KIEV, Ukraine — A disgruntled Russian porn star claims his complaints took down giant BitTorrent tracker Pornolab.net, not once but twice.
Ukrainian police last month closed the website citing laws designed to limit access to minors despite some confusion over whether the action was lawful considering that Pornolab directs traffic, but doesn't directly distribute porn.
Under Ukrainian law the site would have to be distributing the unlawful data itself to be held liable.
Regardless, the initial takedown didn't stick and Pornolab briefly resurfaced at a Lithuanian data center but was again taken offline by its new host, ZServers.
It rebounded however, and is now up and running in Germany.
But the original action, according to TorrentFreak, was triggered by reported porn star (and now singer) Alexander Pistols after learning that the giant Pornolab was distributing his movies.
Pistols sent off a written complaint to Moscow prosecutors and after five months of investigation, the Ukranian authorities took action to Pistols’ delight.
It’s unclear however, whether the porn star’s nagging shut down Pornolab, but it doesn’t appear that the site is bowing to the pressure.
TorrentFreak reported, “However, some user reports suggest that for at least a while the site could not be accessed in Ukraine, Lithuania or Germany. If these reports are indeed true and the blocks are persistent, the site could be taking action to firewall troublesome locations in order to fend off legal action, a strategy that has already proved successful by Ukraine-hosted Demonoid. That said, with as many as 700,000 Ukranian members, this would be a punishing move for Pornolab.”