Just before an official state visit with the US, Ukraine's Interior ministry seized all of Demonoid's servers, rendering the torrent site non-functional. Serving the most popular torrent destination following the neutering of The Pirate Bay, TorrentFreak believes the site was a target because Ukraine wanted to prove to the US that they take copyright infringement seriously. Motivation!
This also follows a DDoS attack on the site, which already had people on edge as to what was going on with Demonoid. But this latest incident seems much less temporary than whatever occurred last week. TorrentFreak writes:
A source inside the Interior Ministry has informed Kommersant that the raid on Demonoid was timed to coincide with the very first trip of Deputy Prime Minister Valery Khoroshkovsky‘s trip to the United States. On the agenda: copyright infringement.
Ukraine had promised the United States that it would improve its attitude and efforts towards enforcing copyright and no doubt its Western partner will be very pleased indeed that Demonoid's head has been presented on a platter.
That's definitely a big victory for the U.S., who operates in the interest of copyright holders, but this very blatant grandstanding by Ukraine makes you question how serious it is about this. But either way, it's time for the pirates to look for a new home. [TorrentFreak]