Russia’s top file sharing website under fire

Torrent tracking websites do not contain illegal materials, but enable their users to swap files with each other – often in breach of copyright.

Although other sites abroad have been sued, this is the first time one has been closed in Russia. The reaction throughout the web community has been outrage.

“This out-of-the-blue decision is proof of the incompetence of our police. What was done was utterly illegal – you have to have a decision from the court before you can just cut off a website,” said editor of Hacker magazine, Nikita Kislitsyn.

Further, more than a thousand users have formed their own protest movement.

“This is an alarm bell. Today it has happened to a torrent website, but tomorrow it could be anyone,” said Yury Romanov from the Community for Legal Exchange of Information.

However, one of Russia's leading film directors, Yuri Grymov, has a different view.

“Piracy takes away ninety percent of our profits. It has destroyed cinema in this country and we can't finance the films we want as a result. It is high time the government did something about pirates,” Grymov said.

Despite the police action against them, the owners of torrents.ru have simply registered under a different domain name, taking their database and clients with them.

This means that the latest Hollywood releases can still be downloaded through a torrent at a moment's notice. RT asked surfers at a Moscow internet cafe if the closing has had an impact on their web use.

“The old site simply had a link to the new one. I have resumed downloading films,” one user said.

“I have heard about it, but so what? There are loads of other torrent websites. I don’t care,” said another person.

The proprietors of torrents.ru say they will fight to return their long-standing domain name. In the meantime, other torrent websites are in the dark over their future.

RT