TorrentFreak

The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

Huge Russian BitTorrent Site Has Domain Suspended

A massive Russian BitTorrent site has seen its domain name suspended by order of the authorities. Torrents.ru, the largest torrent site in the country indexing just about every type of media one can think of, has set up a temporary domain in order to keep serving its 4 million users.

In the Western world, sites such as The Pirate Bay and isoHunt get plenty of publicity, largely due to their size and prominence. Of course, there are other sites elsewhere that attract relatively little attention in English speaking countries and around Europe, despite being very large indeed.

One such giant is Torrents.ru, a huge Russian BitTorrent site with 4 million users and one million torrents which has operated relatively trouble-free – until now.

RU-Center, Russia’s largest domain name registrar and web-hosting provider, today pulled the plug on the Torrents.ru domain name, suspending it with immediate effect.

Andrey Vorobiev, Director of Public Relations at RU-Center said that the domain was blocked on the orders of the Investigative Division of the regional prosecutor’s office in Chertanovskaya, Moscow, but could not disclose the reasons.

In the meantime, the operators of Torrents.ru have been working on some counter-measures to mitigate the effects of the suspension.

Already they have set up an alternative domain at Rutracker.org in order for users to keep accessing the site, but of course this doesn’t help to keep existing torrents running since they contain the URL of the tracker located at the old domain.

To fix this issue users can change the announce URL in old torrents from bt.torrents.ru, to bt.rutracker.org. Alternatively it’s possible to simply go to the site under the new domain and re-download the torrents which now contain the new tracker URL.

A video report is available here (Russian).

Related Posts

Previous Post | Next Post

  • http://www.eZee.se www.eZee.se

    And a new game of whack-a-mole starts…

  • Renat

    Actually it’s 4 mln users. 1 mln torrents

    TF: Thanks

  • The day they close this site

    Will be very sad indeed ;(

  • Rikita

    yes it is good to put the site and torrent trackers on separate addresses. This happened to tpb when it went from tracker.tbp to openbt. not everyone changed their torrents and their are dead torrents b/c of this people still try to connect to the old address & get http error/etc best of luck

  • xentar

    Keeping existing torrents running is easy enough by editing the hosts file (the details are available in the corresponding forum thread). So far, this seems to make even less of a difference than the Italian piratebay blocks does. I’m more curious about how this situation is going to develop…

  • Yo

    Who needs tracker anymore?
    Time for technology to move on.
    This is a needed step for evolution.

  • P2P Worshiper

    Who the heck need the tracker/s in a torrent, just use your DHT option in your torrent client.
    I allways delete all trackers in the torrent list when i download stuff in the torrent.

  • Trelew

    Yes even Corporate corruption can reach behind the Iron Curtain and pay off whoever to get things done for them. Proving that no ideology or country is immune to the touch of corporate greed and power.

  • UTF8_mat_vashy!

    ru-center pidarasu!

  • Rekrul

    Of course, there are other sites elsewhere that attract relatively little attention in English speaking countries and around Europe, despite being very large indeed.

    Maybe that’s because every movie and show I’ve ever downloaded from a Russian site has had “Russian Amateur Translation” applied to it. In other words, it has a deep-voiced Russian male repeating all the dialog in Russian.

    Seriously, why is Russia the only country for whome subs aren’t good enough?

  • O

    Read again rutracker.org is private site.
    this site best in the world cos allow suport dht,peer exchange, local peer discovery.

  • Anonymous

    It’s a private tracker with accounts and ratio, so DHT and other nice things are not their preferable options.

  • MAFIAA

    Aiding and abetting again Nart?

    You have a thing with authorities…

  • Nyaa

    2 Rekrul
    try to use search with “Eng” or “sub” words.

  • Piratka

    This site is AWESOME, near unbeatable for content and everything downloads at max speed.

    I hope every botnet operator in Russia goes after whoever instigated this.

    Never thought this would happen in Russia, at least not so soon. what a very sad day for filesharing and for Russia…

  • ralonto

    “Andrey Vorobiev, Director of Public Relations at RU-Center said that the domain was blocked on the orders of the Investigative Division of the regional prosecutor’s office in Chertanovskaya, Moscow, but could not disclose the reasons.”

    Reason: They got payed lots of money.

  • Anonymous

    Sad news :(

  • Anonymous

    “Yes even Corporate corruption can reach behind the Iron Curtain and pay off whoever to get things done for them.”

    Actually the communism regime was running basically on corruption. This is the corruption that bring their communism system down.

    I remember this poor russian cop resigning because is sense of ethic could not take the corruption in the Russian police. The manager to fabricate charges against him demonstrating this way that was he was saying is true. Cops fabricate evidences all the time because they make money when they arrest people.

