Music Torrent Site What.CD Has Been Shut Down By French Authorities
A message on the site reads, “So long and thanks for all the fish.”
www.what.cd
Since 2007, What.CD has provided an extensive library of free — and pirated — music torrents. According to Zataz Magazine, cybercrime units in France have raided and seized at least a dozen servers linked to What.cd's operations.
A message on the site now reads: "Due to some recent events, What.CD is shutting down. We are not likely to return any time soon in our current form. All site and user data has been destroyed. So long, and thanks for all the fish."
What.CD was special, according to Chris Welch at The Verge, for its commitment to selection of rare and unusual releases, as well as audio quality. "You could download the latest hot releases in MP3, or pull up an obscure, rare album from a lesser-known artist and probably find it available in lossless FLAC. The artists and albums absent from this or that streaming service were always present on What (again, so long as you didn’t mind stealing music)."
In February, the official What.CD Twitter account announced that the site had amassed "one million unique music releases."