Demonoid is in trouble once again. Why oh why does the government insist on ruining the fun of P2P? The Demonoid website clearly spells out what has happened. The CRIA threatened the company that hosts the site. Previous coverage discussing the fuzzy outcome of the last time the site was down was not as clear, but things ended up okay. Unfortunately, this time around, it appears there are serious problems ahead for Demonoid.

We are helpless to do anything. Piracy is/was a common theme on Demonoid, and the government intervening was bound to happen, and it has in the past. There were many legit activities on Demonoid, but when it comes down to it, piracy is piracy; governments are determined to end it.

If there is any good that can be found out of all of this, it is that there is already an uprising of sites that are competing to gain members, and possibly fill in Demonoid's shoes if it comes to that. One example is is SuperTorrents.org, and they offer a community which is passionate about sharing. SuprNova, the site now owned by The Pirate Bay, is also steadily becoming more popular after being shut down in 2004.

There are plenty of alternatives. The question of if any of them are better than Demonoid is not my call, but if it is the end of Demonoid, here are some alternatives to think about:

• SuperTorrents
• The Pirate Bay (claims to be the largest torrent site in the world)
• Mininova (successor to the original SuprNova)
• SuprNova (reborn again thanks to The Pirate Bay)
• Snarf-It
• STMusic
• ScrapeTorrents (search engine for torrents)
• LegalTorrents (as the name implies, swapping of legal files) down until Nov. 18.

I know there are even more alternatives available, but the above list is a good place to start. Some of these alternatives require registration, and some also require an invitation to join. A general rule is that if the site is closed to public membership, it is usually more strict on rules, but you will also be likely to get better download speeds from private trackers.

Peer to peer sites, applications, and protocols might die but there will always be people who will be willing to create new methods of file sharing, and unless the government goes directly to the source, the internet service providers, then there is not much they can do to prevent piracy.

The story of Demonoid will continue to unfold as time goes on, and if this is the end of the site then it was certainly great while it lasted. There will be new sites that will pop up based on Demonoid's way of doing things if this is truly the end.

It appears that Demonoid, which has been down for nearly a week now, is going to be back in operation soon.  Problems with recent upgrades to the site are what have caused all the problems.

The site has the following text displayed on their main page: "The latest changes to the site are giving us some problems - We'll be back soon."  This has been a hot discussion on many message boards and blogs, but it appears that everything before this was just rumors spread by other sites.

There is still much speculation as to if the CRIA was involved in any of this, and I'm sure that more news will come out as time goes on, but there is much confidence now in the return of Demonoid.

This will certainly be a victory to the people who use torrents as a way of exchanging content.  There is no official word when the site will return to operation, but with the way things were turning out, it might be considered a relief to that the site is even returning to operation.

Previous coverage:
Demonoid: Is This The End? Or Is This Something Else?