The standard reaction to last week’s Guilty verdict in the Pirate Bay trial is to say `ah, but it won’t have a big impact on file-sharing’. We’re guilty of that ourselves. But early indications are that the ruling IS having an effect on torrent trackers in Sweden.Several have decided to shut down in the days since the verdict was announced, including Nordicbits, Powerbits, Piratebits, MP3nerds and Wolfbits.As Nordicbits explained in a message on its site: “We have to shut down the site now due all circumstances. We don’t have time to do anything to the code, we don’t have interest in it, we don’t have any more money and the biggest reason is The Pirate Bay info”.TorrentFreak suggests that more than a dozen more may close in the coming days, although The Pirate Bay itself is still alive and kicking.
The great Swedish torrent tracker shutdown begins
