We won’t lie, most of you probably moved on to streaming long ago. Freemium is so easy now and has almost everything you want. However for the audiophiles and computer geeks with a tinge of old-school in their blood, the streaming era may have officially arrived. That is because the most respected and most impressive music torrenting site, What.CD, was just shut down by the French authorities today.
For those unaware, this was a private site so exclusive you could only join via member invite or through an extensive interview process about the technical details of torrenting and music files. Once you gain membership, the world’s music library was at your fingertips, in every quality level you desire including the elusive FLAC. Albums would almost always end up on the site before their release and the community maintained the site unlike any other. The music library was even more meticulously curated than Beatport, and it included all genres of music including rare unreleased music.
The site was shuttered and all 12 servers were seized to shut the legendary site down for good, taking an estimated 3 million torrents with it. All that remains now is this sad message
Due to some recent events, What.CD is shutting down. We are not likely to return any time soon in our current form. All site and user data has been destroyed. So long, and thanks for all the fish.
While the community will intend to rebuild, What.CD was truly the last bastion of music downloading era. Sure there are still plenty of shady outlets that remain, if you can get to your download without also getting 5 viruses. Pour one out for What.CD, because now streaming and paid music have officially taken over completely.
Source: Gizmodo
