Demonoid Shut By Ukrainian Authorities 178
hypnosec writes "After a prolonged outage that lasted for nearly a week Demonoid has reportedly been audited and closed down by the Ukrainian law enforcement agency. According to reports the Ukrainian anti-cybercrime police division carried out an investigation of ColoCall – the hosting service provider for Demonoid. Servers were sealed after all the data on the servers was copied. According to ColoCall the servers haven't been seized but, they are not operational any more. The hosting service provider is going to end the agreement with Demonoid. 'Investigators have copied all the information from the Demonoid servers and sealed them.' a manager from ColoCall, wishing to stay anonymous, said."
Huge victory for content industry! (Score:5, Insightful)
Congratulations! It will now take people an additional 3 clicks to find the movie, game or song they want to steal!
Keep up the good work, guys, people will stop making unlicensed digital copies any day now!
OTOH, US Law Enforcement could take a lesson... (Score:5, Insightful)
OTOH, US Law Enforcement could take a lesson on how to conduct a raid on a datacenter. Go in with a forensic team, isolate, copy, preserve, and leave the shit in place. You don't go in with bolt cutters to cables, wipe out businesses of a dozen other bystanders in the facility, seize stuff for months, or prevent businesses from starting back up.
Re:Color me surprised (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:OTOH, US Law Enforcement could take a lesson... (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Just like the war on drugs, nobody ever learns. (Score:5, Insightful)
As much as I agree that Obama is part of the problem (he's a huge corporatist, allowing banks to get off the hook like he did) he's running against Romney who will do NOTHING except what corporations one. There is no candidate standing that will curb corporate abuse. It's not a party issue.
well.. crap (Score:5, Insightful)
I know its been said before.. but I think itd worth saying again..
A lot of stuff on demonoid wasnt in print anymore, and there was a big focus on books/other things that arent readily available anymore.
I think that it brings up a big point that we miss when the whole debate of copyright infringement and pirating the newest movies is brought up in relation to these torrent sites.
These places are in some ways the last place to easily access important parts of the culture of the world.... Is it so important to protect the newest blockbuster films at the cost of so many people losing access to bits of global creative culture that they cant access legally ?
Re:OTOH, US Law Enforcement could take a lesson... (Score:3, Insightful)
wipe out businesses of a dozen other bystanders in the facility, seize stuff for months, or prevent businesses from starting back up
You're assuming that this isn't the entire point of a raid: Send a clear message to all businesses on the planet, "don't come in contact with anything near copyright violation, if nessessary, we'll nuke the site from orbit, if that's the only way to be sure."
Re:well.. crap (Score:5, Insightful)
One area that is constantly ignored are the grey-area copyrights (where no one knows who owns the copyright because a copyright holder has gone bankrupt) and the stuff in torrents that is not even in print. Trading that stuff doesn't hurt anyone and, as a matter of fact, often gets them noticed again and brought back into print. Has anyone ever heard a greedhead from the *AAs even acknowledge this?
Re:Just like the war on drugs, nobody ever learns. (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no Democrat or Republican candidate standing that will curb corporate abuse.
FTFY.
Third parties don't get enough notice in this nation to be included in such a generalization (which, if all third parties were included, would become false anyway).
A quote I've been trying to spread around: "The only wasted vote, is the one that goes to a Democrat or a Republican."
Here's hoping it catches on...
Re:well.. crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Huge victory for content industry! (Score:4, Insightful)
You mean except for all of the other torrents that existed in other more actually private private trackers? And probably also public trackers.
I'm not arguing with your main point (New Doctor Who is exactly how I got introduced to the wonderful world of illegally stealing tv shows too), but Demonoid wasn't the only place you could go (I've only ever used it for a few things.)
Re:You're a GOOD dog!! Yes you are! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Please educate me (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically you don't even need a tracker anymore as magnet links are enough for distributed hash tables, and magnet links can easily be distributed anywhere, while DHT is a builtin component of the transfer network. TPB already operates that way and would work fine on Tor (as far as I know there could already be several such tor sites, can't say I've checked).
After that it'll probably go to i2p or turn over to the various f2f networks available. Sharing technology is already several generations ahead. The only question is really how far the pressure will go to push people towards an utterly unmonitorable network.
Of course, ending up with an evolved completely opaque network has advantages once We The People will be forced to start lining people up against the wall.
Re:Just like the war on drugs, nobody ever learns. (Score:3, Insightful)
You actually believe that if a third party achieved a significant voice in government, that they wouldn't sell out to corporations just as the two main parties have?
Not necessarily, and FYI, I never said anything to that effect. Learn to read what's written, instead of inferring what you want to think is there.
What about you? Do you actually believe it's better to be a good little wage slave who doesn't challenge the status quo, rather than at least attempt to cast off your shackles?
If not, why bust my balls over pointing out that which has the potential to change the political landscape for the better?
Re:well.. crap (Score:5, Insightful)
Of course they won't acknowledge this. The **AAs are not advocates of the artists, they're advocates of the distribution companies. By definition, they couldn't care less about grey-area copyrights because those don't have anything to do with their business.
Re:You're a GOOD dog!! Yes you are! (Score:3, Insightful)
About time that the Ukraine accepted what most governments of the world have already accepted--that the U.S. is your master and you had goddamn well better do whatever the fuck we tell you to!
Now sit, rollover, and say "We're your bitch!" ....No, SAY IT LOUDER!!
This does raise a worthwhile issue: I couldn't find anything in the article that says that the US requested that Demonoid be shut down for this meeting.
Now, the US Authorities are likely quite happy that it was shut down, but that's a different point. Doing something to please a trade partner isn't necessarily being its "bitch". People, corporations, and countries, the US included, suck up to each other all the time as a sign of respect, deference, and/or good faith and to gain a more favorable status. That sounds like what this is: the Ukraine knew that the US would view the move positively, so they did it as a gift to strengthen their status.
If the Ukraine knew that Obama loved candied walnuts and consequently brought him a few bags for the meeting, nobody would say that they were his "bitch". Just because this gift is despicable doesn't change that fundamental intention.
Re:You're a GOOD dog!! Yes you are! (Score:5, Insightful)
Because there are so few countries with copyright laws you mean ?
No, because websites shouldn't be taken down just because there is some infringing material on them. The US is already seizing domain names randomly. That's bad enough. Other countries don't need to go and do similar things.
Also I've recently visited a very large software company (in America), and the developers were nearly universally in favor of copyright laws and destroying things like demonoid and thepiratebay.
Not exactly the most unbiased group to ask, eh? Ask me if I deserve a million dollars.
Re:You're a GOOD dog!! Yes you are! (Score:4, Insightful)
At least candied walnuts, unlike serving a public enemy's head on a platter, don't require other people to get squashed.
Catering to someone's likes is ok, but catering to their hatred in a way that hurts others is not.