Ukraine shuts down notorious file-sharing site Demonoid
Ukrainian government officials have shut down one of the world’s largest file-sharing websites, Demonoid, following a request from law enforcement agency Interpol.
According to reports, Interpol asked the Division of Economic Crimes to shut down the site, whose servers were hosted by a company called ColoCall. The web host then pulled Demonoid’s connection before government officials copied all information from the site’s servers and sealed them.
The news emerged on August 6, 2012, but officials reportedly shut down the site on about August 1. The site’s owners, who were arrested in Mexico in October 2011, are now apparently subject to a criminal investigation there.
In a statement, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which said its complaints over Demonoid prompted Interpol to shut down the site, welcomed the news.
“The operation to close Demonoid was a great example of international cooperation to tackle a service that was facilitating the illegal distribution of music on a vast scale,” said Jeremy Banks, director, anti-piracy at the IFPI.
Demonoid was named on the US government’s Notorious Markets list, published in November 2011. The annual report said at the time that Demonoid “recently ranked among the top 600 websites in global traffic and the top 300 in US traffic, according to Alexa.com”.
“The operation to close Demonoid was a great example of international cooperation to tackle a service that was facilitating the illegal distribution of music on a vast scale.”
The US government was responsible for shutting down another high-profile filesharing site, Megaupload, in January 2012. Officials are trying to extradite the site’s operators and their leader, a man calling himself Kim Dotcom, from their base in New Zealand.
Adam Rendle, an associate at Taylor Wessing LLP in London, said seizing Demonoid was an important development for rights owners. “That the government of a country which does not have a substantial exporting creative industry—ie, whose creative industries would not be directly affected by file-sharing—has taken this action, appears to be significant.
“If more similar action was taken there and elsewhere, it would become more difficult for file-sharing sites to base themselves in ‘offshore’ jurisdictions,” he said.
But he said many other sites continue to provide equivalent services, so it may reappear. “This requires further on- and offshore legal action, together with legislative and enforcement support from governments and practical assistance from bystanders such as ISPs, to make a significant overall difference to the level of online piracy.
