Anti-Piracy Organization Tries to Shut Down Demonoid

Written by Ernesto on June 27, 2007 

The Dutch anti-piracy outfit BREIN filed a subpoena against Demonoid’s ISP (Leaseweb) in which they demand that the site will be taken offline. It seems likely that Demonoid’s current downtime is not a hardware problem, they are probably moving to another ISP.

breinYesterday we reported that the downtime at demonoid was caused by a harddisk crash, but now it seems that the real reason for the downtime could be a bit more complicated.

Demonoid is probably relocating to a new “safe haven” as we speak, this also explains why it takes a few days instead of a few hours to get back online (edit: see update).

Tim Kuik, managing director of BREIN, said in response to the downtime at Demonoid (Dutch link): “They are probably playing hide and seek. We want Leaseweb to take and keep this, and other illegal sites offline.”

This the the fist time that BREIN takes on one of the bigger BitTorrent sites. Last week they won a lawsuit against Leaseweb in a similar case, this could spell trouble for Demonoid.

In this case the Amsterdam court decided that Leaseweb had to take down everlasting.nu and hand over the name and address of the owner. Additionally, Leaseweb was forced to take down everlasting.nu, in case the site returns in the near future. The same thing could now happen to Demonoid.

Nearly 94% of the .torrent files on Demonoid are used to download copyrighted material according to research by TNO. BREIN will probably use this figure in court to convince the Judge that Demonoid is mainly used to download infringing content.

Update: Demonoid now has a message on the frontpage stating that the downtime is not related to the subpoena.

Stay tuned for updates

Previously: uTorrent for Mac is Coming: An Early Review

Next: BitTorrent Survival: The Way of the Hydra

180 Responses

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1 Jun 27, 2007 at 11:59 by Jpeezy

Quote “Additionally, Leaseweb was forced to take down everlasting.nu, in case the site returns” /Quote

I assume you mean the domain name? They could only do that if they are the registrar right?

I hope demonoid didn’t use leaseweb as their registrar.

2 Jun 27, 2007 at 12:02 by Ernesto

[quote comment="124719"]
I assume you mean the domain name? They could only do that if they are the registrar right?[/quote]

No, I meant the site behind the domain. They are free to move to another ISP if they want to.

3 Jun 27, 2007 at 13:06 by Rick

Demonoid will be back up soon, they have not been taken down - also note the temporary message from the Demonoid site.

If they had been taken down they would not be able to place that now would they?

4 Jun 27, 2007 at 13:24 by Chris

then where the hell did you get the idea that it was a hardware problem in the last post?

5 Jun 27, 2007 at 13:25 by casey

[quote comment="124764"]Demonoid will be back up soon, they have not been taken down - also note the temporary message from the Demonoid site.

If they had been taken down they would not be able to place that now would they?[/quote]
They have not been taken down, but have merely taken it upon themselves to relocate because of the fuss with everlasting.nu.

It’s good because you know the admins at Demonoid are taking the first step at preventing the same thing from happening to them.

So many good torrent sites, so many bad anti p2p organizations. :(

6 Jun 27, 2007 at 13:30 by Ernesto

[quote comment="124779"]then where the hell did you get the idea that it was a hardware problem in the last post?[/quote]
That’s the official statement in their IRC channel and on demonoid.com

[quote comment="124764"]Demonoid will be back up soon, they have not been taken down - also note the temporary message from the Demonoid site.

If they had been taken down they would not be able to place that now would they?[/quote]

Read the post, BREIN filed a lawsuit, so they’re not taken down yet.

7 Jun 27, 2007 at 13:36 by ace

Well we hope demonoid is back up soon cuse the traker is very slow 5kb/sec with 50 seeds….

8 Jun 27, 2007 at 13:39 by DarkSkywise

Everlasting wasn’t taken down because it was a torrent site, but because they had come back after being taken down once before (as “Ladytorrent”).

Also, the case against Everlasting wasn’t a lawsuit but a “kort geding” (cease & desist), which means that, according to Dutch Law, it CAN’T be used as a legal precedent against sites like Demonoid.

So please, stop the conjecture… it’s just a hardware problem (disk refusing to come back online after a forced disk check) and it’s purely coincidental. (Really.)

9 Jun 27, 2007 at 13:52 by Ernesto

[quote comment="124800"]Everlasting wasn’t taken down because it was a torrent site, but because they had come back after being taken down once before (as “Ladytorrent”).

[/quote]
Ladytorrent wasn’t even mentioned in the ruling

10 Jun 27, 2007 at 14:08 by badgerbadgerbadger

Quote from Deimos,

“I tried to force a disk check, and the fucking thing decided not to come back online after a reboot. It seems the data is lost. I have a few days old backup though…

it is definitely not my week.”

“I’ll set up the web server again to at least have a message on the site as soon as the host’s support brings the server back..
it should be in around 6 hours.”

11 Jun 27, 2007 at 16:19 by ssd

demonoid should move to sweeden…

…and maybe join up with piratebay

12 Jun 27, 2007 at 16:39 by Yuuref

The cause for the ruling was that the owner of Everlasting.nu was uploading a lot of the torrents, and the ruling does not mention LadyTorrent but BREIN says in their news page that the guy is suspected of running that too. That fact was probably mentioned a few times in court

13 Jun 27, 2007 at 18:24 by Yatti

Good job Demonoid… I hope theyd drop that ISP… Too Risky To Stay Wit Old!…

14 Jun 27, 2007 at 19:28 by Chester

We are not moving ISP’s… We did have Hardware issues. Should be back up within the next 2 days.

If we were switching ISP’s, we would have been up in one day. Don’t be retarded please.

15 Jun 27, 2007 at 21:36 by greenblue77

the website is down but the tracker is still working not much of victory

16 Jun 27, 2007 at 21:36 by Jason

New message

We were planning on returning online in the next few hours - probably tomorrow afternoon. But due some recent events, and following the advice of a lot of you, we will make a few more changes that might take a few days longer. As always, thanks for you continued support and patience. For the ones wondering, the timing of the downtime was coincidental.”

17 Jun 27, 2007 at 22:20 by billywilliam111

Demonoid will make it through this, all the other sites do.

18 Jun 27, 2007 at 22:22 by v00d

If you do a whois search on their domain, then enter the IP into RIPE’s server, you can see they are still on Leaseweb (for the moment):

netname: LEASEWEB
descr: LeaseWeb
descr: P.O. Box 93054
descr: 1090BB AMSTERDAM
descr: Netherlands

So, as of yet, they have not moved.

19 Jun 27, 2007 at 22:58 by Andrew

Demonoid is big. BREIN is relatively unexperienced at lawsuits. I am not very scared of BREIN taking down Demonoid. But in the words of a demonoid member if it does go dowbn it is time to fear teh reaper.

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