Large scale European police action against piracy networks

Last week, police in 14 European countries have conducted coordinated raids targeted at a large piracy ring. In the 14 countries, 49 servers have been seized and ten people have been arrested. Future of Copyright spoke to an insider that has followed the investigation closely.

The action was targeted at the Warez Scene, a level of piracy with which “regular” downloaders hardly ever come into contact with. This scene, that organises itself in groups centred around topsites, internet servers with a high capacity in both storage capacity and bandwidth, aims at rapidly spreading and storing large quantities of copyrighted material.

Two years of investigation preceded the raids. The first pieces of the puzzle were in the Benelux. The investigation initially targeted the Dutch-speaking Scene, but it fanned out as more puzzle pieces were identified, until 14 countries were involved.

World wide there are about a hundred topsites, of which almost half have been raided now. Of course, new will spring up in this newly formed vacuum, but the Dutch Scene has suffered a severe blow, according to our source.

Most of the arrested people have been charged with copyright infringement. Some of them also face hacking charges. These scenes often have insiders or are otherwise closely tied to large internet providers or institutions with their own networks, such as universities. There, they use bendwidth illicitly, so they can exchange and distribute ware at great speeds. Often, they lead their traffic straight to the internet backbone, so they have access to bandwidth of more than 750 Mbps.