UK Police Close Filesharing Search Engine FileCrop

The City of London Police has continued its crackdown on sites making illegal downloads of copyrighted material, taking down filesharing search engine FileCrop.

Anyone visiting the website will now be greeted with a notice from the London force’s Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU).

Filesharing crackdown continues

“This site is being investigated for online copyright infringement,” the notice read, according to TorrentFreak. “You have tried to access a website that is under criminal investigation.”

From a typical Virgin Media broadband connection, visitors to FileCrop will be told: “Sorry, the web page you have requested is not available through Virgin Media.

“Virgin Media has received an order from the Courts requiring us to prevent access to this site in order to help protect against copyright infringement.”

FileCrop, which advertised itself as the search engine for searched files, let users easily find content hosted by RapidShare, Mediafire and Megaupload.

PIPCU has been taking various actions to take on copyright infringement, shutting down various websites over recent months.

Meanwhile, industry bodies have come together to form the Voluntary Copyright Alert Programme (VCAP), which will see letters sent to anyone believed to be downloading illegal content.

Four letters will be sent to suspected downloaders, each warning recipients about the damage their illegal actions were doing to the creative industries. Yet they will not be threatened with sanctions.

Arrgh! How much do you know about online piracy? Take our quiz!

Thomas Brewster

Tom Brewster is TechWeek Europe's Security Correspondent. He has also been named BT Information Security Journalist of the Year in 2012 and 2013.

View Comments

  • I dont understand. Anybody can buy drugs on the street, but it is illegal. Anybody can drink alcohol or can smoke cigarettes, but it is not healty. Why I cant use torrent sites? I just want to download some programs and if it is good I will buy it… I want to download some uncopyrighted series from my country, but I cant now. Is not copyrighted because I could watch the original site, just it is very slow, because the tv server is in another country. Torrent was the perfect way for this. No democracy in UKs internet community. When my girlfriend's bike was stolen the police doesn't do nothing. The torrent is very dangerous because it has no effect on your health.

  • I doubt that it allowed people to download from Megaupload.
    That site was shutdown over two years ago.

  • I just tried to open 'google chrome' when Avast sent me that information. Not really understand whats going on? Is it google on investigation or what? Im not useing any Torrent or any other similar program.

  • Instead of arresting who shows people where to buy drugs, arrest the drug dealer you dumb police f***
    It's a search engine, not a file host.
    And why in the world are they promoting other websites while it's a still ongoing investigation? Promoting music and movie sites?! I never used filecrop for that crap in the first place.
    People of UK should get worried about who decides about their freedoms in the future!

  • I don't quite understand, why the police goes for filecrop. Because it is an easy target? Would it not make so much more sense to investigate Rapidshare, depositfile etc DIRECTLY??? After all, they are the ones that host the illegal files!

    • With particular comments here , why is it that they seems to appear to know better than the police regarding police work and what they chose to investigate. Senseless.

    • The reason the cops don't go after Rapidshare, depositfile etc, is that they are all businesses that make money of people like you and me.

      The police cannot be seen to go after businesses that make money, they would rather go after ordinary people or websites that ordinary people use.

  • The Nazi Fascist Police in the UK are basically criminals in uniforms, they work tirelessly to protect the Corrupt Government, Corrupt MPs and all the Criminal, Drug Dealers, Criminals, Paedophiles, Fraudsters, Money Laundering Crooks like Bankers and Financial Institutions. Large Corporations and Companies, Businesses and Multinationals in the UK. The Police are just the Taxpayers Funded Masonic Mafia in the UK, protecting the Criminal elite, which are all Masons, the equivalent of the Mafia, but under the guise of the Masonic Lodge Criminals that have infiltrated every aspect of crime, criminality, Banking, Financial Institutions, Government, Local Authorities, Businesses and Corporations in the UK, and the taxpayers (the people) fund this Nazi Fascist Criminals Organisation the Police to protect these corrupt criminals. They are in turn helped by the Crooked Lawyers and Barristers, then the Crooked Judiciary, Judges and Magistrates protecting these Criminal, Fraudsters, Paedophiles and scum of the earth. We then have the largest Criminal Masonic Cabal in the UK the CPS, which throws out every case against any of the above Masonic Criminal Cabal on the grounds that it is not in the Public Interest for the Public to know how the Criminal Masonic Cabal controls all the Criminal activities in the UK, the total state protection system, criminal protected by the Criminal State and all allegedly acting as the guardian of the people. When nothing could be possibly further from the truth, THIS IS THE CRIMINAL CABAL THAT CONTROLS EVERY ASPECT OF CRIME AND CRIMINALITY IN THE UK.

  • Awaiting Moderation, a politically correct term for censorship, the elimination of the truth, facts and evidence, as the Masonic Criminal Cabal in the UK controls everything that is responsible for holding them to account, and that is responsible for prosecuting them, they also make sure that they control all the media and television stations, this makes sure that they silence all the crime and criminality they are involved in, and nothing can be exposed. Moderation is the protection of the Criminal Cabal that runs UK PLC.

    This is awaiting removal, never to see the light of day.

    • We have no Free Press in the UK, just a Censored Propaganda Media, controlled by the Criminal Cabal, 1000 times worse than the Communist Controlled Press and Television. The only place you can see and hear uncensored news in the World today is RT (Russian Television) which in broadcasted in English in the UK and worldwide, and also in many other languages, and is becoming the main broadcaster of real truthful uncensored news in the world. The British and American media and television Censored Propaganda Garbage is being confined to the Bust Bin.

      Awaiting Removal.

    • Actually, when we say Awaiting Moderation it means just that. Sometimes it takes a while to sift the genuine comments from the torrents of spam.

      We are not under Masonic control here, Dylan. We are just busy.

      Thanks for commenting

      Peter

  • It says UK Police, London Police ~ Not Google. Personally i think that the Police know best of what to investigate and what to close, not anyone else. Why is it that some people can't see this?

  • if it's being investigated you can't use it for torrent sites, the reason for it's investigation & to close it, is because of CRIME, not what you chose regarding yourself healthwise on the internet. I repeat CRIME & INVESTIGATION.

  • I got this message as well, and I don't even live in the UK. I never used the site anyways...stupid action.

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