Popular torrent release group YIFY and its official YTS website have shut down permanently.

The unexpected shutdown marks the end of an era that started at the turn of the decade.

Ten days ago the popular movie torrent site YTS stopped working. The downtime raised concern among many BitTorrent users, not least because the site belongs to movie release group YIFY, which has dominated public BitTorrent sites for several years

The major movie studios of the MPAA are behind the recent shutdown of the torrent site YTS and YIFI.

This may also be a blow for users of the Android XBMC / Kodi, which also relies on YIFY as a major source of its pirated material.