Police Across Europe Conduct Major File-Sharing Crackdown

[p2p rules]

P2P is taking a big hit today with news that police across Europe are conducting one of the largest crackdown against illegal file-sharing ever to have taken place. This morning police in 14 European countries, including Sweden, Norway, Belgium, Britain, Germany, the Czech Republic, Hungary, and Italy,  raided the homes of a number of individuals suspected of involvement as well as the ISPs that hosted servers where copyrighted material had been illegally uploaded to.

“I have not heard of any major crackdown in Europe in violation of copyright law,” said Paul Pinter, Sweden’s national coordinator for intellectual property crimes. “This is a huge crackdown.”

The raids were conducted at the behest of Belgian authorities who spent two years infiltrating a warez group known as “The Scene” which is composed of many layers. At the top are groups who compete with one another to obtain and upload copyrighted material to the Internet. The next layer of the network are so-called “Top-sites,” data severs where the copyrighted material is uploaded to made available.

A bulk of the raids appear to have been carried out in Sweden, long considered a file-sharing safe haven, and according to Swedish prosecutors, the raids there have mainly targeted “Top-sites.”

The Swedish Pirate Party “highly critical” of the raids being that one targeted the ISP hosting the servers of Wikileaks, the site currently embroiled in an international freedom of the press controversy.

“If it is found that the police have shut down Wikileaks newsroom,” says Pirate Party leader Rick Falkvinge, “the situation will go to a whole new level. When the Swedish authorities have gone all over the constitutional limits and the weight of American pressure to get rid of an uncomfortable newsroom. The situation is now very, very serious.”

Swedish Prosecutor Frederick Ingblad insists the raids have nothing to do about Wikileaks. He also notes the “special” nature of the investigation being that it involves “no investigation in Sweden, but it is a request for legal assistance from Belgium.”

“The seized material will probably be transferred to Belgium for investigation there,” added Ingblad. “We will then have to see what comes out of that, crimes could also have been committed in Sweden.”

zeropaid.com
Police in File-Sharing Raids Across Europe, WikiLeaks Host Targeted

[Bieb]

Just proves no one is really safe. And we should be glad we're so small they pretty much leave us alone.

[DaBees-Knees]

I'm not sure to what extent or with what enthusiasm some police forces will take part in this (if it's true). In the UK alone I doubt there will be much effort put in to this as police forces across the nation are being asked to cut their costs by 40%.

Don't panic yet.

[Max™]

The Police in UK want an easy catch, like motorists, they dont want to work hard to find a criminal,
i used to be sub contracted to the forensics lab, spending time dragging in crime related vehicles, some with stolen goods or illegal firearms in,

but there is one time i thought things got silly, i was off-duty in my car, i got a speeding ticket, they had what we call a 'hair dryer' radar gun,
i was clocked doing 32mph in a 30mph limit, while i was there, 1 officer put the hair dryer on what we called a 'pop-pop' moped,
its a very small engine bike with peddles to assist it up hills etc, you peddle like mad before it dies,
well the moped was on a hill, i looked at the officers readout, the moped was clocked doing 18mph, why bother?