CRIA Orders ShutDown of What.cd, Other Major BitTorrent Trackers
Written by enigmax on May 27, 2008A company which hosts many BitTorrent trackers has been ordered by the CRIA to close at least four major sites. Moxie Colo was issued with cease and desist notices and ordered to hand over the owners data and site logs of What.cd, SumoTracker, BTMon and FullDls. They are told to simply close many other sites they host.
Those who believed that Canada would develop as one of the world’s BitTorrent safe-havens, are in for quite a surprise. Despite many people believing that torrent sites are operating legally in Canada, today popular Canadian BitTorrent host Moxie Colo was served with cease and desist orders, courtesy of the CRIA.
They specifically demand that the Moxie Colo stops hosting top ranked torrent sites What.cd, SumoTorrent, BTMon and FullDls. Generally, the CRIA is demanding that Moxie stop hosting all torrent sites.
TorrentFreak has been reporting recently on the plight of QuebecTorrent which is currently tied up in a legal battle against the music industry in Canada. Clearly that - and the running out of town of Demonoid - was just a run up to further action by an emboldened CRIA.
In files served on Moxie Communications Inc (the parent company of Moxie Colo), the CRIA is demanding that Moxie turn over the personal details of the torrent site administrators, presumably so they can go after them. The CRIA also want Moxie to turn over all relevant site logs, but it is at least unlikely that the Canadian police will be interested in most of the users.
Of course, just because the CRIA demands something, doesn’t mean they will get it. For now, Moxie Colo said it won’t be giving in to the CRIA’s demands.
Sean Corbin, CEO of Moxie Communications told TorrentFreak: “We will not be following the request and will be fighting for the rights of our clients as to date laws in Canada protect them. We have looked into the matter and from what we understand these sites are not breaking any laws in Canada. If we do not comply they might bring legal action against Moxie Communications, as they believe without us these sites could not do what they do so therefore we are as bad as they are.”
More on this breaking story as we get it.
Previously: Most Popular DVDrips on BitTorrent (wk21)
Next: MPAA Threatens World’s Premier Usenet Indexer
85 Responses
Good luck MoxieColo, nice to see a hoster stand up to CRIA et al.!
“CRIA Orders ShutDown of What.cd”
Your blatant sensationalism makes me sick. CRIA can’t order dick, they just send out some “scary” letters to browbeat an ISP into submission because they know they can’t do shit in court. Good thing said ISP doesn’t seem to give a shit about scare tactics.
It’s all so fucking pointless. How many times do we have to hear about this fucker did that fucker did this. It all boils down to gooey shite.
21grams, without sites like this one you probably wont even know whats happening, so shut it or shove it…
CRIA is bullshitting
If they order to shut down what.cd server, they will move their servers to another country!
It’s a stupid way to force an ISP to shut down some servers, CRIA is just trying to close a datacenter LoL
someone should really fuck CRIA deeply :)
what.cd is moving to another host already LoL
this site continues to eat dick and write articles that as mis-informed as the Inquirer. At least this one wasn’t from Ben Jones this time
QFT, I still doubt that they even know whats going on. If they don’t like the article they shouldn’t fucking read it.
Some of us do like these articles though, so stfu.
Go Moxie!
Doesn’t anyone know any of these copyright upholding assholes in real life? A few tight slaps across some ugly faces are in order me thinks ..
I do agree that you (torrentfreak) are a bit sensationalist sometimes but hey makes interesting reading.
Anywhoooo to the point good luck Moxie Colo and hopefully the CRIA will stop gobbing off!
tight slaps LooL
Some tight slaps & some tight kicks :)
Moxie Colo does not just support torrent sites. We support anything that is deemed legal within Canada. I do not believe in that because someone else feels something should be taken down and only means to get that across is to send us a letter isn’t even worth the paper it is written on.
We believe in freedom of information and from what we seen and researched none of these sites are committing copyright infringement.
