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Sports Torrent Network given the red card by City of London Police

Sports Torrent Network has been forced to close down after the City of London Police threatened its operators with jail. 

The sports file sharing network, also known as TSTN was used by 20,000 people around the world, offered links to download football matches, Formula 1 races, NBA basketball and NHL ice hockey games. 

The City of London police emailed the site’s owners two weeks ago as part of its PIPCU (Police Intellectual Property Crime Unit) investigations. 

Seeing Red: TSTN has been forced to make a permanent pitstop

As reported by TorrentFreaka PIPCU spokesperson said: “Such activity is an indictable offense under the Serious Crime Act 2007 and is punishable by up to ten years’ imprisonment, two years for encouraging/assisting communication to the public; and ten years for encouraging/assisting distribution to the public.”

“PIPCU has the lawful right to pursue action against you and against the thesportstorrentnetwork.co.uk website in order to prevent, detect and disrupt criminal activity.” 

TSTN’s owners announced: “We have received legal action against us. Thanks for being around with us for the last few years. Best regards, TSTN crew.” The site and its associated Twitter account have now been removed. 

PIPCU recently secured £2.56 million of the UK’s Intellectual Property Office budget in September and there are moves to make funding permanent as funds will run out next year following calls from the UK Prime Minister’s IP advisor. 

The takedown of TSTN follows an earlier ban of streaming site First Row Sports sought by the Premier League. Since the launch of BT Sport, the Premier League has announced a ban on pubs showing Premier League games via foreign satellite platforms and illegal websites

You can currenltly watch all of this season’s Formula 1 games for less than £100 on the BBC and Now TV. Football fans can sign up for Sky Sports and BT Sport for complete Premier League coverage. BT Sport is also home to NBA basketball, while ice hockey fans can sign up for Premier Sports, available on Sky and Virgin Media

Image: Michael Elleray/Flickr

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