Internet Piracy Crackdown Gets 10 Arrested

BRUSSELS — Ten people have been arrested in raids across Europe against computer pirates who put illegal copies of movies and television series on the Internet, Belgian police said Wednesday.

Five of the arrests were made in Belgium, where the computer crime unit led an operation on Tuesday that fanned out over 12 other nations, including Britain, Germany, France and Sweden, said police spokeswoman Tine Hollevoet.

The raids neutralized 48 servers distributing illegal material, Hollevoet said.

In Belgium, the suspects in the illegal file-sharing networks were charged with membership in a criminal organization, computer fraud, hacking and piracy.

"They are between 25 and 30 years old and they knew what they were doing," investigator Olivier Bogaert told The Associated Press. He said they were not seeking to maximize financial profit through their actions.

"They have the notion that all has to be free," Bogaert said.

Swedish police, meanwhile, raided seven different locations for suspected file-sharing, including the web hosting company PRQ in Stockholm's suburb of Solna, which has links to both The Pirate Bay, one of the world's largest file-sharing venues, and whistle-blower website WikiLeaks.

A Swedish police coordinator Paul Pinter said the raid against PRQ had nothing to do "either with The Pirate Bay or with WikiLeaks."

The Pirate Bay has remained in operation despite guilty verdicts in 2009 copyright trial in Sweden, against four men accused of running or financing the site.

By Wednesday evening, all suspects rounded up in Sweden were freed, Pinter said.

____

Associated Press writer Malin Rising contributed to this story from Stockholm.

Comments

[GrahamInCanada]

01:06 AM on 09/09/2010

My great, great, great, great, great, great grandfather was thrown in durance dire by the mason guild.

He built by himself a marvelous dwelling, exactly to the stone identical to the guild letters patent.

He was released from durance dire when the letters patent of the guild fell to modern influences, the overtaking technology, the ease of copying masonry, and philosophical influences like the influence of Adam Smith.

When has Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Karl Marx, and Adam Smith ever agreed? They have agreed that guilds and letters patent and copyright damage the cultures that promote them, and lead to the poverty of nations.

The US, with its lack of net neutrality, CDMA cell services, the promotion of LTE over WiMAX, the millennium copyright draconian-isms, the out of control patent ability of the most mundane and absurd mechanisms, all fueled by the allegorical fines of politicians purchased at the gate of the cost of public manipulation, will last but a short time.

The US, if it does not undergo the antediluvian revolution of returning to free trade, free copy, free information, that it was founded on, will fall like Rome.

[LANmine]

05:12 PM on 09/08/2010

Which is worse: pirating movies online or pirating BAD movies online?

[GoDogGo]

08:49 PM on 09/08/2010

So long as American jobs are lost as a result, pirating either is bad. 

[StansDad]

10:53 PM on 09/08/2010

can you name one person who lost their job as a direct result of internet pirating? In the event you fail, please close your internet browser and try not to stick your supply side economic magazines pages together after whacking it

[LANmine]

10:54 PM on 09/08/2010

Pirating is bad only if American jobs are lost? What about all the other American jobs lost that had nothing to do with pirating? Outsourced tech support for example. Here's a question: why do people pirate movies/music/software? For some, consumers don't like paying for goods unequal to the price. However, people are always going to try to get something for free. I'm fascinated by what they do buy without hesitation.

[birdsdofly]

03:28 PM on 09/08/2010

Well I think Internet pirates should be beheaded so I'm quite cool with this. Hey dbags, how bout I come to your work and steal whatever it is you sell.

[moutonnoir]

06:44 PM on 09/08/2010

Beheaded is harsh! I do wish there was good and effective control though. What annoys me a lot more than teeangers and 'hackers' who see the piracy 'scene' as an interesting thing to be involved in is really companies, many overseas, that do not use any licensed software. These companies have every advantage over US companies, including 'free' software.

