Plug pulled on unlimited-download site Zookz

That didn't take long. Friday evening I blogged that the government of Antigua had issued a terse press release claiming that it had nothing to do with unlimited-download site Zookz. The Zookz legal team responded with an equally terse note saying that it didn't need the government's approval, and that its service was perfectly legal under its interpretation of a recent World Trade Organization (WTO) ruling.

It looks like the authorities won this round. This afternoon, Zookz disappeared from the Web. According to a statement by the company's director of communications, the site is "temporarily not operating due to circumstances beyond [their] control" and the company is "returning all membership fees paid to date by our existing customers." The release and the Zookz Twitter feed both express hope that the site will be back up again soon. I wouldn't hold your breath--legal threats, followed by a takedown and an offer of refunds doesn't sound like a viable long-term business to me.

I'm curious to hear from any customers--how many songs did you download, and did Zookz refund your money as promised? Post in comments and let me know.

Follow Matt on Twitter.

[adamguillette]

I downloaded 5 movies and 10 songs. Zookz DID refund my money this afternoon. Should I delete the movies and music?

By the way, MOST of the movies were high quality. However, I downloaded "Role Models" and the resolution was terrible.

[diem2009]

I used the site to down load four movies and the quality for my computer was poor but acceptable for my ipod touch which meant I was happy. The speed was good but the site only let you download one file at a time. No queuing mechanism.

I got the same email about a refund from their payment company so I should get the money back.

[Jon_Davie]

I got about 30 movies, and did get the refund. The quality was only good enough for a mobile device, and some of the movie files were simply incomplete.

[codynews]

Some flash-in-the-pan 'me too!' download site comes around with a full on warez sounding name and people actually signed up for it?

Why not just DL the songs/movies from a torrent site?

Not saying that you should DL media for free, but if you're going to sub to some fishy site you might as well.

[SonOfZeus666]

My motivation was out of spite. Read the issues on to how this came about and why the WTO ruled the way it did.

[SpyHntr]

I got 27 albums and two movies, all good quality. Bit rate for songs (the ones I checked) were 256 kb/s, which is same as what Amazon sells their MP3s at. And yes, I did get a refund, to my surprise, considering their terms were for no refunds. You did cancel, and the subscription would just close at the end of that month's cycle.
To respond to codynews's question, asking why not just DL from a torrent...? I guess because I believe most torrents disobey copyright laws. Maybe I was fooling myself, but if Zookz was legal, I wanted to believe it, but I'm no lawyer. If the "world is flat," I imagine we'll be seeing more loophole grabbers come along again.

[SonOfZeus666]

I downloaded 15 movies and over 75 songs. Purely out of spite, stupid American government ran by a bunch of corrupt JOs. Oh well can't wait till the country collapses, hopefully this epoch ends in 2012.

I got my membership fee refunded.

[marlie_hall]

The ZookZ.com website is back up. Our music and movie service is still unavailable but we are working to restore it. ZookZ has processed all customer refunds as of 07/21/09 so if you don't see the credit by 7/24/09 please contact [e-mail]. We encourage you to check www.zookz.com or visit us on twitter @zookz or Facebook for continued updates.

Marlie Hall
Director of Corporate Communications
ZookZ