Demonoid.com, one of the most popular BitTorrent trackers, was forced to go offline again because the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA) threatened their ISP.

It’s been just over 6 weeks since the CRIA allegedly shut down the Demonoid BitTorrent tracker. Details were scarce at the time, with lots of people simply claiming the site had some technical or server issues. Indeed, TorrentFreak came in for quite some criticism when we claimed the CRIA was involved, but when the site returned there were some ominous signs which seemed to support our claims.

Eventually, the Demonoid trackers reappeared, followed by the site itself but was forced to block Canadian visitors by the CRIA. However, despite blocking Canadians, it seems the CRIA hasn’t yet had enough of harassing Demonoid and its host.

On Demonoid.com we now read:

“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.”

Indeed, Demonoid’s host had previously said that if it had any major hassle, it was likely it could pull the plug on the site.

A message on the Demonoid IRC channel says: “Site is down, tracker is up. Expect the site to return, unless we hear otherwise from Deimos.”

Canada seems to becoming more unfriendly for BitTorrent sites – Demonoid aren’t the only ones being threatened by the recording labels there.

Developing story