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Police Raid ‘Excellent’ Private BitTorrent Tracker, Admins Arrested Posted: 26 May 2011 03:55 AM PDT In the wake of first Pirate Bay trial in 2009, emboldened anti-piracy groups – “guilty” verdict in hand – started to apply pressure on torrent sites hosted in Sweden. Antipiratbyrån wrote to several sites with warnings for them to discontinue any and all copyright-infringing operations. One such site was SweDVDR, which was considered one of the most coveted private trackers of 2008. Initially they announced they would close down, although along with another site, SoftMP3, they decided to release their source code to the public, enabling other sites to spring up in their place. A pair of new sites – TVSource and DVDRSource – seized that opportunity but despite having code on a plate, failed to make it to the big time alone. Instead, the staff of the sites (which were actually owned by the same person) decided to pool their resources and merge their databases to create a new site – XNT.nu – known to its users simply as ‘eXcelleNT’. By January 2010, eXcelleNT had more than 13,000 users but just 600 torrents. By early May 2011, the position was quite different. Although the userbase had remained steady, topping out at just under 17,000 members, torrent count had increased dramatically to between 28,000 and 30,000. But that would be the end of their good times. Following an investigation conducted by anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, police in Borlänge, Sweden, moved Tuesday to arrest a suspected admin of XNT.nu. Based on new information discovered in this raid, they proceeded to arrest a second man in the Stockholm area on Wednesday. “We believe that the men have been administering and managing the site together,” said prosecutor Frederick Ingblad, a veteran of anti-filesharing operations. While computers were seized at the houses of the suspects in Sweden, the site itself was hosted on a server in Germany. That too has now been seized. Both men, who are in their 20′s, are said to have made some level of confession. They were then released pending further enquiries. From being quite a safe haven for file-sharing, the heat in Sweden against both users and sites is certainly rising. However, a large number of sites – some of them of significant size – still operate from the country including the largest of them all. Source: Police Raid ‘Excellent’ Private BitTorrent Tracker, Admins Arrested

Hollywood Beefs Up Injunction Against Pirate Bay Founders Posted: 25 May 2011 01:53 PM PDT The entertainment industries have tried long and hard to take The Pirate Bay offline in Sweden. Aside from the main criminal trial, they also obtained a wide variety of interim injunctions through the courts. In 2009, a Stockholm district court injunction ordered founders Fredrik Neij and Gottfrid Svartholm Warg to cease assisting in The Pirate Bay’s operations or face fines of 500,000 kronor ($78,000). Former Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde was later presented with a similar injunction. Neij and Svartholm Warg were prohibited from assisting in the operation of The Pirate Bay website, and any website that hosts torrents available through The Pirate Bay, and The Pirate Bay tracker. However, an interesting situation arose in the fall of 2009 when The Pirate Bay decided to remove their in-house tracker. As the setup of the site had changed the Appeal Court ruled that the interim injunction against the site’s founders was no longer valid. The Pirate Bay no longer consisted of all three elements, the Court ruled. The movie studios and record labels were not pleased with this outcome and filed for a new interim injunction against Pirate Bay spokesman Peter Sunde in June 2010 and against the other founders, Neij and Swartholm Warg, in October last year. The injunction against Sunde was made final in October last year after a decision by the Court of Appeal, and the injunction against Neij was made final in February this year. Swartholm Warg was unfindable. The new injunctions in force no longer prohibit the site's founders from operating all three elements of the site, but any. Last week the companies dropped the enforcement action under the old injunction to replace it with one that applies to the broader injunction. If this order is violated, Neij faces a fine of 500,000 kronor. Whether or not the update was needed has to be questioned. The founders of The Pirate Bay have stated many times that they handed over the operation of the site and all its aspects to the Seychelles-based company Reservella. During the past several years the entertainment companies initiated several civil cases in addition to the criminal trial, and by doing so managed to obtain several injunctions. Two of these prevented the site’s former ISPs Portlane and Black Internet to serve the site as a customer. In the months that followed anti-piracy outfit IFPI threatened several ISPs around the world against daring to host The Pirate Bay, quoting the injunctions above. Needless to say, the paperwork was one of the most powerful tools they have to chase down The Pirate Bay and make the lives of those who operate it as difficult as possible. Eventually this forced The Pirate Bay to seek shelter with the local Pirate Party. With the new and more broad injunction and the injunction against Portlane, the movie studios and record labels now have even more ammunition to go after companies who dare to provide services to The Pirate Bay. This means that the new mountain complex where the servers are currently located is probably on the top of their hit list. Source: Hollywood Beefs Up Injunction Against Pirate Bay Founders

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