Giant Russian torrent site RUTracker says it is prepared to take extraordinary measures to ward off action that could see the site permanently blocked by local ISPs. RUTracker, the 17th largest site in the whole of Russia, says that it will give copyright holders a special account which will enable them to delete any content that infringes upon their rights.

Last week Russian telecoms watchdog Roscomnadzor marked the two-year anniversary of a 2013 amendment to copyright legislation by releasing details of how many times the law has been used to block sites.

Since August 1, 2013, Roskomnadzor received 189 copyright-related complaints from rights holders and access to 282 sites was restricted as a result.

Unsurprisingly, several torrent sites have been targeted over the past 24 months including The Pirate Bay, the world’s most controversial index. This week, however, the spotlight falls on Russia’s most popular torrent site.

Known as Torrents.ru before a controversial domain seizure in 2010, RUTracker is a huge site with a thriving community. According to Alexa it is the 17th most popular site in the whole of Russia and as a result attracts a lot of attention.

This week the National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI), a group which counts Sony, Universal, Warner and EMI among its members, will attempt to have RUTracker permanently blocked by local ISPs. According to NFMI CEO Leonid Agronov, his group tried to negotiate with RUTracker over the removal of content but the effort came to nothing, leaving legal action as the only option.

Nevertheless, RUTracker says the site is still prepared to work with NFMI, initially on the basis of traditional notice-and-takedown, in an effort to stave off a nationwide blockade.

“Of course, we are ready for talks, but it is not clear what we can arrange. If we receive from rightsholders links to the data that violates their rights, we can remove them during the day,” a site spokesperson said.

“If copyright holders act in accordance with established practices, by sending us an email notice referencing the items that violate their rights, we would long ago have removed them, as we do in thousands of similar cases. But they chose the court instead.”

However, RUTracker says it is actually prepared to go way beyond standard takedowns, by effectively giving copyright holders torrent moderation rights on the site.

“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 source added.

At this late stage it seems unlikely that the record labels will back away from their efforts to have RUTracker blocked, but even if successful that may only serve to discourage the site from cooperating fully on takedowns in the future.

In any event, RUTracker appears prepared for the long haul. After being founded in 2004 the site has just celebrated its 11th birthday, a somewhat rare achievement in the torrent world.

“Over the years everything has happened – bad and good,” the site said in a statement.

“We’ve tried to block the whims of some copyright holders, although we are always ready for constructive cooperation on copyright, and most of them have reached a compromise that would accommodate the interests of both the authors of the content and its consumers.

“They are trying to drown out the various computer hooligans, but our friends help us to cope with it. We are told that ‘RUTracker is not the same, and will die soon’, and we smile at the skeptics, increasing our audience with petabytes of content!” the site concludes.

RUTracker is mostly popular with Russians although on-site language options now encourage visits by many thousands of users from Ukraine, Kazakhstan and Belarus. English speakers are also enjoying the tracker in increasing numbers, thanks to Google Translate and a little patience.