Andre Yoskowitz
28 Jun 2007 14:43
BREIN, the Dutch copyright protection agency that has gone on a crusade to rid the Netherlands of "illegal" torrent sites, has claimed that they have taken down Demonoid, a private tracker that has grown in popularity the past few years.
Last week, BREIN got another victory when the site Everlasting.nu was forced to close down and the owner's personal details sent to the group. Apparently, BREIN was not happy enough and demanded that the hosting company, LeaseWeb, shut down Demonoid as well.
Users trying to log in yesterday could not as Demonoid was offline, and BREIN was quick to claim victory.
"This outcome demonstrates that the content on offer on large international p2p-sites such as Demonoid is mostly illegal. These kind of sites make use of content supplied by its customers", says BREIN director Tim Kuik. "Sites like these do take the responsibility to refuse illegal pornographic material, but they do not care about the offer of evidently infringing content. That carelessness is calculated because they know that is exactly the content their users want. Many of such sites are hosted in the Netherlands and mainly by Leaseweb. Leaseweb is seen as a safe harbour for these sites. That has to come to an end. We have shown repeatedly that such sites are illegal under Dutch law and jurisprudence. We will continue to do so until none are left."
Demonoid however, give a different reason for the site being offline.
"We had a system problem which will force us to restore everything from backup," a post on Demonoid.com reads. "The disks are pretty much empty right now and until we are able to upload the backup and set up everything up, we have to close down. We'll be back as soon as possible. Sorry for the inconvenience."
Demonoid posted another message this morning that once again said the downtime was temporary and that BREIN had nothing to do with it.
"We were planning on returning online in the next few hours - probably tomorrow afternoon. But due some recent events, and following the advice of a lot of you, we will make a few more changes that might take a few days longer. As always, thanks for you continued support and patience. For the ones wondering, the timing of the downtime was coincidental."
These messages have lead many to believe that Demonoid is switching hosting companies but BREIN still feels that LeaseWeb will be held responsible.
UPDATE: Seems Demonoid is back up, just as they promised.
Source:
Slyck