    The same thing is occurring in France not because they make money (although sometime they do) but because they are require to make a minimum of arrest every month so they make up some stuff against innocents citizen.

    I AM NOT KIDDING!

    I believe that now corruption is bringing capitalism down too.

  • 1st

    no justice, no court, but it’s done. THAT is sad.

  • townie2

    money talks.

  • Obedient

    Did they have content for us English speaking people in that site?

  • Kapcha

    This is bad…

  • Vasiok

    This is very sad (((

  • Pingback: Pirate Home Page » Huge Russian BitTorrent Site Has Domain Suspended

  • anonymouse

    The site has a foreign video section, which means primarily English. All the site is in Cyrillic, and trying to register is a r-e-a-l pain. It can be done with enough Google translate work. I don’t know the language and did manage to register. There is stuff there that is not on the torrent sites elsewhere. Too bad they have problems. It is a very good website, especially for Russians.

  • naoman

    @28: yessir. their search engine handled english terms and most torrents contained original titles and other info in “scene” format. they offered a wealth of material unavailable elsewhere. top notch site, great loss for us all.
    but hey – we’re talking about russians here. they’ll be back. :)

  • anon

    torrent loader is a good program to change tracker url in .torrent files

  • anon

    torrent loader is a good program to change tracker url in .torrent files

    http://sourceforge.net/projects/torrentloader/

  • Cory

    and i’ve just started using it about a month ago, too.. :(

  • neostyles

    Wow, these people are really arrogant. They just were just told to “no” by a court of law and they are still going at it? Are they trying to make things worse for themselves?

  • r u a hologram? prove you’re not!

    ever wonder what crocodile blood would taste like in a slurpee cup?

  • Brudda

    neostyles: “Wow, these people are really arrogant. They just were just told to “no” by a court of law and they are still going at it? Are they trying to make things worse for themselves?”

    What the hell are you talking about!?!
    (“told to no, these, they, they, they, themselves” don’t convey your point very well)

    Read the following trollfuk: “Director of Public Relations at RU-Center said that the domain was blocked on the orders of the Investigative Division of the regional prosecutor’s office in Chertanovskaya, Moscow,…”

    Where’s the “court of law” you mentioned? The prosecutor’s office DOES NOT equal a court of law – no defense lawyer, no judge, no jury.

  • Crenshaw

    “Who the heck need the tracker/s in a torrent, just use your DHT option in your torrent client.
    I allways delete all trackers in the torrent list when i download stuff in the torrent.”

    You do realise that doing this will not make you safer, will only make your torrents slower and possibly also slows down the swarm for other users as well?

  • superman

    I hate RU-CENTER too. Because they slolen my domain when i try to register it for my site!
    FUUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

  • NubCakes

    @neostyles

    “Wow, these people are really arrogant. They just were just told to “no” by a court of law and they are still going at it? Are they trying to make things worse for themselves?”

    They weren’t told anything of the sort, they had their domain pulled.

  • theigloo

    with out a doubt the best site for rare FLAC music, and awsome dl speeds.
    I hope this one survives

  • Andrey

    OXYELI SOVSEM PIDARY!!!

  • 666

    BEST tracker i seen for rare music and software (surpasses demonoid). Hope the new location won’t get suspended.

  • lverona

    “In a country where child porn is rampant and the authorities are worried about copyright. What a bunch of worthless whores.”

    What do you know about Russia? Child porn is rampant? Maybe you think there are bears walking the streets too?

  • KsbjA

    @45 O.o No bears?! Really? Since when are they gone? (Just kidding. You make a good point.)
    @48 Agreed, it is horrible.

  • Anon

    @26

    “corruption is bringing capitalism down aswell”.. Isn’t that exactly what we want?

  • anon

    lol, the site had 31 mil users according to the video report, these ppl sure know how 2 start a war. So hopefully the ‘minority’ woudn’t do anything rash, like demolishing a certain building while the ignorant anti-piracy retards are still inside.

  • amma

    Correction to the information from the main post:
    The site has 3.2 million user and 800000 torrents.

  • anon

    @48: I agree, it’s horrible, but abnormal? No, far from it. If you consider things you find disgusting to be abnormal, you may want to look up what the word actually means.

    Being sexually attracted to individuals between the ages of 12 – 18 is quite common for both men and women. You know, it is possible for a pedophile to live through his or her life without ever laying a hand on a minor. Sexual attraction is never wrong. Child abuse on the other hand, is.

  • Bitsnoop.com

    I’d like to emphasize that their domain was suspended illegally.