Now maybe the user’s of the site are but that has nothing to do with Moxie Colo or even the site owner’s as no illegal traffic is sent via Moxie’s Network.
Rest assured we will fight for what ever our clients need regardless as to what Ind it might be. Adult P2P Blog or anything else someone decides to host. If its legal its allowed here.
I doubt the sites in question are going to move off of moxie as we are standing here in public eye backing them up. If they want to leave then in end of day makes our life easier but by no means are we saying them or any other client needs to vacate. We will take this all the way to the courts before we would ever damage our relations with our clients.
Please everyone understand that we are not shutting down anyone anytime soon.
Regards
Moxie Colo.
this is what Sweden is for. once the new canada DMCA is in action its all over :\
na na na na, hey hey hey, goooodbyeee
- THE GUYS AT ANTI-PIRACY GANGS DESERVES DEATH! -
CRIA could not down Thepiratebay, now they are attacking to Moxie Colo.
I think Moxie Colo will fuck CRIA and other anti piracy company same like Thepiratebay did :)
Moxie Colo Go Go GO ! ! !
thnx Moxie Colo for your response.!
its good to see the isp standing up for their CUSTOMERS! it will only bring more custom ur way
and i hope what.cd ect will not move and continue paying for there hosting with Moxie Colo
hello riaa copycat, your are copying the riaa model, YOU ARE A PIRATE TOO!!!!
pleased by moxie’s stance on it :)
Norway is a “Bit-torrent safe-haven”.
we so need a international day of bashing anti copyright lawyers and organisations, like christmas was started by ordanary people once :-D
Awesome from MoxieColo. Hope they do well.
If they get through this I’m sure they’ll get many more clients ^^
I asked a friend at the CIRA about this action, and he said it was totally bogus.
Looks like a weak ass pandering publicity stunt, lame.
Tru tru.
Try the trout and you will never regret.
/me slaps anti-piracy gangs with a large trout.
Haha, let them try. Stupid fucking CIRA.
What.cd will never die!
im with hawkinbj on this one, you guys really need to stop reporting on information that you dont have any clue about, there is no reason to tell people what is going on if it isnt the truth.
“Your blatant sensationalism makes me sick. CRIA can’t order dick, they just send out some “scary” letters to browbeat an ISP into submission because they know they can’t do shit in court. Good thing said ISP doesn’t seem to give a shit about scare tactics.”
Quoted for fucking truth.
> “Your blatant sensationalism makes me sick. CRIA can’t order dick, they just send out some “scary” letters to browbeat an ISP into submission because they know they can’t do shit in court.”
it doesnt matter if you think they cant order anything - they did. whether the order matters is another thing.
CRIA is an absoloute joke… They would of been the first to tell the RIAA heads that our privacy laws aren’t going to allow their requests\demands\whatever… DUMB… Trying to intimidate Canadian trackers etc with no basis is a joke. They are trying to abolish any form of torrent being hosted in North America to prolong the life of their dead business model. The longer they fight the longer they can sustain the model.. No it will never completly crumble on them, they wont allow it. That will be the day they truly update their business model to meet the demands of consumers in the 21st century..
hey torrentfreak i dont think you guys are sensationalist, just to let you know. you’re a good source for our side of the news keep up the good work.
and moxie colo can you make this a big deal and get in the media and everything so more people can hate the anti-pirates and hopefully stop them from lobbying our government to make stupid laws and policies and such.
I respect Moxie Colo’s decision. They shouldn’t be bowing down to anybody.. The lawyers must be laughing eh.
Our lawyers are not even wasting time dealing with this.
As of now it is a request by 1 party to another party.
If they feel that they can win in court they will move forward against my company. They are only doing this right now to us on account they can not source the owners of the sites directly and none of the owner’s are even in Canada. So we are closest bet. They assumed we were a hosting company ie a reseller for someone else and did not take in to account we are our own company therefore they cant go above us.
For the time being we are not even taking this as legit. If they do bring legal action against us we will go to the media and some and shine the light on this topic and attempt to protect our rights and our clients right.
