Another one bites the dust: Demonoid is dead

Filed under: Internet, Web services, P2P

Another one bites the dust: Demonoid is dead

by Christina Warren Nov 10th 2007

In what appears to be a continuing trend, popular BitTorrent site Demonoid, has shut down. Again. On November 9, 2007, the site went dark, displaying nothing more than a cryptic message that seems to say, "the fuzz turned up the heat on our landlord and we had to bail."

It's a sad, sad day for file sharers. Oh wait, that was October 23, when the really awesome site was shut down. Or the first time Demonoid was hit (a few years ago), or back in June, or when the servers went crazy, or when they killed Canadian access...

Not to minimize the pain, but we think many people expected this. The only mainstream public torrent site brazen enough to boastfully do its thing is The Pirate Bay. In the past six months alone, Demonoid, ISOHunt (and all the sites/trackers hosted by ISOHunt), OiNK, and Torrentspy have either shut-down or become crippled to the point of being unusable. This all comes nearly three-years after the first major torrent site, Suprnova.org, shut its doors in December 2004.

Perhaps a proper memorial is in order. We at DownloadSquad, call for November 10, 2007 to stand as the "BitTorrent Day of Mourning."

Dedicated to the brave thieves who risked their internet service so we could get poor quality screeners of Million Dollar Baby...

Thanks to everyone who sent this in.

Tags: bit torrent, bittorrent, closed, demonoid, isohunt, oink, pirate bay, PirateBay, shut down, ShutDown, torrentspy

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Jim said 1:20PM on 11-10-2007

Half this article doesn't make any sense, and the other half of it is just inaccurate. I don't expect much in the way of "professional journalism" on this site, but this post is a new low, even for Download Squad...

Bill said 2:16PM on 11-10-2007

give me a break. bittorrent sites ain't going anywhere... this is nothing new.

dom said 3:01PM on 11-10-2007

I think what would be useful is a downloadsquad article on what happens to a site once it is shutdown... For example, do log files get shared or handed over? What happens to those downloaders who have been downloading files which, dare I say it, are pirated materials? In real terms, what are the risks of being caught? What precautions can be taken (besides not downloading, obviously)?

kojo87 said 3:01PM on 11-10-2007

for every site that goes down three more spring up. i wouldn't worry too much about not being able to find torrents. it is a shame though that Demonoid had to go down. it was one of the best sites out there. if ISOHunt ever gets shut down there really wont be any one-stop-shop for torrents anymore.

but as of now i dont see any problems with ISOHunt so i dont know what the hell this article is talking about.

Christina Warren said 3:16PM on 11-10-2007

@kojo87 - I agree that the BitTorrent hydra will just continue to sprout new heads, shutting down the big sites just means that users will have a harder time finding a bit catch-all directory for torrents, at least until the next big site takes over.

As for ISOHunt, it works just fine, but it is my opinion that the overall usefulness of the site has greatly decreased in the last six months. The fact that Torrentspy, ISOHunt and the trackers hosted by ISOhunt can no longer serve US visitors greatly decreases their overall usability (because ISOHunt was a great tracker, not just a great search engine). Additionally, ISOHunt's more stringent removal policies have made using it as an index less useful as well. I understand that they had to implement the changes for their survival - I certainly don't condemn that, but the end effect is that the site is less useful.

BananaBoat said 3:44PM on 11-10-2007

Did anyone fact check ANY part of this story?

To set the record straight....

Demonoid is not dead. The tracker is still up, but the site is down because the Canadian Recording Industry Association (the CRIA) put pressure on Demonoids ISP. In other words, no charges were filed (they can't be in Canada basically) and Demonoid (the site. Again, the tracker is still up) will be back up whenever they find a new ISP.

I'm not pro or anti demonoid, but atleast fact check your stories. Saying that "The Fuzz" got them is completely innacurate, and quite frankly, a sign that noone even tried to verify their facts first.

Mr.Kaiser said 12:41AM on 11-11-2007

May demonoid rest in peace

Nick said 9:45AM on 11-11-2007

BananaBoat is correct. Demonoid is never dead until Deimos says it is. They ave moved before and they can move again. Also CRIA is an American body represented in Canada as far as I know, so the legality of actually carrying any charges is debatable. On an additional note, the Canadians pay taxes on things like mp3 players and blank media to help pay for piracy of copywritten works - a good idea to my mind!

Avengelist said 11:24AM on 11-11-2007

@Nick: The CRIA are essentially the Canadian version of the RIAA, without all the posturing and lawsuits.

It's made up of CEOs of the Canadian branches of the record labels, so their heads are just as deeply buried as their US counterparts.

The blank media levy was created for exactly the reason you state, but I have yet to see any numbers published(not that I can find, anyway)as to how much artists actually get from it. I suspect the artists don't get any, but the labels do.

What's amusing is that they are stating now to say that the blank media levy is unfair, and should be removed. Only to be replaced my something more restrictive, obviously.

LarryVF said 11:55AM on 11-11-2007

WOW....Talk about a one sided story with very little substance of the facts, and showing the readers that download squad does take sides in issues....Maybe you should reassess your facts and try representing all the readers of this site, not just the selected few....Keep in mind, that there are already other BitTorrent sites been open just recently. The government of Canada should stand up and set the recording industry straight....We pay here to download, as has been stated in the levy we do pay for the discs and other material we use....Maybe it's time the CRIA was given the heave ho....But we all know the chance of that happening...
Demonoid, the site itself, will be back once it finds a new ISP, and the tracker itself is still running...
It is time Download Squad got off their butts and did some research before putting fingers to keyboards....Is this just one expample of how all the other stories that have been reported on, it dond...Sure hope not....

Sakesaru said 4:38PM on 11-11-2007

@6

No, they likely didn't. Why? Because this site is owned by AOL.

End of story.

Casanon said 5:38PM on 11-11-2007

I am sadly shocked to read such a trivia from DS. Professionalism is frankly absent from this article.

Should be deleted in stead.
Bye

Trevor said 2:50AM on 11-14-2007

I'm not sure that every one was very clear on this article. The writer was obviously stating opinions. They obviously weren't writing a debate on the Social Economic Decline in Third World countries. It's a blog! I do realize that I am pretty much stooping to all of the complainers level by adding this in but it just seems like every one took this one thought and ran with it but didn't care to really understand what it was about. The writer said that it was expected that this kind of problem with Demonoid was to be expected. I don't know if anyone else caught the hint of sarcasm in the closing statements, either. Declaring a national day of mourning...for torrent sites! Hello! Get over it

GoOrange said 1:44PM on 11-16-2007

Demonoid was a great site and it's sad to see it go. I don't get the harsh criticisms about Christina's blog post, she gets a thumbs up from me.

holbay said 10:17AM on 12-30-2007

shame crying shame
one of the best sites
RIP RIP

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