The word ‘********’ ranked 9 on Google’s list of most queried terms in 2006.[4][5] On May 28, 2008, ******** indicated that there have been over 5 billion downloads and a lawsuit.[6] The ******** team also runs a recently created video sharing site, called Snotr.[7] They also started to offer a content distribution service, targeted for independent content producers.[8]
As of May 6, 2009, the ******** team began trial of a content recognition system, which will result in the removal of any torrents that are flagged as infringing upon copyright laws.[9]
In May 2009 the Dutch copyright enforcement organization BREIN started a civil procedure against ******** demanding that ******** starts filtering torrent files pointing to copyright protected works from its platform. During the trial ******** stated that it was not feasible for them to identify such files by itself, but indicated that they would remove torrent files in case BREIN identified those files it considered to be pointing to copyright protected material. On August 26 the Utrecht court ruled[10] that ******** needs to remove all torrent files pointing to copyright protected material from the platform within 3 months or face damages of up to €5 million.
As of November 26, 2009, ******** limited its platform to Content Distribution torrents only (thus becoming a minor torrent website), in compliance with the ruling of the Utrecht trial. All so called copyrighted torrents were removed. According to the staff's blog, they're still considering appeal.