Putlocker describes various online file hosting index websites utilized for streaming home entertainment media, especially films and television series, free of charge. The initial site stemmed in the UK as early as 2011, and grew to receive millions of day-to-day visitors after the shutdown of Megaupload. In Might 2016, the site was blocked in the UK by a High Court order, [2] and at its peak prior to a short-term closure in late 2016, Alexa Internet noted Putlocker as ranking amongst the top 250 most-visited websites worldwide. Putlocker has been reported by the Movie Association of America (MPAA) as a major piracy hazard.
Putlocker's domain address has changed several times throughout its history, with a variety of URLs bearing the Putlocker name being suspended or taken. It is not openly known whether an official Putlocker website kept by the initial team remains readily available online, however at least fifty mirror or proxy websites, a number of which use the Putlocker name, have been determined.
Putlocker came from in the UK under the URL putlocker.com. In early January 2012, the site received about 800,000 visitors a day, but after the popular site Megaupload was closed down due to copyright infringement, Putlocker began getting around 1.6 million visitors a day The site's operations officer, Adrian Petroff, discovered Megaupload's closure fretting, mentioning "who requires SOPA when a studio exec can make a wish/hit list and sites 'voluntarily' shut down?"
In March 2012, Putlocker was recognized by Alfred Perry, vice president for worldwide content security at Paramount Pictures, as one of the "top 5 rogue cyberlocker services". [8] The website's URL was altered to putlocker.bz, an address which was taken by the Cops Copyright Criminal Offense System of the UK in June 2014, and was consequently altered to putlocker.is, a domain situated in Iceland.
2016-- present.
From around early October 2016, the putlocker.is address displayed an error stating that the website's host service was unattainable. [10] Around this time, the Movement Picture Association of America (MPAA) reported Putlocker to the Office of the United States Trade Representative as a piracy risk. The MPAA revealed that Putlocker ran from Vietnam, which its servers were hosted by the Swiss business Private Layer.
Prior to its closure, putlocker.is was listed amongst the 250 leading sites worldwide and the top 150 in the United States, according to Alexa data. A mirror website under the address putlocker.today appeared shortly after the assumed termination of putlocker.is, and on October 17, 2016, an address under the name putlocker9.com was reported to be available.
On 2 November 2016, the putlocker.is address became active again, redirecting its users to the upgraded URL putlockers.ch.On 27 February 2017, the putlockers.ch address was suspended after a ruling by a Tribunal d'arrondissement of Luxembourg in favour of the Belgian Entertainment Association, and the URL transferred ownership to EuroDNS. The chief legal officer of EuroDNS, Luc Seufer, specified that EuroDNS is required to "prevent any 'reactivation' of this domain name [putlockers.ch] up until its expiration date". Following the seizure of the putlockers.ch address, the previously used putlocker.is domain was made functional once again.
In March 2017, it was reported that Ted Osius, then United States Ambassador to Vietnam, held a conference with Truong Minh Tuan, Vietnam's Minister of Info and Communications, throughout which Osius prompted for the prosecution of Putlocker, in addition to the websites 123Movies and KissCartoon, for copyright infringement.
Not long after, putlocker.is, which changed to putlockertv.is and consequently putlockers.cc, was reported to reroute visitors to a scamming website. [16] In May 2017, at least 3 working websites bearing the Putlocker name were known to be readily available: putlocker.rs, with a Serbian top-level domain (TLD), putlockertv.ist, with an Istanbulite TLD, and putlockerhd.is, with get more info an Icelandic one.
In July 2017, the International Business Times reported that "15% of web users in the UK are either infringing copyright through streaming or unlawful downloads, with pirated TELEVISION product primarily accessed through Kodi (16%) or Putlocker (17%)". [18] In August 2017, Justice John Nicholas of the Federal Court of Australia bought Australian internet service providers to obstruct access to 42 piracy sites in a case brought by Village Roadshow, with Putlocker, KissCartoon, and GoMovies being amongst those purchased to be blocked.
In June 2018, Trevon Maurice Franklin of Fresno, California pleaded guilty to violating federal copyright law back in February 2016, when he downloaded the superhero film Deadpool from Putlocker and then published it to Facebook 8 days after the movie was launched theatrically in the United States. [20] As an outcome, the movie was seen over 6 million times for totally free, with the total retail worth of the copies being estimated at around $2,500. [21] U.S. District Judge John A. Kronstadt set 27 September as the sentencing date for the federal class-A misdemeanor, which brings a possible penalty of approximately one year in jail, together with a $100,000 fine. [20] After missing out on the September 27 sentencing hearing, Franklin was sentenced in October to 24 days in federal detention followed by a year of monitored release, consisting of 20 hours of social work each week.