So how I do not believe this is going to go anywhere. Look at Quebec Torrent They are a torrent site we are a Data Center and they were not even shut down. The court said no. So when it comes to us providing a service it clearly states we can not be liable for someone else’s action. Same TOS our Carrier’s give us when we purchase connections from around the world.
We are not looking to gain more clients or bring fame to our company if that was the idea we would have done something long time ago. We have sat here a long time wondering when not if someone would come knocking asking us to shutdown these types of sites.
We at Moxie Colo are a service provider and thats what we provide.
As long as it is legal we will back our clients to the fullest of our capability’s.
Regards
Moxie Colo
CIRA suck ass, i love it how the ISP’s are just like fuck off don’t try that that shit.
Go MOXIE!
fuk it
We have been expecting such actions against what.cd since day one. We are not worried about this and have been prepared the entire time. If a court forces moxie to take us offline then we are ready to host elsewhere. We have better hardware than we currently run on sitting on standby to host elsewhere if that day comes as well as secure backups. We have no intention on fleeing Canada or moxie and give this one to CRIA but rest assured in the case we are forced to we have great redundancy and we will not be another dead tracker.
And props to moxie for the hosting :D
Sumo has informed us they are not fighting the case and are blocking Traffic from Canada. I do hope they reconsider we want people to be able to operate as normal and not have to take such actions blocking cdn traffic wont make a difference in this case as we do not and can not log traffic therefore its mute cause. unlike within the usa.
We have informed them for the time being they do not need to take any action as what was sent is just a letter that if a time comes we would inform them then.
I do hope they reopen to cdn traffic as everyone on moxie is.
Its not worth us fighting if u guys give in.
But rest assured we will fight if needed atm nothing has taken place.
if they don’t get shut down this time, they will eventually. I mean, they fucking give out invites to anyone that goes in their irc, that’s just stupid
Moxie Colo, you all really deserve a lot of respect. I wish you success in your business.
All I can say is that I too am very happy to see somebody that understands Canada’s laws as they currently exist and are willing to stand up to the CIRA and to put them in thier place. They have no authority…they are not the RCMP of the recording industry. Good on ya Moxie Colo!!!
Another shout out and pat on the back too all those that made it to the rally today on the Hill today. Next time let’s double our numbers
These cartels and their cronys don’t care if it’s right or wrong. Win or lose, their intention is to bankrupt people through legal fees. Unfortunately we have a greedy oppressive system which allows them to succeed in doing that.
At least they also have to pay, but their company lawyers probably work for peanuts and still get ripped off.
why does the what.cd IP 66.29.81.45 trace to New Jersey, USA?
If a tracker decides to block traffic from certain areas or decides to shut down, why not give their tracking info to others so that other trackers can take up the slack?
Because they’re OH SO LEET h33t.
sumotorrent is redirecting to canada.com thats not just blocking traffic thats weird.
I’m glad to see that they are going to be fighting against this nonsense.
How could we tolerate the mere existence of CRIA? The ones behind CRIA must not be allowed to live.
heres a delicious comment made by a mod on what: “Don’t worry, the CRIA is being stupid. This was somewhat expected, but the CRIA is only applying pressure on our ISP. Legally, they have no case. In the event that they would somehow touch the server, all data is secured (they won’t see anything that can identify you), we have backups and an extra server”
I doubt MoxieColo will comply to cria demand unless cria give them some benefit .
for example
if cria want all BT site on MoxieColo close , cria must be able to compensate the same or double amount that MoxieColo loss from closing those site . then MoxieColo will gladly to do .
I’m in the US and right now, the SumoTorrent web site is unreachable, and the trackers are giving me Error 10061.
I was wondering why the torrent I was downloading suddenly was full of holes. Other trackers list almost as many seeds and peers, but I was getting much better results when the Sumo Trackers were working.
This sucks!
On the bright side, I want to say a huge “Thank you!” to Moxie Colo for not rolling over like most ISPs these days!
