U.K. police try (and fail) to shut down largest torrent search engine on the Web

The copyright crusade continues: U.K. police today suspended the domain name of Torrentz.eu, a massive search engine for torrent files.

The successful suspension, TorrentFreak reports, resulted from a few warning letters sent by the U.K.’s Intellectual Property Crime Unit, a police unit that launched in September 2013 and had successfully suspended 40 domains by December 2013.

Yet the U.K. police unit’s request failed to cause little more than a hiccup for Torrentz.eu users; the service’s alternate domains (Torrentz.me and Torrentz.ch) remain untouched, and it appears the request will only amount to a temporary suspension of Torrentz.eu’s namesake domain.

The IPCU claims to fight a cyber war against “organised crime gangs” that cost the U.K. music and film industry “hundreds of millions of pounds each year.” These claims contradict numerous studies that find piracy can, in some cases, boost sales in creative industries.