In the past 24 hours, TorrentFreak received a flurry of reports that users of Demonoid in Russia could no longer access the site. After checking with some of our own Russian contacts and testing via a server located in St Petersburg, we are able to confirm that at least so far, accessing Demonoid is impossible from Russia. Reports suggest the problem started a day ago.

Traceroutes carried out from several locations across the country to Demonoid’s IP at 62.149.24.66 show that they are all terminating at ColoCall, the biggest data center in Ukraine – just one step away from Demonoid’s servers.

TorrentFreak’s tests from both European and Russian IP addresses both routed through the ColoCall IP 62.149.2.108 – the Russian test was blocked at that point while the European one completed perfectly. Tests by a Russian BitTorrent user on our behalf confirmed it was necessary to use a proxy for both the site and the the tracker to gain access.

It’s hoped that the blockage is temporary and a technical issue but of course, Demonoid has blocked countries before. TorrentFreak has contacted ColoCall but thus far, we’ve received no response.

We’ll update this post when more information comes in.

Update: Several reports coming in that Ukranian IP addresses may also be blocked.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

So Tuesday last week, May 26th, the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs Investigation Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs conducted a raid against the founders the Interfilm BitTorrent tracker.

During the raid on the site’s Moscow headquarters, the police arrested the founders of Interfilm, a married couple known online as ‘Ripper’ and ‘Nadezhda’ and several site staff. The authorities claim that the Interfilm tracker is a major source of cammed movies and also has an arrangement with piracy groups outside the country to exchange the latest releases.

Russian anti-piracy group RAPO (a founder member of the MPA) claims that the site carried advertising and although users had free access to the site, higher download speeds could be achieved by making a payment to the site’s owners.

Although Interfilm reportedly went down after the raid, it is now apparently fully operational, hosted by LeaseWeb in The Netherlands.

Russian media is speculating that the owners of Interfilm are facing up to six years in jail and a fine of 500,000 rubles (approx $16,200) if convicted under Part 3 of Article 146 of the Criminal Code.

According to lawyer Victor Naumov, a legal loophole which saved the owners of AllofMP3 is unlikely to help the operators of Interfilm. “In the past there were different interpretations of legislation in the field of copyright, but now if a distributor of films or music is not in a licensing agreement with the rights holders, the violation is right there,” he said.

Following the arrests, the Producers Guild of Russia says it intends to push for changes in the law which would force ISPs to prevent illegal file-sharing.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

Until today there was no law in Russia that protected copyright holders from internet piracy. The new law allows sentences up to 5 years in prison, equaling online piracy with other forms of copyright infringement.

The anti-piracy law is an important factor in determining whether Russia’s can join the WTO.

The present amendments were ratified back in 2004, but content providers had until today to acquire the appropriate licenses, and register their activities. However, only a handful of content providers actually took the time and effort to go legit.

As the Kommersant notes:

Experts estimate that 97 percent of music spread in Russian Internet now is still piratic, and many mp3 websites sell western music to western customers. Legal Internet market is estimated at less than $1 million per year, while the turnover of just one of the major illegal Russian websites, offering some 850,000 of musical tracks for 12—15 cents, reaches up to $25—30 million, according to different estimates.

Russia president Vladimir Putin, and other world leaders discussed piracy earlier this year at the G8 summit in Petersburg

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.