#1 CRIA Orders ShutDown of What.cd, Other Major BitTorrent Trackers

A company which hosts many BitTorrent trackers has been ordered by the CRIA to close at least four major sites. Moxie Colo was issued with cease and desist notices and ordered to hand over the owners data and site logs of What.cd, SumoTracker, BTMon and FullDls. They are told to simply close many other sites they host.

Those who believed that Canada would develop as one of the world’s BitTorrent safe-havens, are in for quite a surprise. Despite many people believing that torrent sites are operating legally in Canada, today popular Canadian BitTorrent host Moxie Colo was served with cease and desist orders, courtesy of the CRIA.

They specifically demand that the Moxie Colo stops hosting top ranked torrent sites What.cd, SumoTorrent, BTMon and FullDls. Generally, the CRIA is demanding that Moxie stop hosting all torrent sites.

TorrentFreak has been reporting recently on the plight of QuebecTorrent which is currently tied up in a legal battle against the music industry in Canada. Clearly that - and the running out of town of Demonoid - was just a run up to further action by an emboldened CRIA.

In files served on Moxie Communications Inc (the parent company of Moxie Colo), the CRIA is demanding that Moxie turn over the personal details of the torrent site administrators, presumably so they can go after them. The CRIA also want Moxie to turn over all relevant site logs, but it is at least unlikely that the Canadian police will be interested in most of the users.

Of course, just because the CRIA demands something, doesn’t mean they will get it. For now, Moxie Colo said it won’t be giving in to the CRIA’s demands.

Sean Corbin, CEO of Moxie Communications told TorrentFreak: “We will not be following the request and will be fighting for the rights of our clients as to date laws in Canada protect them. We have looked into the matter and from what we understand these sites are not breaking any laws in Canada. If we do not comply they might bring legal action against Moxie Communications, as they believe without us these sites could not do what they do so therefore we are as bad as they are.”

More on this breaking story as we get it.