The Canada-based BitTorrent tracker Demonoid, which has been a target of the Canadian Recording Industry Association for a few months now, has apparently decided to give up the fight. The site’s front page now simply reads “The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding.”
Demonoid moved its hosting company from the Netherlands to Canada in the summer because of the Great White North’s slightly more lax copyright-infringement laws. But that didn’t stop the CRIA from getting into a snit, and the organization pressured it into temporarily shutting down. Upon its return, it blocked Canadian users from the site, but this apparently didn’t placate the recording industry, which decided to go the tried-and-true “threaten the hosting company into losing lots of money” tactic that’s shut controversial Web sites of all kinds down through the years. Anyway, if the post-OiNK landscape is any indication, about 10 “new Demonoids” will be up and running within a week, and they’ll all somehow manage to have even more irritating userbases. Hooray!
Demonoid [Official site; hat tip AbsolutePunk.net]
goddammit.
WORST CHRISTMAS EVER!
Everyone loved demonoid because it was the only “private” torrent site without attitude.
No one’s going to be bragging about being the next’s demonoid, which is a shame. Because it was never an exlusive clubhouse to begin with.
Demonoid was a pretty handy all-purpose tracker, and you never knew what unlooked-for gem would pop up next, even though it had a kind of “wild West” feel - quality control was never exactly guaranteed, and there were lots of links to external torrents. One hopes the admins will simply find another host. If that doesn’t happen, though, there won’t really be the same knashing and rending as you saw with OiNK, because what are missed most about the latter site are its community and strict moderation, neither of which were much more than a rumor at Demonoid.