Popular BitTorrent site Demonoid.com has been taken offline after legal threats to its webhost by the Canadian Recording Industry Association (CRIA).

A message on the Demonoid front page reads: "The CRIA threatened the company renting the servers to us, and because of this it is not possible to keep the site online. Sorry for the inconvenience and thanks for your understanding."

According to Demonoid's IRC channel, the BitTorrent trackers themselves have not been affected by the latest legal sabre rattling, and it's thought the site will return.

Six weeks ago Demonoid was forced to close because of CRIA legal pressure. The site and trackers returned, but with a block on users from Canada.

Clearly, the CRIA doesn't pay any heed to a report (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/11/05/birkbeck_canada_p2p_cd_sales/) commissioned by the Canadian government that said P2P is having no negative effect on CD sales.

In a speech in February (http://www.cria.ca/news/270207_n.pdf), CRIA boss Graham Henderson bemoaned Canada's "culture of piracy".

The shuttering of Demonoid, however temporary, marks a further escalation of recent international record industry moves against file sharers. OiNK was raided in October (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/23/oink_raids/) in the UK, eDonkey servers in Germany were seized (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/09/20/music_industry_shuts_down_edonkey/) in September, and the RIAA scored a huge legal victory when Minnesota woman Jammie Thomas was fined (http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/05/riaa_wins_first_music_sharing_jury_trial/) $220,000. ®

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