(quote)
( I doubt MoxieColo will comply to cria demand unless cria give them some benefit .
for example
if cria want all BT site on MoxieColo close , cria must be able to compensate the same or double amount that MoxieColo loss from closing those site . then MoxieColo will gladly to do .
)
That is 100% wrong.
Being bought is not how I run my company. True it is a great way to make a quick buck but end of day id be out of business as no one would ever trust my company due to we can be bought for the right price.
Hell no.
Even if we were offered a payout then that is considered a bribe and is illegal then we would turn around and have them charged. Well who ever offered it. No lawyer would be stupid enough to offer 1 though.
They know this is a winless case. I do believe they though we were a small company and not up to date on laws in Canada. This made them think we would bow to the request or fear legal action. My daughter go walk into court and beat this its quite simple.
You do not transmit anything illegal you have no case to prove.
I’m not sure why sumo is redirecting to canada.com It is their site to do as they please with but whats the point staying in Canada if you wont allow cdn user’s
Anyways we will keep people updated how this turns out. 4 days and counting.
Another user asked bout ips showing up in New Jersey.
Yes the carrier we use does have a dc in New Jersey but also provides service within Canada therefore anything hosting in Canada they must abide by cdn law. Therefore atm there is no issue due to where the ip comes from or they would have sent this to Nac. Which they did not.
Moxie and its owner’s are the only ones this is set against.
It is a order to stop hosting these sites its nothing legal forcing us to do so.
Regards
Moxie Staff
going to sumo torrent just redirects me to http://www.canada.com
i might point out im from canada as well
To Dante Xavier:
Although what MoxieColo claimings are, the situation is very different in truth.
SUMOTorrent has blocked access to his site to all Canadian citizens in order to protect them.
Way to goose-step CRIA.
Get info then line them up.
“Although what MoxieColo claimings are, the situation is very different in truth. SUMOTorrent has blocked access to his site to all Canadian citizens in order to protect them.”
Spit it out then, dickless. What’s ‘really’ going on…?
Having read the article and some of the comments, it seems perfectly clear to me that the posturing of MoxieColo is little more than an attempt at self publicity. They willroll over the instant the summons slips through their mail box.
Blocking Canadian access by SUMOTorrent amounts to shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted. It’s too little, far too late.
Shutting down their trackers may help, but it will only delay the inevitable.
Relocating may help, but it won’t stop a process that has now already started. They’ve openly flouted every rule in the book, save charging users on a per download basis. The site is solid with advertising, they allow uploading,they operate trackers, they moderate the site and they even publish rips of covers.
Holland is history, Sweden will be out of the running soon enough when our friends from TPB appear in criminal court, the rest of Europe is just about closed to torrent sites.
Make the most of what we have today, in six months time these will be the good old days of filesharing.
@Simon Darling
Posturing? They are just standing their ground and reporting their position to the people who care. Their comments are based on fact whereas you are just saying your opinion. Don’t have such a defeatist attitude on this topic. Recent events show that if enough people fight for what they believe in then the efforts of organisations to shut down bittorrent websites is fruitless.
what.cd is down?
No, it’s up.
@simon darling
i hate to agree but i do, especially about the impending bitTorrent apocalypse. except i think it’ll be a little longer than 6 months. give it a year or so.
Torrentfreak, thanks for giving me a forceful reminder to do what I’ve been meaning to do for quite some time: Remove you from my subscribed feeds.
Seriously, do some fact checking before you publish such bullshit.
@Simon darling
Please don’t comment on something you clearly know nothing about.
Do you know how many torrent sites have been actually taken down by legal action against them? Not many. Most shut down because of scare tactics! If you have ever been to any of the tbdev sites out there you would see the numbers of new torrent sites that pop up every day.
The laws in Canada haven’t changed, CRIA has no leg to stand on. The only dangerous territory to host torrent sites right now is the U.S. and I still know plenty of popular sites who do.
