The UK Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit (PIPCU) seems to be continuing its attacks on domains related to file-sharing, as it has recently closed down the very first search engine. After the BPI demanded it to be blocked by the UK broadband providers, the file-host search engine FileCrop was taken down as part of a PIPCU investigation. Aside from FileCrop, the sports streaming service Cricfree.tv was shutdown as well.


PIPCU works on the recommendations of international anti-piracy outfits, but is financed by the taxpayers of the United Kingdom. The activities of the authority began with the sending of notifications around the world, warning users that non-compliance with police requests would result in further action – domains seizure, reported disruption of advertising revenue, and even physical raids.

PIPCU has apparently proceeded to “further action”: for example, file-sharing website FileCrop disappeared from the Internet, its main page being replaced by the PIPCU notice. What is interesting about this case is the nature of the FileCrop operation: it wasn’t a non-responsive torrent site, nor was it a file-hosting website containing illegal material. FileCrop was just a search engine seeking for content hosted on many file-lockers, like RapidShare, Mediafire and Mega – services that all have strict notice-and-takedown procedures.

Although such target seems unusual, as FileCrop did respond to takedowns, the move doesn’t come as a complete surprise. Last year, the British Phonographic Industry began preparations to have another batch of domains blocked by local Internet service providers, and FileCrop.com was included in that list.

The search engine is mostly inaccessible in the United Kingdom: according to the Alexa chart, the blockade had quite an effect on its popularity. Although the move suggests a UK presence for the engine’s owners or operators, its WHOIS entries show that those are located in Ukraine. Another strange thing is that the website apparently causes relatively few problems for copyright owners. For example, the search giant Google received over 659,000 complaints in April against Fileshut.biz, a functionally similar service, while the search engine has received only 37 complaints per week against FileCrop.

Thanks to TorrentFreak for providing the source of the article.