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SirCotare said:
The Freeworld - one short episode
When around the end of August 2005 (the 19th-23rd) [exact date lost] The Realwold was taken down, it was quite a shock to the scene. Desperate we all had to accept that an era was ending. Only short time later a spidered backup was released. The package contained tens of thousands of HTML pages, copied from the old The Realworld website. By that time I had realised that this could be the one last chance to convert the seemingly complete victory against the scene to just a minor hit. It took me about two weeks to write PHP scripts which could convert the thousands of useless HTML files into a database preserving most of the stored data of The Realworld. Setting up a new page and finding a server to host it was the next step. Finally we ended up on a server somewhere in Russia (I guess), calling the new portal The Freeworld. After posting on the old The Realworld forums we had great response to all the efforts. The site grew and flourished, providing ed2k links to thousands of people. Everything seemed to be great back then.
When I unexpectedly received a letter from a lawyer (with authorization of over 10 major movie lables) on the 14th Octobre 2005 I was truly shocked. I was told to stop the service immediately and to pay 10.000 Euro (+1.171,08 Euro lawyer bills), the alternative being a trial at court which could've ended in a two years sentence in prison and/or 100.000 Euro or more. Consulting my own lawyer, I was advised to give in and take down the site, then negotiate with them. Finally on the 8th Novembre 2005 we reached an agreement. I had to pay 6.171,08 Euro and sign to never do such a thing again (at least for 30 years).
Well, this was the end of The Freeworld ... at least for a while. Of course I wasn't the only one who had access to the database and page sourcecode. That's when TV Underground was born
Keep on guys! Yours SirCotare
"... but time flows like a river, and history repeats ..." - Secret of Mana
When around the end of August 2005 (the 19th-23rd) [exact date lost] The Realwold was taken down, it was quite a shock to the scene. Desperate we all had to accept that an era was ending. Only short time later a spidered backup was released. The package contained tens of thousands of HTML pages, copied from the old The Realworld website. By that time I had realised that this could be the one last chance to convert the seemingly complete victory against the scene to just a minor hit. It took me about two weeks to write PHP scripts which could convert the thousands of useless HTML files into a database preserving most of the stored data of The Realworld. Setting up a new page and finding a server to host it was the next step. Finally we ended up on a server somewhere in Russia (I guess), calling the new portal The Freeworld. After posting on the old The Realworld forums we had great response to all the efforts. The site grew and flourished, providing ed2k links to thousands of people. Everything seemed to be great back then.
When I unexpectedly received a letter from a lawyer (with authorization of over 10 major movie lables) on the 14th Octobre 2005 I was truly shocked. I was told to stop the service immediately and to pay 10.000 Euro (+1.171,08 Euro lawyer bills), the alternative being a trial at court which could've ended in a two years sentence in prison and/or 100.000 Euro or more. Consulting my own lawyer, I was advised to give in and take down the site, then negotiate with them. Finally on the 8th Novembre 2005 we reached an agreement. I had to pay 6.171,08 Euro and sign to never do such a thing again (at least for 30 years).
Well, this was the end of The Freeworld ... at least for a while. Of course I wasn't the only one who had access to the database and page sourcecode. That's when TV Underground was born
Keep on guys! Yours SirCotare
"... but time flows like a river, and history repeats ..." - Secret of Mana
*More TVU related history to come as data is retrieved.
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