Mp3skull is a simple mp3 search engine and file indexer that indexes audio files over the wild. It organizes files according to artist, size and duration and album. They have an ultra simple search bar and spartan layout which lists top downloads on the front page and search results just lists the audios an function to listen to them. This site has been blocked in UK by isps owing to court order. They have a firefox toolbar from which you can search on their website without even going into the website 😀
Domain: mp3skull.ninja (formerly mp3skull.com, mp3skull.to, mp3skull.cr, mp3skull.is)
Registration: Monica Vasilenko, MP3Skull, Inc., Petrozavodsk, Russia
Hosting Provider: M247 (Romania) – through Cloudflare (US)
Registrars: EasyDNS Technologies, Inc.; Tucows Domains, Inc.
Revenue Sources: Advertising, malware install programs, revenue sharing with redirects to third party sites.
Mp3skull is an unlicensed service that provides unlimited free downloads and on-demand streaming of the most popular copyrighted sound recordings in the world. Its sole purpose is to generate profit from the theft of music, and it makes no pretence about what it does or why it does it. Virtually any commercial recording is available for free download or streaming through the site and its most popular offerings (“Top Downloads”) virtually mirror the Billboard Top 100 list.
Mp3skull is the most highly trafficked mp3 site of its kind in the world and the huge user base allows its operators to profit from advertisements on the site and from the distribution of adware and malware to its users. The site purports to be simply an index site for mp3s found elsewhere on the internet, but the site operates within a close web of loosely affiliated sites that provide the content for mp3skull.
For years the site operated from the domain name mp3skull.com, but has since jumped to mp3skull.to, mp3skull.cr and mp3skull.is. All of these domains now resolve to mp3kull.ninja.
Since 2011, various copyright owners have sent notices on more than 3.3 million mp3skull webpages offering access to infringing files. RIAA alone has sent the site takedown notices on 1.7 million URLs to no avail.
We suspect the reason mp3skull has been repeatedly jumping to new top level domains is to work around search engine demotion signals. Major search engines now demote sites from search results based on the volume of infringement notices they receive for the site. Changing the top level domain name allows the site to bypass the demotion signal and reappear in the top search results. Mp3 sites like mp3skull have relied heavily on search to drive traffic to their site. The rapid movement between domain names makes it difficult to get a fix on Alexa rankings and traffic measures, but the mp3skull.is just a month ago had a global Alexa ranking of 7392, and SimilarWeb traffic data has the site averaging over 40 million visits a month.
In April of this year, several US record labels sued mp3skull in U.S. District Court in Miami seeking monetary damages and other relief. The operators of mp3skull failed to answer the complaint and the plaintiffs are seeking a default judgement against the site.
Mp3skull has been blocked in the U.K. by court order.