    Not by any sort of court order (which is the proper way) but by letter from, practically, person from the street. It costs not much to bribe prosecutors’ office staff to get such decision in Russia. Large companies operating in Russia have dedicated budgets for bribing officials.

    This is how Russian laws work (i.e., they do not).

    Imagine the possibilities for aggressive online retailer who wants to push competition off the market. There are numerous cases like this, it’s just this one that got press attention.

  • ruformator

    Please remove slash (/) from the end of the link on http://ruformator.ru/news/article06258/default.asp

    The link is broken with it.

  • Voldemar

    @56

    Myself being in thirties I find it abnormal. I’m not aroused by twelve years old, like some sick bastard.

    Little girls are just little girls – immature and stupid.

  • Voldemar

    @58

    I’d say that your site is broken if it cannot live with an extra slash. :-)

  • DZ

    Even i don’t know any thing in Russian language.(My native lg=Arabic).
    But the registration was easy and the tracker is my favorite tracker.
    Using Google search engine + Google Translate the website become very wonderful.
    You have just to learn how to extract the right link from the link that Google translate use.
    This tracker is the best because:
    1- Every thread must have a good description (including LANGUAGE).
    2- Every thread must have at least screenshots.
    3- you must upload torrents that you have already downloaded.
    So i’m planning to learn Russian to give back what i took.
    Sorry for any English errors.

  • ruformator

    @60 And you`d be right ) Sorry for boring comment but we`re really working on it.

  • Anonymous

    “This tracker is the best because:
    1- Every thread must have a good description (including LANGUAGE).
    2- Every thread must have at least screenshots.
    3- you must upload torrents that you have already downloaded.
    So i’m planning to learn Russian to give back what i took.
    Sorry for any English errors.”

    Sounds like about 1000 other private trackers – welcome to the good torrent sites where therse things are considered standard. I guess it must be new and awesome after using TPB though I suppose.

  • torrentuser

    Guys, rutracker.org is not working for me at this moment! (but it worked a few hours ago)
    What the hell is going on???

  • Anonymous

    64, I can’t access it as well. Lol, what the hell are these guys from RU-Center doing?

  • 666

    rutracker seems to be offline.. it worked until a few hours ago… torrents from that site show the tracker is down. Guess the bastards shut this one down as well :(

  • flashKA

    The site seems to be off :[

    and this is the worst news :

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OokbbLQlRQ0&feature=player_embedded

    hope it’s temporary.
    they can’t closed the best tracker on the world !

  • torrentuser

    How about everyone harassing http://nic.ru/ and http://forum.nic.ru/
    how strong is thier hosting platform? ;)

  • Kapcha

    They (people who closed it) are pigs and assholes! Why? On this tracker all new movies and games were forbidden! But not, for this bastards its always too little. Bastards! What else can I say?

  • flip

    I confirm, rutracker is now offline here in western europe.

  • anon

    @59

    And I repeat, you may want to look into the actual meaning of the word “abnormal”, because by definition (not opinion) it isn’t.

  • Anonymous

    Yawn… so a bunch of Russians are unable to use this lame tracker. Who cares?

    It is a known fact that Russians have a significantly lower level of intelligence than most other countries due to drinking during pregnancy and high levels of mercury in the food supply.

    Really – who cares? so they can’t download their favourite childish russian fims and TV shows anymore. It’s not like the vast majority have the mental capacity to understand any Western media so this really is not news and nor does it matter.

  • Anonymous

    i hope it’s not cops…

  • Anonymous

    @60 you’re wrong. too wrong.
    but nobody cares about you. because one who tell’s such thing is really stupid. much more stupid than that people he talks about.

  • losos

    73, where do they brainwash people like that?

  • Lol

    rutracker.org online now

  • Anonymous

    76, in fattrollostan.

  • torrentuser

    @77 – I confirm, its online, but i’m afraid…

  • Alexey

    @79,

    Not for long it is. Trust me ;)

  • Anonymous

    78, in assh01ecity, lolstreet garbagecan.

  • torrentuser

    @73 – complete bullshit
    As for IQ level – it is obvious (as can be seen from your post) that yours is much lower.

  • 666

    @73 i can guess you are a 16yo who downloads anything seen on MTV. The tracker hosted mostly ENG releases and a lot were extremely rare.

    PS: obvious disillusioned troll is obvious

  • LOPPSI2

    In Communist Russia Illegal torrents KGB

  • White Russian

    I hope everything will be alright for rutracker.org. It is by far the best all-around tracker in the world atm. Near a million torrents, many of which are not to be found anywhere else. Lots of seeds, great speeds, 0,3 minimal ratio requirement and an open registration to boot.
    I’ve got several accounts of my own :)

    Oh, and shame on Russian authorities for unlawfully pulling the domain. You’re doing it wrong, fuckers!!!!

