R.I.P. TV Links

By: Pete Nichols Posted: 10/22/07 8:05pm

Well, it finally happened.

According to the UK’s Guardian Unlimited, everyone’s favorite pirate TV, movie, cartoon, documentary and music video Web site, www.tv-links.co.uk, has been shut down.

Evidently, the 26-year-old who ran the site was arrested late last week by an anti-piracy group called the Federation Against Copyright Theft, or FACT.

The site is no more. All those fantastic episodes of old, canceled, still-to-be-released-on-DVD television shows and movies are a thing of the past. Tv-links.co.uk is dead, and there isn’t likely to be another site as comprehensive and easy to use.

But let’s face it: The site fell victim to its own success. If you’re running a pirate media site, you probably shouldn’t be giving your site a forum where users can discuss all the fantastic illegal shows they’ve been watching and suggest other shows to be illegally uploaded. It was a dumb move, and it probably led to the site’s early demise.

I’m not a giant fan of piracy, and I buy or rent shows I want to see more often than I watch them online (are you listening, FCC?). But, that said, there was some stuff on TV Links that you simply couldn’t (and won’t, now) find anywhere else.

Ever curious about what a German version of “The Office” would be like? Well, when the site existed, you could know. (By the way, it was called “Stromberg,” and I never understood a word of it, but it was really funny.) Or what about old English ’70s cop shows like “The Sweeney”?

With TV Links, nearly 40 years of television, film and animation were at your fingertips. And, sadly, they are now gone.

So, rest in peace, TV Links. You will be missed.