Then on April 27th police in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev, swooped on the site’s datacenter and seized its servers. Interestingly for a case of this type, the complaints that led to this seizure were not based in copyright law, but in legislation designed to limit Ukrainian minors’ access to pornography.

The action certainly raised eyebrows. Although Pornolab is undoubtedly directing illicit traffic, under Ukrainian law it would have to be distributing the unlawful data itself to be held liable.

“In terms of procedure, it would be very difficult to hold torrent organisers responsible,” said Tetiana Popova, chief executive officer of the Internet Association of Ukraine (InAU), commenting on site operator liability.

“They do not know who seeds content or how much of it is uploaded. It is seeded in parts to many computers. The same for the leeches who receive information, gathering it in pieces from hundreds of other computers,” added Popova.

Nevertheless, with Ukraine clearly unsafe a few days later Pornolab resurfaced, this time in a Lithuanian datacenter. The move did not go well. Although the site came back online briefly it quickly disappeared, taken offline by its new host ZServers. According to Pornolab’s admin, money paid to the company is not being returned “for frivolous reasons”.

So after long periods of trouble-free running, Pornolab has been taken offline twice in less than a month and if ex-Russian pornstar and now singer Alexander Pistols is to be believed, that is down to him.

Information published by adult news site Sex News suggests that after Pistols learned that Pornolab had become one the biggest torrent sites of its type (and helping to distribute his movies), he delivered a written complaint to a Moscow prosecutor.

Five months passed and following more correspondence between Pistols and the authorities, in April the site was closed down – albeit by the Ukranian authorities as detailed above.

Two days later and after a brief relocation to Lithuania, Pornolab was down again, with Sex News claiming that Pistols was now celebrating “two victories”.

Unfortunately for Pistols though, those celebrations were cut short.

“For reasons beyond our control we were forced to change hosting provider, which led to the temporary unavailability of the tracker,” reported the admin of a yet again fully-functioning Pornolab. The site had moved further and further west, from Ukraine to Lithuania and then to their new and current home of Germany.

Whether or not Alexander Pistols really did carry enough influence with the authorities to pull these shutdowns out of the bag remains to be seen, but Pornolab don’t appear to be throwing in the towel anytime soon.

However, some user reports suggest that for at least a while the site could not be accessed in Ukraine, Lithuania or Germany. If these reports are indeed true and the blocks are persistent, the site could be taking action to firewall troublesome locations in order to fend off legal action, a strategy that has already proved successful by Ukraine-hosted Demonoid. That said, with as many as 700,000 Ukranian members, this would be a punishing move for Pornolab.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In February 2010, however, an event occurred which rocked the boat. Citing copyright concerns, authorities seized the domain name of Torrents.ru, the country’s biggest tracker with millions of members.

The site continues today under a new domain, Rutracker.org, with its troubles seemingly behind it. The same cannot be said for its sister operation, the adult torrent site Pornolab.net.

Despite being Russia’s 93rd most popular site, Pornolab chose to operate out of a datacenter in Ukraine. The authorities there say it was a huge operation, serving 2 million registered users. With the recent demise of Empornium and PureTNA, this may mean it was the biggest porn tracker in the world. In the last 24 hours, however, all that came to an end.

According to police in the capital, Kiev, yesterday their officers swooped on the site’s datacenter and seized its servers. Unusually for a case of this type, the complaints that led to this action were not related to copyright infringement but to the unlawful distribution of pornography.

The police are citing contraventions of Part 2 of Article 301 of the Criminal Code of Ukraine which covers crimes against children using the Internet – in this case the importation, production, sale and distribution of pornographic material without age restriction.

In addition to attempting to bring the operators of the site to justice, the police say that they will also try to identify Ukrainian users of the site. Due to the nature of BitTorrent – downloaders automatically upload too – they too are being accused of the unlawful distribution of restricted material.

In the past, Article 301 has been used by the government to shut down various publications deemed to be offensive, including literature aimed at the gay community. Punishments can extend from large fines to 5 years in prison.

Ukraine is also home to Demonoid, one of the world’s largest BitTorrent trackers. Unlike Pornolab, Demonoid expressly forbids the tracking of any adult-related content. It also goes one step further, probably to ensure it stays the correct side of the Ukrainian authorities, by banning all local traffic. Pornolab did not and according to estimates, up to 700,000 of its members called Ukraine home.

This is not the first time Ukrainian police have shut down a an adult themed torrent site. In May 2010, xsweet.net.ua was targeted for the same reasons and its 35-year-old operator arrested.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.