ShareReactor

Infobox Website
name = ShareReactor



caption =
url = [http://www.sharereactor.com/ www.sharereactor.com]
alexa =
commercial =
type = web portal for the eDonkey network
language =
registration =
owner =
author =
launch date =
current status = Shutdown
revenue =
slogan =

ShareReactor was a popular index site for files on the eDonkey network. ShareReactor did not host any files; instead, the links it contained were accessible through an eDonkey network client. It was taken down by Swiss Police on March 10, 2004 due to the suspicion of breach of copyright and trademark laws. After a long downtime of nearly two years and six months, the site returned online under new ownership. However nearly two months after its return, it once again closed down due to lack of popularity.

Origin

The site was founded on August 5, 2001 by an administrator using the pseudonym 'Gowenna' and was initially located at Gowenna.da.ru which was only a shadow domain. The site was renamed ShareReactor in November 2001 and used an official domain due to its great popularity. In January 2002, it was announced that Gowenna had passed away in a car accident. The site administration was continued by Christian Riesen (aka Simon Moon) who until then was mainly responsible for technical work on the site and hosting. After concerns of donations and how ShareReactor’s money was being spent under the new owner, a break-up within the staff happened. Several of ShareReactor’s early staff members threw the towel, and many believed ShareReactor would soon fail. However several staff members returned and new staff was recruited over time. The site's popularity persisted, eventually even growing further. ShareReactor remained the top eD2k indexing website up until March 2004 when it suddenly was closed due to suspicion of breach of copyright and trademark laws within the country of Switzerland where ShareReactor’s owner lived and where ShareReactor was being hosted.

Takedown

ShareReactor was taken down by the local police in the Canton of Thurgau, Switzerland on March 10, 2004 due to the suspicion of breach of copyright and trademark laws. The investigation was reportedly initiated by complaints from the Swiss Anti-Piracy-Federation (SAFE) at the request of several large corporations, one of them presumably being Columbia Tri-Star Inc.

Reopening and Closure

ShareReactor came back online after nearly two years and six months of being offline. Before ShareReactor’s full return in September 2006, ShareReactor made a partial return, which was in June 2004 when their forum was put back online. However the difference was all the sections of the forum that featured eD2k links were closed due to the closure they received a few months before. The return of ShareReactor’s forum was until around November 2004 when the place that was hosting the forum had a major power surge and the servers were destroyed. On the last known occasion of ShareReactor’s forum being online, there were around 1,100,000 posts.

When ShareReactor made a full return was on September 4, 2006. Prior to their reopening, a mass e-mail was sent to all the users of ShareReactor and users of related sites, such as RespectP2P. ShareReactor was back although things were a bit different: the site was under new ownership, had a new design, and featured better controls within the website. A noticeable difference was the site owner and administrator, SimonMoon, who ran the site from January 2002 until March 2004 choose not to be involved within the site since it was still under investigation. The database used for the homepage was a backup taken on March 10, 2004 (the day of ShareReactor’s closure), and the forum database was from a backup taken on December 29, 2002 (about a one year and three months prior to the closure). When ShareReactor’s forum returned, there were only around 420,000 posts, which means a loss of 680,000 posts. Very few staff members of ShareReactor were active when the site reopened, the staff were: XTRiCiAN, Maxiqa, Piratsvin, Seth, and sUiZiD. Prior to ShareReactor being closed down, there was a staff of about twenty administrators and thirty-five forum moderators, a significant amount compared to when ShareReactor reopened.

In late October 2006, ShareReactor closed down once again. The closure was due to lack of popularity within the site. In February 2008 a Swiss district court finally sentenced the prior owner of Sharereactor to a fine of 2,000 CHF ( $1,827.11 USD ) nearly four years after the website was first shut down by the authorities.

ee also

*File sharing
*eMule
*

External links

* [http://www.kapo.tg.ch/xml_42/internet/de/application/f5883.cfm Website of the Kanton Thurgau Police Department, where the original press release regarding the investigation can be found.] Site is entirely in German. Search in "Archiv", put "2004" in the "Jahr" option, "3" in the "Monat" option, and "Medienmeldungen der Kantonspolizei" in the "Rubrik" option, and click "anzeigen". The press release, entitled "Internet-Site vom Netz genommen" can be found by scrolling down through the list of search results to March 16, or "16. März 2004."
* [http://www.thurgauerzeitung.ch/default2.cfm?vDest=chronoArtikel&id=176893 Article in Thurgauer Zeitung showing counter-statement by "Simon Moon's" lawyers in response to the police press release.] Dated March 23, 2004, in German.
* [http://www.safe.ch/de/info/news/archiv/UR_LU.php?navid=11 SAFE's report on the removal of ShareReactor from the 'net, in German.]
* [http://slyck.com/news.php?story=1283 ShareReactor Strikes Back] - Story about the reopening of ShareReactor written by Thomas Mennecke