Major recording labels including Sony Music, Universal Music, Warner Music and EMI have filed a lawsuit to have one of the world's largest torrent sites blocked forever. Last month RuTracker offered to let the labels moderate its tracker in return for leniency but that proposition appears to have fallen on deaf ears.

Known as Torrents.ru before a controversial domain seizure in 2010, RUTracker.org is not only a very large torrent tracker but one of Russia’s most popular sites, period.

The site made the headlines last month when the National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI), a group which counts Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI among its members, said it had been trying to have links to infringing content removed from the site.

According to NFMI CEO Leonid Agronov, his group tried to negotiate with RuTracker but that proved fruitless leaving legal action as the only option. However, in a public response at the end of September, a spokesperson for RuTracker said that the site was prepared to go to extraordinary lengths to prevent infringement.

“If there are many links [that breach copyright] we can give the rightsholders their own special account, and they can remove links that violate their rights. Similar to [the system available] on YouTube, for example,” the spokesperson said.

Despite RuTracker’s offer it never seemed likely that the record labels would enter into any kind of partnership with the site, even with an offer of support from government telecoms watchdog Roskomnadzor on the table.

That position was underlined last evening when NFMI confirmed it had filed a lawsuit against the site at the Moscow City Court.

“We have filed a lawsuit requesting a permanent blockade of RuTracker,” NFMI CEO Leonid Agronov confirmed.

The lawsuit demands a life-long ISP block of RuTracker, a request supported by amendments to copyright law passed earlier this year which allows for sites involved in “systematic infringement” to be blocked forever.

While the lawsuit is the first of its kind against a torrent site, NFMI filed a similar suit at the end of September against popular music streaming site Pleer.com.

Again, NFMI claims to have attempted negotiations with the portal but in common with the RuTracker situation, both cases are now before the court.

“We believe that the process will take one and a half to two months,” Agronova says.