NEWS
Ukraine shuts down notorious file-sharing site Demonoid
Ukrainian government offi cials have shut down one of the world’s largest fi le-sharing websites, Demonoid, following a request from law enforcement agency Interpol.
According to reports, Interpol asked the Division of Economic Crimes to shut down the site, whose servers were hosted by a company called ColoCall. The web host then pulled Demonoid’s connection before government officials copied all information from the site’s servers and sealed them.
T e news emerged on August 6, 2012, but offi cials reportedly shut down the site on about August 1. T e site’s owners, who were arrested in Mexico in October 2011, are now apparently subject to a criminal investigation there.
In a statement, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI), which said its complaints over Demonoid prompted Interpol to shut down the site, welcomed the news.
“T e operation to close Demonoid was a great example of international cooperation to tackle a service that was facilitating the illegal distribution of music on a vast scale,” said Jeremy Banks, director, anti-piracy at the IFPI.
Demonoid was named on the US government’s Notorious Markets list, published in November 2011. T e annual report said at the time that Demonoid “recently ranked among the top 600 websites in global traffi c and the top 300 in US traffi c, according to
Alexa.com”.
T e US government was responsible for shutting down another high-profi le fi le-sharing site, Megaupload, in January 2012. Offi cials are trying to extradite the site’s operators and their leader,
ICANN extends gTLD comment period after US congress intervenes
Aſt er intervention from US members of
congress, the organisation overseeing the new generic top-level domains (gTLDs) programme has given members of the public an extra 45 days to comment on the 1,927 applications.
The Internet Corporation of Assigned
Names and Numbers (ICANN) will now accept comments until September 26, 2012. Evaluators
will consider comments when
examining applications, and an independent lawyer can object only to bids seen as having limited public interest.
6 Trademarks Brands and the Internet Volume 1, Issue 3
Analysts have previously told TB&I that brands should file public comments, even if they haven’t applied for a gTLD, to protect their business interests online.
More than 6,100 comments on about 1,000 applications have been fi led so far.
T e decision follows pressure from US members of congress, who wrote to ICANN following letters from two other business groups unhappy about the 60-day period.
The Intellectual Property Constituency (IPC),
www.worldipreview.com
a man calling himself Kim Dotcom, from their base in New Zealand.
Adam Rendle, an associate at Taylor Wessing LLP in London, said seizing Demonoid was an important development for rights owners. “T at the government of a country which does not have a substantial exporting creative industry—ie, whose creative industries would not be directly aff ected by fi le-sharing—has taken this action, appears to be signifi cant.
“If more similar action were taken there and elsewhere, it would become more diffi cult for fi le-sharing sites to base themselves in ‘off shore’ jurisdictions,” he said.
But he said many other sites continue to provide equivalent services, so it may reappear. “T is requires further on- and off shore legal action, together with legislative and enforcement support from governments and practical assistance from bystanders such as ISPs, to make a signifi cant overall diff erence to the level of online piracy.”
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