A couple of my friends are going through withdrawal because their favorite torrent site, Demonoid, shut down last week as a result of pressure from Canadian version of the RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America). This also comes on the heels of their other favorite torrents sites, Isohunt and Torrentspy, shutting down access to people in the US. The issues with Isohunt and Torrentspy’s new policies were minimal since many people can still access the sites via a foreign proxy. However things are different with Demonoid since they may now be down for good. That really hurt alot of my boys since Demonoid was the best designed and most user friendly site of the bunch. You could literally find anything there. Software, movies, music, books, video games, photos, comic books, TV shows, and audio books and files. You name it, you could find it on Demonoid.
Demonoid has had troubles before and has always bounced back. In fact, Demonoid shut down for a few days some weeks back and resurfaced quickly. At the time it was speculated that they were being pressured out of service as a result of the copyrighted material referenced on the site. It turned out not to be true. However the message on the Demonoid site tells me that things may be different this time. As of three days ago the message at Demonoid 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.”
For those that are not aware, torrents are a method of sharing and distributing basically anything that can be encoded into a digital format. This includes images, movies, and most notably music. The last two file types have been causing the most trouble. The RIAA and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) are threatened by this new method of file sharing because it can easily allow for the distribution of copyrighted material. It is important for me to state that there are tons of legitimate uses for torrents that do not involve the sharing of copyrighted material. However I would be disingenuous if I didn’t point out that the majority of material being shared on the torrent sites are copyrighted.
Anyway, here is to hoping that Demonoid returns from the ashes. If not I may have to send a couple of my boys to torrent rehab.