A British man has been arrested for his role in running one of the internet's oldest file sharing websites.

The man - who started the FileSoup website in 2003 - was taken into custody last week after a raid on his home in Taunton, Somerset, and subsequently released on bail without charge.

FileSoup, which was started in 2003, is well-known in the file sharing community but does not host illegal material itself. Instead, it operates forums where users share links to files which then allow them to download TV shows and movies from around the internet.

When contacted by the Guardian, the man verified that he had been arrested last Monday, but refused to comment further without consulting a lawyer.

However, in a posting on FileSoup itself, he detailed the situation - including how police seized a number from his home, including mobile phones, computers, hard drives and a video camera.

"I was arrested and taken to the local police station," he wrote. "On the way I asked and was told that it would take about a couple of hours. When I arrived, the booking-in charge was entered as suspicion of downloading copyrighted movies."

After what he claims were several hours in which he was refused contact with friends, family or a legal representative, he was eventually given a solicitor, interviewed by officers and released without charge. His bail conditions state that he must surrender to police in October.

Avon and Somerset police would not comment on the case when contacted by the Guardian on Tuesday evening.

Known online as "Geeker", the man has run FileSoup since it started in 2003. For several years it operated as a so-called "tracker" website - much like notorious Swedish file sharing site the Pirate Bay, whose backers were each sentenced to a year in prison and fined £600,000 by a court in Stockholm for copyright offences.

Since 2005, however, FileSoup has not operated as a tracker - instead hosting forum pages where community members regularly post links to files that let them download copyrighted programmes and films.

However, with British law still unclear whether such sites are illegal - since they effectively act as search engines for online material, rather than hosting it - the site's fans were left up in arms.

"This is insane," said one commenter on the Torrentfreak website, which broke the news. "I'm saddened by this news," commented another.

Among the concerns was the news that the goods seized during the operation were no longer being held by police, but had instead been handed over to the Federation Against Copyright Theft (Fact), an accredited private group that often assists law enforcement with inquiries in such cases.

A spokesman for Fact, which is funded by organisations such as BSkyB, Paramount and Sony Pictures, said it could not comment on an open investigation.

The federation largely concentrates its activities on shutting down the authors and sellers of pirate DVDs, but recently it has been intimately involved in a number of high-profile file sharing cases - not all of them successful.

Two years ago a 26-year-old man from Cheltenham was arrested for running a website called TV Links, which pointed users towards television shows online, some of which had been illegally copied. Although no charges were ever brought against the individual behind the site, it was closed down as a result.

Shortly after that incident, police raided the HQ of another file sharing website, a private music community called Oink. The site had become well-known for allowing users to access out of print material and pre-release versions of new music - and was even used by musicians including Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor, who told New York magazine that he "frequented it quite often".

The site's administrator, 25-year-old Alan Ellis, was taken into custody by Middlesbrough police and after further raids in May 2008, four men eventually plead guilty to various copyright infringement offences. Three defendants were sentenced to community service, and all four fined between £360 and £500.