Music sharing website Sharebeast has been shut down by the Justice Department. The website had a strong reputation for hosting illegal files that were streamed and downloaded by many. Thus after growing to a large size, it got onto the radar of the FBI and the Justice Department who decided to shut it down.
A notice of seizure appears on Sharebeast.com, as well as its album sharing site, albumjams.com, which was a popular place to download full albums and drew the ire of music industry bosses.
The site became particularly problematic for its distribution of leaks and the lack of takedowns that would occur for those leaks.
The RIAA said in a statement it reported more than 100,000 infringing files to the service for takedown.
"This is a huge win for the music community and legitimate music services. Sharebeast operated with flagrant disregard for the rights of artists and labels while undermining the legal marketplace," says RIAA Chairman & CEO Cary Sherman about the site takedown.
"Millions of users accessed songs from Sharebeast each month without one penny of compensation going to countless artists, songwriters, labels and others who created the music. We are grateful to the FBI and the Department of Justice for its strong stand against Sharebeast and for recognizing that these types of illicit sites wreak major damage on the music community and hinder fans' legitimate listening options."
The move comes as it is increasingly more difficult for websites to host music illegally as the government seems to be taking music piracy seriously. With the option to stream music for free on services like Spotify, there is less of a need to download music illegally, but these websites will still exist.
