UPDATE: Watch-Movies and TVShack have reappeared! They can be found at http://www.watch-movies-tv.info/ and http://TVShack.cc respectively.
UPDATE 07/01/2010
Usually the beginning of July represents freedom, but sadly this year it will be remembered as the beginning of the end of net neutrality.
UPDATE: 10/24/2009
UPDATE: 9/11/2009
As of earlier today it seems that Watch-Movies-Links.net is not working for some people...which is weird. It's weird because it works for me and everyone else I asked to check it out.
The website currently lists 450 people online, which is much lower than normal levels that fluctuate around 3,000. So it's clear that a majority of their users are getting blocked or redirected to Twitter pages.
So the question remains...what is happening?
It would be great to know a couple of things from the people getting blocked.
If you can leave a comment with the following information;
1) Where are you located?
2) What ISP are you using?
I'm sure we'll figure this thing out...and get you back to watching movies =)
Old Post Below- Feb. 1st 2009
Yesterday, Watch-Movies.net went offline and hasn't been available since. I'm still trying to get an official response from the owners of the website, but I haven't heard anything directly from them yet.
Was it because it promoted illegal content? Is it a server upgrade? Nothing is known for sure right now...but there have been a couple rumors circulating around the internet. Some people say that it's merely a server upgrade...others say it's gone for good.
The website getting shutdown is certainly the worst case scenario, but it's also very likely. On December 23rd, 2008 watch-movies.net was sued by Paramount and Warner Bros. for copyright infringement. (See Paramount vs. Watch-movies.net). Although it operated for an entire month after the suit's filing...is it possible that the movie industry took it down? I'm not really that convinced because the US courts don't have the authority to shutdown the servers where watch-movies.net is hosted.
The explanation probably lies with the ISP censorship (Internet Service Providers). This new (and disturbing) tactic by the movie industry "blacklists" certain sites from being accessed from friendly ISP's. As of today, watch-movies.net is not available to access from almost all ISP's in North America and Western Europe (including Comcast, Time Warner/Roadrunner, Cox, and Sky). People have been able to connect from Asia and Russia, but I haven't heard anything from people in the rest of the world.
Since the movie industry wasn't able to successfully try a case against the streaming movie portals on the internet, they have been forced to block sites through this new innovative way. Even though I agree that Watch-Movies.net was not 100% legal...it's very scary that websites can just get censored without any legal approval.
The world of streaming media...is very new, and potentially very damaging to traditional distribution channels. That's why the movie industry is taking this aggressive approach...and even though I can't agree with this approach, I can't really blame them either. They've been backed into a corner (with the 100's of such websites) and they don't know what to do. In the internet age, when you can buy a $80 clone of these websites and have it up and running in less than a hour...it's going to be extremely hard for them to ever catch up.
Needless to say, I'm going to be watching this situation very carefully, and if I get any more information (hopefully directly from the owners) I will share it will all of you.
In the meantime, I guess we will have to hang on to our popcorn and wait this thing out.
Oh yeah...if you don't know already we've made this list of Top 25 Movie Websites to relive some of the pain of this website being down.
UPDATE (2/4/2009) : It seems that a new site called http://www.watch-movies-links.net/ has sprung up to fill the void left by Watch-Movies.net. I'm not sure that it's owned by the same people (because anyone can buy the template for $80) but in the end it does the same thing.
Was it because it promoted illegal content? Is it a server upgrade? Nothing is known for sure right now...but there have been a couple rumors circulating around the internet. Some people say that it's merely a server upgrade...others say it's gone for good.
The website getting shutdown is certainly the worst case scenario, but it's also very likely. On December 23rd, 2008 watch-movies.net was sued by Paramount and Warner Bros. for copyright infringement. (See Paramount vs. Watch-movies.net). Although it operated for an entire month after the suit's filing...is it possible that the movie industry took it down? I'm not really that convinced because the US courts don't have the authority to shutdown the servers where watch-movies.net is hosted.
The explanation probably lies with the ISP censorship (Internet Service Providers). This new (and disturbing) tactic by the movie industry "blacklists" certain sites from being accessed from friendly ISP's. As of today, watch-movies.net is not available to access from almost all ISP's in North America and Western Europe (including Comcast, Time Warner/Roadrunner, Cox, and Sky). People have been able to connect from Asia and Russia, but I haven't heard anything from people in the rest of the world.
Since the movie industry wasn't able to successfully try a case against the streaming movie portals on the internet, they have been forced to block sites through this new innovative way. Even though I agree that Watch-Movies.net was not 100% legal...it's very scary that websites can just get censored without any legal approval.
The world of streaming media...is very new, and potentially very damaging to traditional distribution channels. That's why the movie industry is taking this aggressive approach...and even though I can't agree with this approach, I can't really blame them either. They've been backed into a corner (with the 100's of such websites) and they don't know what to do. In the internet age, when you can buy a $80 clone of these websites and have it up and running in less than a hour...it's going to be extremely hard for them to ever catch up.
Needless to say, I'm going to be watching this situation very carefully, and if I get any more information (hopefully directly from the owners) I will share it will all of you.
In the meantime, I guess we will have to hang on to our popcorn and wait this thing out.
Oh yeah...if you don't know already we've made this list of Top 25 Movie Websites to relive some of the pain of this website being down.
UPDATE (2/4/2009) : It seems that a new site called http://www.watch-movies-links.net/ has sprung up to fill the void left by Watch-Movies.net. I'm not sure that it's owned by the same people (because anyone can buy the template for $80) but in the end it does the same thing.
