Slyck.com

Slyck.com
Type of site
 News site with articles about P2P networking and Filesharing
Available in English
Owner Tom Mennecke
Created by Tom Mennecke, Ray Hoffmann, Nick Parr, Drew Wilson, et al
Website slyck.com
Registration Optional (to post on forum)
Launched August 10, 2001[1]

Slyck.com is a website that was once dedicated to all things pertaining to file sharing news. A vibrant community of forum users discussing the articles and other topics was a significant feature of the news website.

History


Slyck.com began operations as Slyway.com in 2000, and was owned by Ray Hoffman.[2] Slyway.com was an aggregate news site with some original content and contained guides to the most popular file-sharing resources at the time, whilst maintaining statistics of the p2p networks, which included Napster, iMesh, Scour, Usenet and IRC. Within a year, on the 10th of August 2001, Slyway.com became Slyck.com.

Impact

Due to the lack of mainstream news coverage on p2p, file sharing and debate on copyright legislation, Slyck.com had a significant impact, and New Scientist cited the website as a "popular file sharing news site",[3] Digital Audio Essentials (2004) referred to Slyck.com as "an excellent resource"[4] for news and information on file sharing, and in Steal This Computer Book 4.0 the site was considered to be "up to date on the latest file sharing technology and news."[5]

Content

The site conducted interviews with file sharing software developers and other intellectual property role players , maintained statistics of P2P file sharing networks, and notably wrote opinion pieces and news articles on the conflict between file sharing and copyright legislation. Writers covered the fight against Intellectual Property infringement and theft, which included legislation on copyright and intellectual property. Due to the nature of the website, Slyck writers covered law enforcement of the legal rights of Copyright holders, such as the take down of torrent websites like Loki Torrents[6] and Suprnova.org[7] , events that were covered in mainstream media with a pro-Copyright bias, and lacking the depth and balance that was seen in the Slyck.com coverage. Notably, Slyck.com extensively covered the Torrent website, The Pirate Bay, and the efforts by authorities to shut down the website and prosecute the founders/owners of the Pirate Bay. Slyck.com also covered other topics like roll out of Broadband Internet, new technology and hardware and advances in networking.

A forum section called "Torrent Download Court Action Threat/Settlement Letter Discussion"[8] provided information and advice to members of the public that received letters from attorneys acting on behalf of Copyright Holders/Intellectual Property Owners, which offered settlements in lieu of legal action against individual file sharers who had downloaded their clients' intellectual property. The discussions on these matters assisted members of the public in responding to the letters that they received. "Torrent Download Court Action Threat/Settlement Letter Discussion" is still presently active.

Notable Interviews

Slyck news writers were able to interview notable individuals such as:

  • Jon Lech Johansen, nicknamed DVDJon was interviewed,[14] regarding the DeCSS software that allowed for DVD discs to be played on the Linux Operating System, and allowed for development of duplicating software for DVD discs.
  • Muslix64,[15] a software hacker who first circumvented the AACS protection scheme for HD DVD and Blu-ray discs, discussed his reasons for the circumvention of the Digital Rights Management software.[16][17][18]
  • Dean Garfield, then head of the MPAA's legal team, was interviewed by Nicholas Parr about the MPAA's legal campaign against movie piracy.[19]

In March 2010, Slyck.com was threatened with legal action[20] by the controversial[21][22] UK law firm ACS:Law for defamation, due to comments made by forum users on Slyck.com's UK file sharing Allegations/Lawsuit Discussion sub-forum.[23] Nothing came of the threatened legal action.

Current status


Slyck.com no longer actively or significantly provides any file sharing news articles, with the last posted news article on file sharing, dated 16 June 2016.[24] It is once again an aggregate news website, with its past news articles available to read, which is due in part to the lack of new content from owner, writer and editor Thomas Mennecke[25].

References

  1. ↑ Slyck.com Whois record. godaddy.com. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
  2. ↑ "Slyck 2.0" Slyck forum, April 5, 2006.
  3. ↑ "Movie file-sharing hubs poised to decentralise". Will Knight, NewScientist.com, December 22, 2004.
  4. ↑ Digital Audio Essentials. Bruce Fries and Marty Fries, O'Reilly Media, 2005. p 94. ISBN 978-0-596-00856-7. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
  5. ↑ Steal This Computer Book 4.0. Wallace Wang, No Starch Press, 2006. p 165. ISBN 978-1-59327-105-3. Retrieved 2010-07-14.
  6. ↑ "LokiTorrent caves to MPAA" Thomas Mennecke, Slyck.com, February 10, 2005
  7. ↑ Torrents "Suprnova.org Closes" Thomas Mennecke, Slyck.com, December 19, 2004
  8. ↑ "Torrent Download Court Action Threat/Settlement Letter Discussion"
  9. ↑ "Interview with the CEO of StreamCast Networks". Slyck News, August 16, 2003.
  10. ↑ "SoulSeek Interview", Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, December 26, 2003.
  11. ↑ "Interview with Pablo Soto of the Manolito P2P Network", Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, February 17, 2004
  12. ↑ "WinMX Interview". Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, December 25, 2003.
  13. ↑ "The Future of WinMX" Thomas Mennecke, MP3newswire.net, January 27, 2003.
  14. ↑ Slyck.com Interviews Jon Lech Johansen. Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, April 4, 2005.
  15. ↑ "Interview with muslix64, Developer of BackupHDDVD". Slyck.com, January 24, 2007
  16. ↑ "Hi-def DVD security is bypassed". BBC News, January 26, 2007.
  17. ↑ "Why One Angry Customer Broke AACS". Derek Slater, Electronic Frontier Foundation, January 26, 2007.
  18. ↑ "Hacker Opens Crack In High-Def Movie DRM - HD movie player format cracked". Antone Gonsalves, InformationWeek, January 26, 2007.
  19. ↑ "Slyck Interviews the MPAA". Nicholas Parr, Slyck.com, December 22, 2005.
  20. ↑ "Wank Plan Goes Wrong ACS:Law Threatens Slyck.com With a Lawsuit". Thomas Mennecke, Slyck News, March 21, 2010. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  21. ↑ Piracy letter campaign 'nets innocents' BBC News, January 26, 2010.
  22. ↑ Major law firm drops filesharing threats - Staff continue 'bullying' at smaller outfit Chris Williams, The Register, May 12, 2009. Retrieved 2010-07-28.
  23. ↑ "UK Filesharing Allegations/Lawsuit Discussion Sub Forum". Slyck Forum.
  24. ↑ "Hacker Posts over 51 Million iMesh User Accounts for Sale on the Dark Web", Amanda Marie, Slyck News, June 16, 2016. Retrieved 2017-07-16
  25. ↑ "Tom Mennecke gives update on Slyck.com". Slyck.com Forum Post
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