EZTV down: leading torrent site shuts after management fallout

The site had become a leading way to get pirated TV shows, but administrators have quit and shut it down

This picture taken on January 27, 2014 shows Japan's first color television set at a preview of Toshiba Science Museum which opens in Kawasaki, suburban Tokyo on January 3 (Getty Images)

EZTV, one of the world’s most popular torrenting sites, has been shut down after it lost its website and data in a hostile takeover.

The site had been one of the most popular in the world, and perhaps the leading way to get hold of pirated TV shows. But it has now been taken offline after its leader, known as NovaKing, left the site.

The closure brings to an end a period of troubles for the site that saw its domain name suspended and then recovered by scammers. Those scammers took out new domains and recovered EZTV’s old ones, and also got access to the site’s servers and emails, reports TorrentFreak. By the end of that period, the hostile takeover had led to the entire site being taken out of NovaKing’s hands.

While the group could revive the site — at a new address and potentially under a new name — losing access to all of the data devastated those behind the site and they decided to shut it down for good, according to people in the torrenting community that spoke to TorrentFreak.

The site — including its Italian and Swiss domains — are still under the control of those scammers. Those pages still distribute torrents but it’s unclear whether they are genuine.

EZTV also provided TV torrents to other sites, like the Pirate Bay. Those sites have shut down the team’s accounts and show warnings to users, despite those operating the site still claiming to be part of the old team.