YIFY Founder Opens Up About Five Years of Movie Piracy

Toward the end of last year, famed torrent uploader YIFY, and its home website YTS, was closed following a settlement between its owner and the MPAA. Now, its founder – using his old YIFY alias – has revealed the history of the popular upload group, from its inception to its demise.

“A year in is when friends started to see it as something more, and YIFY started becoming a well-known name on the internet. At no point in time did I try to hide this, if anything I was proud and happy to even brag about it,” YIFY told TorrentFreak, adding, “There was always only a single person ‘leading’ the project and who ultimately called the shots. After all, it was my baby.”

While YIFY admits to being heavily influenced by the piracy “Scene”, he claims that he never wanted YIFY or YTS to be a part of it.

“Technically we were ‘stealing’ from the Scene. I respect what they did and would thank them a bunch in person if I could. However, we never followed any Scene rules and we did not really care to be part of their elitist club either,” he said. “Ultimately, the way I saw it, the YIFY brand was simply filling another niche. It was no secret that most of our sources were from normal Scene uploaders.”

YIFY is not legally able to discuss the settlement he reached with the MPAA, saying only, “I always in my mind and to my peers said ‘As soon as someone properly asks you to stop, you stop and walk away from it’. This is essentially how it all played out.”

Following the closure of YTS and the end of official YIFY torrents, though, a number of imposters sprung up, including a new YTS domain. The move concerned the real YIFY, and he initially worried that he’d been hacked. Worry soon turned to anger, though, as the imposters tried to claim official ownership over the YIFY moniker.

“When the fakes started to claim they were the real YIFY rather than saying they were there and wanted to continue as a different entity, I was a little angry,” he lamented. “But at the end of the day it was inevitable, and in their defense they did a really good job of what they attempted at, even fooling me at the start.”

While the real YIFY is no longer operating, his departure from movie piracy has done nothing to dent the Scene. YIFY claims that nothing will, concluding, “Piracy is not going away. Ever. I think that instead of trying the impossible, shutting down torrent sites and the like in an attempt to ‘kill’ piracy, the movie industry should focus on making their offerings irresistible to users and giving them zero excuses for piracy.”

Image courtesy of CurrentlyDown.