Unconventional response to taking down Torrents.ru

One of Russia’s main BitTorrent platforms, Torrents.ru was recently taken down on the order of the authorities. It quickly found a new host, registered in the Bahamas. The enraged pirate community, meanwhile, is taking matters into its own hands.

Torrentfreak reports on the affairs surrounding RU-Center’s taking down of Torrents.ru, a site with one million torrents and four million users. Following the orders of the Moscow public prosecutor’s office, the site was taken offline on Februari 18th, 2010.  The charges: violation of Article 146 of the Criminal Code: “Illegal use of objects of copyright or related rights, as well as acquisition, storage, transportation of counterfeit copies of works or phonograms for sale, committed on a large scale”.

While the site resurfaced quickly, now hosted outside of the jurisdiction of the Russian authorities, the action caused some fierce reactions. The owner of Torrents.ru called the instant take down “absolutely illegal”, referring to the one month that could have been granted for resolving the dispute. “We will appeal against it, but in this case it’s not the most important thing. The precedent is created. If you are an owner of domain name in .ru zone, you should know that it can be suspended at any moment by the order of an investigator.”

Not suffering this injustice lightly, the pirate community in Russia is taking its own action in its ‘digital freedom fight’ against Big Content and governments.

A petition, signed by over 15.000 people was drawn up to be handed to Prime Minister Putin and President Medvedev.

Furthermore, the Russian Pirate Party reported DDOS attacks of the sites of 1C and EKinoT. 1C, although denying involvement, is rumoured to have something to do with the seizure of the Torrents.ru domain. EKinoT, an Internet cinema, is unpopular with pirates as it has stated to work together with authorities to counter sites that are competing with it illegally. Torrents.ru was mentioned as one of these illegal competitors.

2 March 2010