Ukrainian authorities have taken down Demonoid.com, one of the world’s largest torrent file-sharing sites.
The country’s Ministry of Internal Affairs raided the data centre that was hosting the website’s servers.
Torrents allow users to download music, video and other internet content by downloading small bits of files from others’ computers at the same time.
The shutdown is the latest in a gobal campaign against file sharing websites. It follows the closure of Megaupload by the Us and the EU blocking of The pirate Bay.
Demonoid, along with Megaupload and The pirate Bay, was listed on the US Government’s Notorious Markets List, a document highlighting services that “merit further investigation for possible intellectual property rights infringements”.
It noted that Demonoid “recently ranked among the top 600 websites in global traffic and the top 300 in US traffic”.
“Demonoid is known for its links to relatively rare content which may be harder to come by now,” said Torrentfreak’s editor Ernesto Van Der Sar.
“In 2006 The pirate Bay came back online three days after it was raided, and in the years that followed it grew out to become the largest BitTorrent site,” he said.
The BPI, which represents the UK music industry, and the MPAA (Motion Picture Association of America) - which have both campaigned against online copyright infringement - declined to comment.