usingOctober 20th, 2007 at 9:53 am (6610) [Quote]
www.tweekerville.com
^^Scrubs
www.mafiacoders.com
Posted using^^Gaming/Coding/Hacking
October 20th, 2007 at 4:11 pm (6611) [Quote]
TV links is dead. Long live all the other sites like it.
Posted usingOctober 20th, 2007 at 4:25 pm (6612) [Quote]
[…] If any of you guys thought that UK had a copyright law that is any less retarded than ours, think again. Apparently, over there you