14 DAY TRIAL // The recent anti-piracy efforts made by organizations around the world closed lots of websites suspected of piracy, but also brought a large number of lawsuits against them. WikiSubtitles, the web service which creates subtitles with the help of the community, joined the club a few days ago as it was taken offline due to what seems to be the request of the Spanish Anti-Piracy Federation (FAP). According to TorrentFreak, the website was shut down by the administrators because FAP wrote them to close the site or they will start a legal action against them. Until the matter is clarified, the website is suspended, one of the administrators told the same source mentioned above.
It's interesting to note that there's no word of copyright issues mentioned in the WikiSubtitles FAQ so I guess the admins have never expected such a problem with anti-piracy groups. The only line that is somehow related to this aspect concerns stolen subtitles which could be removed if the owner contacts the WikiSubtitles administrators. "If you are the webmaster of a site that makes subtitles, and you don't want them to be here, send a mail and we will try to take them out," the FAQ explains.
However, the service is again accessible at the time of writing this article so it's possible to see a new lawsuit filed against a website suspected of piracy.
In the recent few months, more and more websites have been sent to court, mostly for charges of piracy and distribution of copyrighted content. The majority of them were actually BitTorrent websites, so WikiSubtitles is quite a new presence in this battle.
Among the most popular names involved in copyright lawsuits, there are The Pirate Bay, Mininova and TorrentSpy, the well-known BitTorrent services, the first two of them being still available. TorrentSpy has been shut down some time ago and has also received a fine of no less than $110 million. However, TorrentSpy decided to appeal the court ruling, so the lawsuit continues.