Got this entry from jasoncryosphere.blogspot.com
The Truth Story of Suprnova.orgIn November 2004, the world’s largest bittorrent site got shut down permanently. There where a lot of rumours about what happened, but any official statement never came. Tonight, the owner of Suprnova.org has published the whole story.
For a year now, there have been many rumors why SuprNova.org was taken offline. Some have said that it was because of legal issues, some said it was because I sold out to eXeem project, or because I became a millionaire and did not want to bother with the site anymore, and the rumors go on.
Today, on the exact day, when SuprNova.org went offline, I decided that it is time for everybody to know the truth and that it is time for me to stop pretending like nothing ever happened.
On November 2004, I received a call from my ISP saying that all of my servers had been raided by the police. I received nothing from the police before or after the raid, nobody told me what was going on.
In early December, Reuters did an article on me, and many Slovenian newspapers jumped on the story. So I ended up reading about myself in Slovenian newspapers. And right about that time, I had a feeling something was wrong. I do not really know what the feeling was or where it was coming from, but I decided it was time to take SuprNova.org offline.
About a month later, after SuprNova.org had been taken offline, there was a door bell at 6:30 in the morning, saying it's the police. Actually I was not expecting anything anymore, since SuprNova.org had been taken offline long before that. They showed me a court order to search my place and they did so. They took as far as I remember, two of my computers and lots of documents.
About a month or so later, I was called to the police, so that we or actually they, did a list of all the files that were on all of the computers that they took from my home and from the ISP.
Another month later, I was called to the police for my hearing. I and my lawyer decided, we wouldnt answer any questions. After this was over, the police told us they will give this to the prosecutor and he will continue the procedure. My lawyer told me, that I should expect a letter from the prosecutor after the summer holidays.
And that was true, nothing happened during the summer holidays and I had quite a wonderful time. Very relaxed.
And just when I was hoping that the prosecutor would forget about my case I received another letter. When I received the paper, that I had to go pick up the envelope at the post, I became completely depressed and sad. But anyway, I went to the post and picked up the document. It was from the prosecutor, saying by the law blah blah and blah blah the denunciation against Andrej Preston has been dropped. And I received all the CD's and computers that they took from me. This happened on 18th October 2005.
Since then nothing happened, and I hope it stays that way. This has been a huge pressure on me and I think it left some permanent marks on me. I hope none of you will ever have to go through something like this.
What is written above is just a short story of everything that went on during last year. I also do not want to give out too much information, since it wouldn't be wise.
Thanks to all of the friends that knew about this and supported me as much as they could! Its been a hard year for all of us.For those of you who don't know, suprnova.org was once a huge website that allowed people to download torrent files off the internet. If you're a newbie, bit-torrent sorta works like..er Kazaa and Napster except you use your own client/application to get the stuff. Suprnova.org didn't actually provide or host non-copyrighted data, but like napster it was the middle-man in these dealings.
The Oxford dictionary says that "stealing" is to "take something without permission and without intending to return it". For people with not-that-great english, it's like "buying"...except you don't pay. -.- I suppose if you use that definition, downloading copyrighted stuff for free off the internet IS a form of stealing.
Using applications like bit-torrent to obtain stuff like music for free IS a crime, in my opinion. It's sad, however, how the music industry's reacted to music piracy. They seem to treat this whole thing like it's some kind of war, and advertising is directed towards citizens in a desperate attempt to turn them from "the Dark Side". Those who download music without any thought for profit (poor little teenagers for example) are demonized and sued for tonnes of cash. Or rather their parents are.
It's not as if the music industry suffers A LOT. Apparently there are studies that show that music sales aren't affected by music downloads. In fact it can be boosted by it. I must reiterate to you people that music piracy is WRONG, but then again things would be a lot better if music CDs cost less. There is some progress taken in that direction at least, but i think there's also a very bad income policy or something in the music industry. Like how some people in the industry get paid much more than the rest. I don't really know much about it so i can't really say.
Because of music piracy, So-and-so of So-and-so band now cannot afford to buy his gold-plated swimming pool. Bleah. More on music piracy next time...
On a nicer note, i just bought my new LCD SCREEN! It's a black Philips 190B, very cheap for its specs (like S$570). But it's a BIT too big for my liking (19-inch). I kinda feel...dwarfed by it. And now i have to look diagonally UP at the screen while the screen sits on its grand altar and looks down at its faithful servant....er well i suppose it'll take some getting used to.
Anyway, i'll write about the rest of my NY trip soon! Planning to do a "S'porean's lame guide to Manhattan" as well, so keep on a lookout!