  • 666

    In soviet Russia torrents download YOU!

  • Anonymous

    Um no, #73 is right, just go and look at the United Nations website for the intelligence data, the rates of fetal alcohol syndrome and mercury levels and the stuff about media is pretty obvious if you just watch it. It’s hard to think the data is biased seeing as Russia is a permanent member of the UN.

    All Russian TV and movies feature slow, soporific music, almost no dialog and the “plots” (that’s being generous) are very simple in nature – as would befit the audience they are aimed at. They also feature heavy drinking in almost all of their media including media made specifically for children.

  • Anon

    “It is a known fact that Russians have a significantly lower level of intelligence than most other countries”
    LOL, that explains why the Russians have been chess world champions 8 times, more than the rest put together.

  • Theobald

    christ, what is wrong with the world?! I can’t believe another of our brother file sharers have been persecuted by the evil entertainment industry, who are ensnaring governments under their evil sway!

    I cannot wait until everything is bit-torrented and NO ONE buys their muck. That’ll teach them.

    Then we can carry on file sharing to our heart’s content and enjoy all the music and films without their henchmen – the police – worrying us at all!

    Oh hang on – if no one is paying, how are they going to make music and films..???

    Actually, I don’t care, they’ll find a way around it, they’re all evil and they probably don’t wash.

    I’m off for a sherman tank.

  • Anonymous

    “All Russian TV and movies feature slow, soporific music”
    Yeah it is, because all that movies and TV-Shows made not in Russia, but in USA.

  • Anonymous

    Agreed, there’s too much sub-par American crap on Russian TV.

    Thanks god we’re not buying their poisonous chicken meat any more. Let them eat the shit themselves, pathetic brainwashed fatties.

  • Ace Ventura
  • M S

    Noooooooooooooooo :((((((((((

  • Mr Bear

    I happen to know for a fact that Russia is populated by bears on unicycles – I saw it on Family Guy so it must be true.

  • Cords

    If you learn enough Russian to navigate this site you’ll find that it is WAY better than Demonoid for example..for just about any content.

    I think they ommitted translating it on purpose to avoid masses and Euros and Yanks and thereby unwanted attention from Hollywood lawyers… Seems they managed to p==s off someone local though, unfortunately.

    I’m sure Russian pirates will find out who’s behind this and give them some electronic hell…

  • Peilo

    They didn’t have an English section, but after using a translator enough to navigate the site you can surely find what you your looking for. I was registered and a user on occasions.

  • Anonymous

    It has moved to rutracker.org

  • Sergey Simonenko

    Anonymous,

    There were no communism after 1920-s in USSR, there was bureaucracy. And it’s still here. Read Leon Trotsky’s “Betrayed The Revolution”.

  • Pingback: Sospeso il dominio di Torrents-ru

  • LOL

    Just to show how silly Sergey Simonenko is:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communist_Party_of_the_Soviet_Union

    (Read first 2 paragraphs)

    If you hadn’t already worked out that he is a silly twat for stating that “bureaucracy” is a form of government.

  • Wikkan

    “There were no communism after 1920-s in USSR, there was bureaucracy. And it’s still here. Read Leon Trotsky’s “Betrayed The Revolution”.”

    More proof that Russians really are of lower intelligence than most of the world’s peoples.

    I mean… Trotsky? Please.

  • Pingback: CRK Portugal » Maior site de torrents Russo com dominio suspenso

  • Clive

    In Soviet Russia, torrent sites shut down the MPAA.

  • and277

    “In Soviet Russia, torrent sites shut down the MPAA.”

    What’s the MPAA?

  • hmmm

    @Anonymous

    I’m not russian, but what you say concerning a people you have simply no idea about is plain idiotic.

    /Mode “sarcasm based on stereotypes” on
    Would you happen to be american, to be so under-educated ?
    /off

  • 666

    @and277

    It’s a sign you shouldn’t be here posting, but in short “Motion Picture Association of America”

  • Rob

    This was/is a very good site! I had lots of music you did not find at What or Pirate Bay, not the hip Pitchfork-music, but much else…

  • Still Kicking

    This was/is a fantastic site! I can’t even begin to list the number of albums that I finally found in loseless after years of nothing. The depth of their material is immense in virtually every area. And since they strictly enforce ratios the site members tend to be of a higher “quality” than your typical hit-n-run public site.

  • anti-berlusconi.

