BEIJING: A leading BitTorrent (BT) website in China offering free movie and music downloads resumed service Thursday afternoon, a day after it went offline amid fears the authorities had closed it down in a crackdown on online piracy and pornography.

Operators put a notice on the website VeryCD, saying that Wednesday’s breakdown was caused by technical failures. With 5 million downloads each year, VeryCD is the largest BT download website in China. BT is a peer-to-peer file sharing agreement.

Users welcomed the website’s recovery. One named "toshiyalee" wrote that the one day suspension seemed like a year.

The latest crackdown came after November 24 when Tian Jin, deputy director of the State Administration of Radio, Film and Television (SARFT), vowed a wipeout of unlicensed video websites.

Huang Yimeng, co-founder of the website, told the Beijing News that his company was still applying for a license from the authorities, but declined to comment on the future of the company.

Hundreds of similar sites have already been shut down by the SARFT, including download search engine BTChina.net.

                                                                                                      Source: China Daily