After reports of downtime last week, popular torrent tracking site Demonoid (demonoid.com) was back online this week, though it appears to be blocking Canadian users from accessing the site. While the site is online, Canadian users are currently being redirected to a page that reads "We received a letter from a lawyer representing the CRIA, they were threatening with legal action and we need to start blocking Canadian traffic because of this. If you reside in Canada, that is the reason you are being redirected to this message. Thanks for your understanding, and sorry for any inconvenience."

Demonoid has struggled recently to find a home safe from anti-piracy groups. In June, the site moved its servers to Canada from The Netherlands after Dutch group BREIN (anti-piracy.nl) filed a subpoena against its ISP, asking the service provider to take the site offline and hand over information on the site's operators.

The CRIA's (cria.ca) actions suggest that Canada may not be the safe haven Demonoid's operators hoped it would be.

Billy Krassakopoulos, director of operations at Demonoid's Canadian host Netelligent Hosting Services confirmed Tuesday that the company was not contacted by the CRIA, which instead contacted the site's operators directly. According to Canadian law, he said, the ISP is not accountable for material posted to a site of this kind, nor is the site operator if he takes reasonable steps to remove any illegal material.

It is not yet clear on what grounds the CRIA threatened legal action. As of this article's publication, the CRIA has yet to return a call requesting more information.