LATEST UPDATE (April 2008): People are still arriving here through Google, but this news is out of date. Demonoid is currently up and available, even for Canadian users. For more information about Demonoid’s return and why I think it’s safe, read this post.

UPDATE: Demonoid is, of course, back online for everybody except Canadian users. If you live in Canada, use www.proxy.org for now. I’ll write about my thoughts on the matter later.


Currently (September 25, 7:36pm) Demonoid is still down.

UPDATE:
It is now the morning of September 26 (7:52am) and I checked two major National dailies (the Globe and Mail and the National Post). Neither report anything on Demonoid, making it increasingly unlikely that the downtime has been caused by legal action. While the general public may not be interested in such a story, it doesn’t make sense that the CRIA wouldn’t be claiming victory.

Here’s what’s going on:
- The site is down, but pings still return. This could mean that the site has been firewalled by the ISP, OR it could be temporary network issues.

- TorrentFreak posted a story claiming that the CRIA pressured Demonoid’s Canadian ISP to firewall the site… However, their source is listed as Nu.dl. When I used a translator to read this page, it didn’t quote any confirming sources.

- The Circuit Box has this to say about the CRIA: “Just for the record, the CRIA (despite the name) does NOT represent Canadian artists and the Canadian music industry. It is an AMERICAN association based in Canada to represent the RIAA here.” However, http://www.cria.ca/about.php lists the CRIA as indeed representing Canadian recording artists, and claims to have been formed in 1964 (since before file sharing became a “problem”).

- Neither the CRIA, nor any Canadian media so far have reported anything about Demonoid. (Compare this to the almost immediate claim-of-responsibility from BREIN last time this happened in the Netherlands).

- Operators in the Demonoid IRC channel on P2P-NET deny that they have any information about the downtime. The MOTD reads “SITE IS TEMP OFFLINE” and it’s being bombarded with users asking why. The Circuit Box has posted a transcript of a chat between the TorrentFreak author and a Demonoid staff member, in which the Demonoid staffer claims that the TorrentFreak source was unreliable and denies that the site has been threatened with legal action.

- The sole administrator of Demonoid appears to be someone named Deimos, who ha s yet to appear to make any sort of official statement either in the IRC channel or in response to news articles.

- One previous reader claimed that his friend who works for the US Department of Defense told him that the Israeli government hacked Demonoid. Just thought I’d mention it.

EDIT:
From Casey: “Deimos is not only the sole Administraotr, he is also the owner/creator/overlall god of Demonoid.com.”