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In a nutshell: Courts in Denmark have convicted two unnamed males in an ongoing crackdown on digital piracy. One obtained a nine-month jail sentence for importing huge quantities of pirated content material to Danish torrent trackers. The court docket sentenced the opposite to a 12 months for his involvement within the infamous piracy group ‘The Scene.’
The primary conviction concerned a “46-year-old man,” who shared 74 terabytes of copyrighted motion pictures and TV exhibits via torrent websites SuperBits and DanishBytes. Torrent Freak stories {that a} Hillerød court docket sentenced him to 9 months in jail, with no less than three months served earlier than parole eligibility. The decide additionally ordered the person to finish 120 hours of group service. His particular function inside the torrent websites is unclear, however authorities mentioned his contribution to piracy was “substantial.”
In a separate case, a Nykøbing Falstercourt court docket sentenced a 48-year-old man to jail for 12 months, with a compulsory minimal of 4. The court docket discovered him responsible of internet hosting two servers and illegally distributing content material inside The Scene, a extremely secretive piracy community. His {hardware} contained 134 terabytes of copyrighted materials. In keeping with investigators, the person primarily ripped and distributed a Danish youngsters’s collection from streaming platforms. Police arrested him in November 2023, sparking a broader sweep of The Scene, which led to the demise of a number of different Danish piracy teams.
These two convictions differ from how Denmark usually sentences on-line piracy. Beforehand, many convicted bootleggers obtained conditional punishments, permitting them to keep away from jail time in the event that they stayed out of bother. Nevertheless, this time, the courts seen the offenses extra severely, resulting in Denmark’s first unconditional jail sentences for piracy with no revenue motive.
“That is the primary time that the courts have imposed unconditional jail sentences on file sharers who don’t have any prison report and haven’t benefited financially,” mentioned Danish Particular Crimes Unit (NSK) Prosecutor Jan Østergaard.
The anti-piracy group Rights Alliance, which helped authorities shut down Danish torrent trackers like SuperBits and DanishBytes, applauded the rulings.
“Let the verdicts be a wake-up name to the customers and perpetrators who persist: Violations of rights may be found – and brought severely once they [are],” Rights Alliance Director Maria Fredenslund mentioned.
Denmark’s intensified crackdown on piracy over the past 5 years has led to the closure of a number of personal torrent trackers and the conviction of greater than two dozen pirates related to these websites. Torrent Freak notes that extra instances are nonetheless pending, and Danish authorities have indicated that their efforts to fight digital piracy are removed from over.
Picture credit score: Nick Youngson