I work daily with an $8,000 software package. I always wonder how many of my competitors paid for their copies...

[GoDogGo]

08:52 PM on 09/08/2010

They certainly didn't pay for it in China! When my brother opened an office in Shanghai, they literally laughed at him when his budget included a line item for software. 

How do we compete with dirt-cheap labor, low overhead AND no costs for business tools? 

[GoDogGo]

01:31 PM on 09/08/2010

Let's not fool ourselves and think that pirating of movies is okay, shall we? It doesn't cost Dutch jobs, it costs AMERICAN jobs. As fruitless as prosecuting may seem, it is necessary. We should all be so fortunate to earn our living creating things protected by copyright.

[Cryostatic]

01:59 PM on 09/08/2010

Curious whose job you think is being cut due to Joe Schmoe over there downloading Karate Kid.

Last I recall, that particular movie was sitting at over $100 million, profit, for the studio. Profit. We're talking after all the actors, workers, stuntmen, composers, set designers, advertisers, etc, have all been paid. Now, does piracy cut into their profits? Of course it does, but the studios aren't losing money, my friend. That doesn't make it right, but nobody's losing their job over it.

[moutonnoir]

06:46 PM on 09/08/2010

Legit companies in legit countries the world over are forced to compete with countries that do not use much legit software..

Software costs for my freelance work are in the 6,000 to $12,000/year range. I know that very few companies in asia use licensed versions of the same software.. Sad because the owners of those companies make far more $ than I do.. But then, they need many licenses, not just single seats...

[GoDogGo]

08:39 PM on 09/08/2010

You're using "Karate Kid", a movie from decades ago, to justify the global theft of copyrighted property being made today? I don't know what delusion you're under to think that American jobs aren't being lost over this but they are, by the thousand. 

When pirated movies are downloaded by consumers or sold for $1 in Shanghai, demand for legitimate property declines, reducing the market for the product. That means fewer movies are made, fewer production jobs are available, margins get pinched, and so forth. The people who lose out the most? Carpenters, caterers, electricians and drivers among others who work the sets. Real people, not "Hollywood." 

The only people who justify that are children who don't understand the broader implications of their actions. 

[StansDad]

02:49 PM on 09/08/2010

yeah!

wait, no, internet pirating has accounted for 0 jobs lost in the history of internet pirating.
In fact, it has made more useless jobs to track and harass people that do.
We should all be so fortunate to not pay premiums on products whose creators are long since past.

[eric14]

01:06 PM on 09/08/2010

Mmm. Crackdown!!! Ten guys. In one hundred stretch of a London street there were around twenty guys selling bootleg this that and the other.

[Alien Nation]

12:47 PM on 09/08/2010

Could you imagine being the people working to bust these guys? Talk about the most pathetic and pointless job in the history of jobs.

[LANmine]

11:16 PM on 09/08/2010

Like law enforcement fighting the war on drugs.......that still hasn't been won?

[wwew]

12:35 PM on 09/08/2010

how many terrorist cells have they rounded up lately? you know, actually threats.

(crickets)

[LANmine]

05:19 PM on 09/08/2010

Real threats aren't stopped because it's not profitable. Gotta keep the gun & bomb sales going. Meanwhile, someone watching an illegally downloaded movie somewhere could bring about the end of the world!!!!! Nah, it's better to spend tons of money chasing someone who didn't want to buy that lame DVD from Wal-Mart's bargain bin for $3.

Illegally downloading movies might be bad but I think the greater crime is the money & materials wasted to make numerous physical copies of bad movies that'll end up in a landfill.

[TomStewart]

12:01 PM on 09/08/2010

That'll put a stop to it.

[taiwanjohn]

12:55 PM on 09/08/2010

Whew! Thank goodness!

I feel safer already.

--jrd

[Cryostatic]

11:47 AM on 09/08/2010

Nope, TPB is still up and running.

Nothing worthy of any note was accomplished this day.