Filesharing will always exist, it has existed way before the internet ever became popular. If the going gets tough for torrent sites they will just go more underground, become even more private and hidden from everyone else. They will still exist and the communities they have created will still be strong.
It’s like a drug, just because its illegal in some places doesn’t mean everyone is going to stop doing it.
DJ: you fucking people lie so much in these articles it is ridiculous. No, what.cd was not ordered to shutdown you fucking retards, their ISP was slapped with a notice.
Overreacting sons of whores.
CRIA served Moxie Colo with a cease and desist order to shut down four bit torrent sites that it hosts. What.cd is among them, therefore, it’s 100% factual to say that CRIA has ordered the shutdown of What.cd.
Did you actually read this article, Mongo, or did your Down’s Syndrome get in the way?
Simon Darling: Having read the article and some of the comments, it seems perfectly clear to me that the posturing of MoxieColo is little more than an attempt at self publicity. They willroll over the instant the summons slips through their mail box.
Oh, Moxie Colo is posturing?
That’s rich, coming from a sockpuppet whose only purpose on Torrent Freak is to fearmonger. Say “Hi” to your MAFIAA employers for me.
Or is it too difficult to speak with all that dick in your mouth? In that case, you can just mumble and wink.
Simon Darling: Holland is history, Sweden will be out of the running soon enough when our friends from TPB appear in criminal court, the rest of Europe is just about closed to torrent sites.
Yes, sweetums. I’m sure the Swedish courts will criminally prosecute the TPB crew for their crime of doing things that don’t break Swedish law.
I’m sure the Canadian courts will force Moxie Colo to shut down the torrent sites they host, too, for their crime of doing things that don’t break Canadian law.
Indeed, dark times ahead for the MAFIAA… Whoops, I mean, dark times ahead for filesharing! Darn! I messed up my sarcasm. I was on such a roll, too. :(
Simon Darling: Make the most of what we have today, in six months time these will be the good old days of filesharing.
In six months time, you’re going to be back here doing the exact same song and dance ruitine.
“Sweden’s gonna stop being a safe haven when the TPB d00dz land in criminal court! Holland’s already toast, and the rest of Europe’s just about closed to BitTorrent! Oh no! Look out! The sky is falling, the sky is faalaHALGUAGHAG - Oh, excuse me, John Kennedy just came in my mouth.”
I can now reach the SumoTorrents page, however the three SumoTorrent trackers (pirates.sumotracker.com, http://www.sumotracker.com, http://www.sumotracker.org) in my torrent are still showing Error 10061.
Go Moxie Colo!
Also, how can a non-governmental organisation force anyone to do anything? And with Canada’s personal piracy laws (y’know, “don’t sell it, eh?”), the CRIA has no feet to stand on.
* insert joke about anti-piracy gangs being the only people who are worse [as] people than the lawyers they hire *
TOP 100 Canada 2008-05-24 Billboard - Torrent Tatty Feat CRIA Stars @224
http://isohunt.com/torrent_details/43332786/billboard?tab=summary
To all those complaining about how torrentfreak does its reporting, I have two suggestions:
1)don’t read it.
2)GYOFB if you think you can do better.
What is going on is simple. I explained it already.
Party 1 - CRIA has requested we shut down these sites.
Party 2 - Moxie Colo has informed them that we are not under any court order to do so therefore we will not be complying with the requests of CRIA.
This might bring legal action down the road but currently I doubt they will push this as no court would even waste time hearing it right now.
Thats where we stand.
Posting in support of 21grams. If TorrentFreak is incapable of bringing the news in an objective fashion, then it’s as useless as the propaganda spewed out by the RIAA/MPAA/etc.
Come on TF! You’ve turned into a sensationalist propaganda spewing shit site.
What happened to you man? You used to be beautiful.
The first page of comments really doesnt bode well for the torrent community. Yeah, lets incite violence and death upon the executives of copyright protection companies.
