One of the best TV and Movie linking sites has been raided and shut down according to the Guardian UK. At time of writing the whole domain was not registering or allowing browser connections. The loss of TV links is going to be a major blow to people who watch TV on the internet, leaving only Stage 6 and a handful of sites that provide direct server to browser watching of streaming content.
The arrest and the closure of the site – www.tv-links.co.uk – came during an operation by officers from Gloucestershire County Council trading standards in conjunction with investigators from Fact and Gloucestershire Police. Fact claims that tv-links.co.uk was providing links to illegal film content that had been camcorder recorded from cinemas and then uploaded to the internet. The site also provided links to TV shows that were being illegally distributed. Source: Guardian UK
There is not much additional information that can be found on the internet about the raid, or the shut down other than this is probably going to be the first in a long series of shutdowns across the streaming media arena.
What makes this interesting is that TV Links really just linked to material that is found on other web sites. It was nothing but links to copyrighted material. This is one of those areas at least in American law that has been both upheld in the matter of deep linking, and not upheld in the matter of a link to a particular web site. In general though this is not a big surprise that a master list of links like this has been raided, but since we do not know UK law, it seems interesting that the web site would be raided as all it provided was links.
In many ways it might be considered an index site, which has proven popular for shutting down regular P2P sites, and was a key in shutting down napster. In the mean time, there are plenty of other sites that provide the same service, that even provide a searchable database of material rather than just a static coded linking system.
TV Links will be a major loss, but not one that is not being addressed by the hundreds of other similar or niche sites that do the same thing. What is interesting though is what will happen to media embedding of content, and how copyright owners will respond to this one.
What are some of these other sites then? I use stage6 a lot, but the uploaders often to not attach the correct names or tags to a video, making in near-impossible to find something you want.
Truly a sad day for streaming TV.
I use alluc.org
OVGuide.com is good
http://212.125.94.181/index.php?showtopic=50347
That will get you onto the forum, follow the instructions. We are trying a few workarounds to get the main site back up, it prob wont last long and if so all links will be cached manually by us until we get up and running again
found a great replacement for tvlinks called http://www.boxsweeper.com
i use boxsweeper.com even better!
this link doesnt work
http://212.125.94.181/index.php?showtopic=50347
That will get you onto the forum, follow the instructions. We are trying a few workarounds to get the main site back up, it prob wont last long and if so all links will be cached manually by us until we get up and running again
Didad thanks for the update, when we posted the answer it did, maybe they took down the forum later on, or it is suffering some technical glitch. thanks much for letting us know that the link looks like it is broken now. TW
veoh
daily motion
there is tons of sites
np admin
i was really sad when they shuted down TV-Links… and angry too…!! kind of mixed emotions, you know..? bummer..!! i think it’s really unfair, we are not pirates..!! Anyway, i found the best replacement http://www.sidereel.com Check it out…!! you’ll find anything you want… series, movies, music, full seasons & episodes… I use it a lot, you’ll love it… i know i do.
Very sad news :.(
I loved watching all those documentaries! Very educational.
Hope it comes back soon!
Please check out this site I have made:
http://www.save-tv-links.co.uk
The idea behind the site is to create a publicly accessible resource of accurate information on the tv-links case and create a discussion forum around it. It also exists to offer what ever support is possible to give to the innocent.
Anyone who can contribute or has any ideas that would make this site more functional please get in touch; the aim is too get as much information in one place as possible.
Elton1
to bad i loved the site. Wish i knew of more