While most of us that use the internet can say we’re familiar with sites like Piratebay or Kickass Torrents, there’s a whole other network of torrenting and file sharing sites that exist deeper into the web, on an invite only basis. One of those sites was What.CD, which has today been shut down.

First live in 2007, the music specific site has reportedly had “12 servers that powered What.cd’s infrastructure were seized by French cybercrime authorities. What.cd hasn’t been taken offline completely, but torrents are unavailable and the homepage now displays a message confirming its demise,” Zataz Magazine, a French publication, is claiming.

Though there’s no doubt that music piracy has become much less commonplace in recent years – largely due to the success of streaming services like Spotify and Apple Music – What.CD persisted because it offered a catalogue and database of much lesser known releases. While we’re fed most of our music at a max of 320kbps, What.CD provided most of their downloads in any format you could ask for. WAV, FLAC, some in lossless, it was a dream for people who wanted to be able to listen to their tunes in the absolute best quality possible. It was the range and sharing of tunes that also lead to such a community being formed, which sadly today dies along with the site.

what.cd will be eulogized as a piracy hub but there were literally thousands of albums on there that do not exist anywhere else anymore

— luh croy (@shoegays) November 17, 2016

While we’re not condoning the illegal downloading of music, as we believe every artist should be properly compensated for their work, what we are doing is farewelling a service that allowed for so much choice. Why aren’t we able to choose the quality of the music we listen to? Why are some of these releases in danger of never seeing the light of day? Hopefully we see these changes soon, but for now, goodbye What.CD.

All site and user data has been destroyed. So long, and thanks for all the fish. <3 2/2

— What.CD (@whatcd) November 17, 2016