First time ever.
Last Friday authorities from the Russian Ministry of Internal Affairs arrested the owners of BitTorrent tracker site Interfilm.ru (Google cache). It was the first ever raid against a BitTorrent tracker site in that country.
The site was hosted by Dutch ISP Leaseweb and, as of press time, appears down.
During the raid, the police arrested the website’s owners, a married couple known only via their nicknames “Ripper” and “Nadezhda,” and several employees.
Russian anti-piracy organization RAPO (one of the founders of the MPA) accused Interfilm of earning revenue through ads and charging a fee for higher download speeds.
Konstantin Zemchenkov, director of the RAPO, said that it filed a criminal case 2 to 3 weeks before the raid was carried out. It’s see\king prosecution under part 3 of Article 146 of the Russian Criminal Code, “Violation of copyright and related rights,” which calls for up to 6 years in prison and a fine of up to 500,000 rubles, or the amount of wages and other income earned up to the past 3 years.
The Producers Guild of Russia is using the news to press for legislation requiring ISP-level monitoring of illegal file-sharing. It claims that online piracy in Russia has reached “enormous proportions.”
[Hat Tip]
pointless in every way
We plane bust USA too. From this country we have so much pirates media.
V.Putin
oh god, the Russians bust their first evil torrent site. Well, there are 100 times as many others out there. Take one (dealer) down, another thirty (dealers) pop up in its place. Good luck there, ruskies. hahah!
Love the police Photo!!!