Torrent tracker Demonoid.com down, possibly shut by Canadian Recording Industry Association

September 26, 2007

Unconfirmed reports are claiming that Demonoid, a popular semi-private torrent tracker, has been shut down by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA). If true, this would be the latest in many shutdowns of peer-to-peer websites by anti-piracy groups. Earlier this week, trackers Torrentbox, isoHunt, and Podtropolis were disabled for visitors in the United States due to a lawsuit by the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA).

Demonoid is one of the largest torrent trackers on the internet, second only to The Pirate Bay, and tracks over a million torrent files. The site has recently moved its servers from the Netherlands to Canada in June after a Dutch piracy group BREIN subpoenaed Demonoid's ISP, demanding that the site be taken offline.

The site founder and administrator Deimos has not commented yet regarding the shutdown. Both the tracker and the website are inaccessible as of September 26 at 0700 UTC.

Some within the company have suggested that it all simply is a case of heavy maintenance.