    Berlusconi, freemasons, is satan

  • Anonymous

    To tell the truth, that resourse have no serious problems with the law now. They’ve moved to the rutracker.org and it’s hosting somewhere in Bahamas – so they’ll be OK…

  • Anonymous

    Just a note, the old accounts still work. So if you have an account, log in at least once to keep it alive.

  • Uh oh

    These guys will be snuffed out in russia – lol

  • and277

    :)
    Now there is open freeleech :)

    http://rutracker.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=2771579

  • Pitkin

    59. “It’s not like the vast majority have the mental capacity to understand any Western media so this really is not news and nor does it matter.”

    He he. Hm, may be percepion of “Western media” imposes so great load on your poor brains that you think anybody else can have any problems with that? Please do not worry about other people so much. In fact “Western media” are mostly very simple to perceive. So it is only your problem. Take care poor child. Don’t play with scissors and do not see too much TV. I will destroy you brain.

  • Pitkin

    “it will destroy your brain” of course. just mistyping

  • Dostoevsky

    “it will destroy your brain”
    Too late to warn – seemingly it have happened already. If there was some substance to harm of course.

  • LT

    There is one more good Russian BitTorrent site kinozal.tv.

  • Best

    Best torrent site is uniongang.tv – the real home of ELEKTRI4KA

  • Whois

    To tell the truth, that resourse have no serious problems with the law now. They’ve moved to the rutracker.org and it’s hosting somewhere in Bahamas – so they’ll be OK…

    WHOIS Source: RIPE NCC
    IP Address: 195.82.146.114
    Country: Russian Federation
    Network Name: AVTOM-BUSINESS-CONSULTING-NET
    Owner Name: Avtomatizatsiya Business Consulting Ltd.
    From IP: 195.82.146.0
    To IP: 195.82.147.255
    Allocated: Yes
    Contact Name: Le Mon Grinua
    Address: Seychelles, Victoria Mah?, P.O.Box 981
    Email: hw@rutracker.org
    Abuse Email:
    Phone: +248 621 100

  • arnie

    It happened because someone uploaded new Autodesk AutoCAD with all cracks. Looks like this is untouchable application in Russia. From Cnews.ru:

    http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http%3A%2F%2Fcnews.ru%2Fnews%2Ftop%2Findex.shtml%3F2010%2F02%2F19%2F380217&sl=ru&tl=en

  • gallipoli

    politicians, the music/ movie industry, law enforcement agencies treat seeders and leechers as criminals. oh, what a nasty gang that robs off the music/ movie industry.

    and why don’t we talk about the greedy investment bankers at Wall Street that almost ruined the world??? (and maybe they will some day, the chances are always there). or the multinationals that take work away from the US/ Europe and employ kids in Asia/ Africa at almost no cost.

    the leaders of the governing powers do not see the forest because of a single tree (or rather say, they are better off by accepting huge stacks of greens under the table). what a hypocrisy !!

  • E

    Update on the situation.

    The administration asks its users not to spam 1C forums.

    and says that the itoday article is accurate:

    Quote:

    An authoritative source in the company “1C” said the following to iToday.

    First: 1C “is fundamentally opposed to digital content protected by copyright being distributed through the torrent tracker. This is the principled position of the company, which it has consistently adhered to.

    Second: in 2007 1C and the administration of Torrentsru reached agreements on the implementation of intellectual property rights, in accordance with which the Administration has provided Torrentsru 1C the right to remove 1C productions from the file-sharing software. Therefore, “1C” does not understand the causes of current events related to the termination of the domain torrentsru.”

  • Pingback: Torrents.ru Fights Back After Domain Seizure @ blog.idtorrent.org

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

NewsBits

Even more news...

  • The Pirate Bay Isn’t Down Completely, Just Having a Few Issues

    Twitter and Facebook, not to mention the TorrentFreak inbox, are currently alive with complaints that The...

  • Pirate Bay Founder Gottfrid Svartholm on Freedom of Speech

    Freedom of speech is a highly valued commodity, but should people be allowed to say whatever...

  • Blu-ray Anti-Piracy Tech Stops Discs and Promotes Purchases

    An anti-piracy system present in all official Blu-ray players since 2012 has received a fresh update...

  • Foxtel Breeds Pirates by Locking Up Game of Thrones

    One of the main reasons why people turn to piracy is the lack of legal alternatives....

  • UK Student Admits Breaching Sony Copyrights With Leak of PS3 SDK

    Last year an Internet user known as El Nomeo leaked version 3.70 of Sony’s Playstation3 SDK...

MostDiscussed

Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.

CopyQuote

Left Quote

“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.

Peter Sunde Left Quote

PopularArticles

A selection of some TorrentFreak's classics dug up from our archives.