MPAA turn off BitTorrent's tap

Napster transformed music piracy into a nonchalant, mainstream pastime, and was subsequently snubbed out by the RIAA. Half a decade later, BitTorrent impelled a parallel shift in the habits of the movie-watching public, making this more challenging form of piracy free-and-easy, even for consummate technophobes. This time it's the MPAA putting the boot in, and it's the tracking servers and link sites getting it in the neck rather than the client developers.

Over the last week or so the MPAA lowered the final curtain on a handful of thriving BitTorrent auxiliary sites, including the mighty Youceff Torrents. Not wanting to become embroiled in the maelstrom of judicial ping-pong, the administrators of other flourishing link communities decided to call it a day.

Suprnova.org's departure will hit the BitTorrent community the hardest, it being the undisputed torchbearer in its field. All that remains of the site at present is a farewell message and the promise that the associated forum and IRC channel could possibly-maybe remain operational, minus the naughty links. It is believed that one bystander who witnessed the lights at the SuprNova HQ being switched off for the last time ever commented, "darn".