The popular BitTorrent tracker Demonoid has been taken offline again and this time it looks like the site is gone for good. A notice on the Demonoid homepage 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."
The CRIA, Canada's answer to the RIAA, started to go after Demonoid earlier this year, but the site was able to get back online after a few days. However, this time the Canadian anti-piracy group may have forced it off for good. According to some reports, while the site is gone, the tracker appears to still be functioning and the downloading continues.
Of course, if there’s anything we’ve learned from covering BitTorrent shutdowns, it’s that there will be at least five new sites up by the end of the week all vying for Demonoid’s former members. When the site Oink was raided and shut down last month, the Pirate Bay promised to resurrect it and a number of new competitors have sprung up since. We have no doubt the same will happen with Demonoid — whack a mole and ten more pop up. [Update: There are also rumblings on IRC, that Demonoid may be back in the near future. I also updated the Pirate Bay statement to reflect that while they've vowed to bring back Oink, as the commentors below note, they haven't actually done it.]
Of course the Pirate Bay themselves have been making headlines today. TorrentFreak reports that the Swedish authorities are preparing to actually press charges against some of the people involved with The Pirate Bay.
The Pirate Bay has downplayed the news and doesn’t seem to think that the authorities have much of a case (the Pirate Bay doesn’t host any of the files, so it’ll be tough to prove the sites has violated copyrights). Reports in Sweden also suggest that the Swedish police were unable to find any usable evidence on the servers they confiscated during last year’s raid.
Even if The Pirate Bay does lose the case in Sweden, it has already vowed it will simply move to another country and even promises to do so without any down time.
