NovaKing Retires, Shutters Popular and Illegal EZTV Torrent Distribution
It's a day of mourning for TV show pirates, as one of the web's most popular portals for illegally downloading TV torrents -- EZTV -- has effectively been shut down. No, it wasn't the U.S. government that swooped in and ended the operation. Instead, EZTV's demise is the result of a hostile takeover.
According to the investigative folks at TorrentFreak, EZTV's ultimate demise can be traced back to earlier this year when the .IT registry suspended the site's domain name due to inaccurate Whois information. The domain was made available a few weeks later, and like vultures circling a dying animal, scammers quickly picked it up.
The scammers who grabbed the domain registered the company as EZCloud LIMITED, the same company that EZTV had used. Even so, it didn't look overly bleak for EZTV and its founder NovaKing, as the torrent site had already moved to a new domain, EZTV.ch.
However, the scammers who grabbed the .IT domain also were successful in taking control of EZTV.se, a feat they pulled off by faking the director's name and using EZCloud company details. Thus accelerated the domino effect, as NovaKing used an email address attached to the .se domain to register for various other services.
As a result of the hostile takeover, NokaKing was effectively locked out of nearly all his domains, including EZTV.ch. Rather than fight it or start over with a new domain, NokaKing decided to call it quits. Meanwhile, the scammers continue to operating EZTV with their own torrents and false status updates claiming to be the original owners.
According to the investigative folks at TorrentFreak, EZTV's ultimate demise can be traced back to earlier this year when the .IT registry suspended the site's domain name due to inaccurate Whois information. The domain was made available a few weeks later, and like vultures circling a dying animal, scammers quickly picked it up.
The scammers who grabbed the domain registered the company as EZCloud LIMITED, the same company that EZTV had used. Even so, it didn't look overly bleak for EZTV and its founder NovaKing, as the torrent site had already moved to a new domain, EZTV.ch.
However, the scammers who grabbed the .IT domain also were successful in taking control of EZTV.se, a feat they pulled off by faking the director's name and using EZCloud company details. Thus accelerated the domino effect, as NovaKing used an email address attached to the .se domain to register for various other services.
As a result of the hostile takeover, NokaKing was effectively locked out of nearly all his domains, including EZTV.ch. Rather than fight it or start over with a new domain, NokaKing decided to call it quits. Meanwhile, the scammers continue to operating EZTV with their own torrents and false status updates claiming to be the original owners.
