Under the Gun Review

Piracy Hub It-Leaked Shuts Down, Teens Everywhere Fear They May Soon Have To Buy Music

October 3rd, 2013 James Shotwell
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A cornerstone of piracy in the alternative music scene is no more.

It-Leaked, a long-running online hub for new music leaks, has apparently shuttered operations for good. The site went offline at the tail-end of September without any notice to users, but last night a tweet sent from the site’s relatively unused Twitter account announcing “its curtains.” Users worldwide began sobbing uncontrollably not long after, many fearing they my soon have to seek more conventional means of adding music to their digital library.

This post has admittedly been one we’ve known we would eventually have to write for some time. It-Leaked dates back to a time before UTG even existed, and it’s actually a bit shocking they survived as long as they did. We do not know what caused the owners to finally call it quits, but we applaud them for finally stepping away from the piracy game.

UPDATE: We know what caused the owners to finally call it quits. Two months came and went without donation of any kind from its 10,000+ user-base, leaving the site’s owners to pay server costs on their own. Well, they couldn’t. After two months, their host deleted their database from their servers. No backup was made.

Ideas were had to incorporate ads or adfly links to the site to garner the funds required to keep the “service” going. The owners didn’t like the idea. Instead, the site faded into darkness where it will stay.

If you’re feeling sad about the death of It-Leaked, maybe this panel from the comic strip Peanuts will help you understand how to ease the pain:

James Shotwell

James Shotwell is the founder of Under The Gun Review. He loves writing about music and movies almost as much as he loves his two fat cats. He's also the co-founder of Antique Records and the Marketing Coordinator for Haulix. You should probably follow him on Twitter.

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  • Who would have thought pirates wouldn’t monetarily support piracy….

  • Kyle Bradshaw

    I appreciated their website not for the piracy, but for the early access. I love listening to albums a few times before deciding if I want to keep it in my collection.

  • timothy Kloss

    haha they couldve easily asked for donations and people would have so i call bullshit.

  • Zack Mancini

    This website introduced me to a lot of musicians I would have not otherwise known about. Any chance I would get, I would have gladly supported those musicians by seeing them live, if they came around.
    Also, Timothy, they did have a space on their website to donate, but just weren’t at the point of begging. People probably used to, but I guess they just thought they did their part and no longer donated.
    Gonna miss this site.

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