I support all types of filesharing, but seriously some of the people that comment on this blog make me fear that we become construed as a bunch of brain dead morons.
Especially as the person from the host left a comment, they will have read it as well.
I bet this backfires and ends up making Moxie some extra money due to the publicity. I’ve got the servers of 23 clients under management, and maybe I’ll try these guys next time I’m in the market for more boxes (if their prices are good, which I haven’t checked yet.)
Anyways, bravo Moxie for being smart enough to stand up to this crap.
Tweedle Dee: Posting in support of 21grams. If TorrentFreak is incapable of bringing the news in an objective fashion, then it’s as useless as the propaganda spewed out by the RIAA/MPAA/etc.
Tweedle Dumb-ass: Come on TF! You’ve turned into a sensationalist propaganda spewing shit site.
What happened to you man? You used to be beautiful.
Haha, poor little muppets.
CRIA attempted to bully Moxie Colo with a threat they can’t possibly follow through with under Canadian law.
No matter how hard you pretend this article is “sensationalist propaganda”(laugh), you can’t wipe the egg off of CRIA’s face.
lolllll: The first page of comments really doesnt bode well for the torrent community. Yeah, lets incite violence and death upon the executives of copyright protection companies.
The executives of copyright companies would ideally like to send people to prison for sharing an MP3. These are shitstains who have attempted to bankrupted people and they have attempted to ruin lives because somebody shared $100 “worth” of entertainment that anybody could legally record off their own TV set with a VCR or off the radio with a fucking casette tape.
If they know they can’t bring a case to court, then they will harass and bully you every step you take. They will attempt to extort from you by issueing terrorist threats. They will break any and every law they can think of in the persuit of “punishing” filesharers.
But a couple of anonymous strangers posting mean comments about them a torrent blog? Yeah, that’s way over the fucking line…
Give me a break, fool.
I came here to say this, thanks Hulk:
“CRIA Orders ShutDown of What.cd”
Your blatant sensationalism makes me sick. CRIA can’t order dick, they just send out some “scary” letters to browbeat an ISP into submission because they know they can’t do shit in court. Good thing said ISP doesn’t seem to give a shit about scare tactics.
@74
no need to cry. the way MPAA etc handle things is generally done through litigation and the lark. Not by speaking like incomprehensible 4 year olds that are raped by their parents.
@75
Just because you arent in the power to force the person you’re ordering to do something, doesnt mean you cant order them to. I order you to shut the f*ck up. see?
Torrentfreak reported on what had happened, the CRIA ordering/asking/telling a host to take down the torrents sites. I don’t see the problem with reporting it as such.
Jesus
Thanks, Moxie Colo, for providing some insight on this story for those unsure of the laws in Canada and what this story really means.
Another private tracker bites the dust, good riddance.
I would like to know on what grounds these cease and desist orders are being made on. I see no laws that pertain to letting people download metahash data files….
@64 & @74 - Putin 08, pure fucking gold! LMFAO!Thanks for putting a bit of perspective back into the thread.
+1 to Mr. Corbin. Give him some business guys.
FUCK THE CRIA ASSHOLES THEY ALL SUCK BIG NIGGER DICKS AND TAKE IT UP THE FUCKING ASS LIKE THE FUCKING PUNK ASS FAGGOTS THEY ARE!!!FUCK EM AND IF YOU DONT AGREE FUCK YOU AS WELL
If Moxie hosts BitSoup, why don’t they get ordered to shutdown that big site? Weird.
I gotta say, are you affiliated with the MPAA? Your headlines and reports are blatant sensationalism.
quebectorrent case still in court almost a year later
AND the CRIA wasn’t initially part of that case. So whose fooling who here.
TELL THE YANKIE RUNNING IT TO GO HOME
FullDLs…. that the lame fake torrent site full of malwares? Oh, the tears….
Moxie, could you scan and post the letters you received from CRIA? It’s not like it’s priviledged or anything. Quebectorrent posted theirs and asked for donations to their legal fund to fight the order.
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