Swedish Cops Arrest BitTorrent Site Uploader

[DaBees-Knees]

http://www.zeropaid.com/news/92737/swedish-cops-arrest-bittorrent-site-uploader/

Swedish Anti-Piracy Bureau help nab 25yo suspected of uploading more than 1,000 movies to the BitTorrent tracker site Swebits last fall.

Last week the Swedish Prosecution Authority raided the home of an unnamed 25yo it accuses of uploading more than a thousand films to the network of Swebits, one of Sweden’s longest running and more popular BitTorrent tracker sites. The raid left Swebits stunned enough to close the doors of its nearly 35,000 member site after nearly seven years of operation.

"As we all know everything has a beginning and an end," reads a message on its homepage. "This is the end of Swebits. During the last day there has been a lot of speculation, some with hope and some with less hope." Henrik Pontén of Sweden’s Anti-Piracy Bureau said the closure was a direct result of the raid. "There is absolutely a connection," he told Expressen. "They were so depressed over this that they shut down operations."

The uploader nabbed by authorities faces up to two years in prison, and Pontén, which supplied cops with his IP address in the investigation, says it will seek a six-figure damage award. "The important thing is that it is the first time we succeeded in isolating a user in this way," he added. "There has been a myth that users of bittorrent technology is untraceable."

It really is the first time that I can recall authorities going after a BitTorrent tracker site uploader, and represents an escalation in the war on piracy. Without uploaders to private tracker sites you have no content, and without content you have no users.

However, the net result will likely be that BitTorrent users will simply seek out either public tracker sites like Sweden’s very own The Pirate Bay, or foreign private tracker sites that still offer the a semblance of safety and security.

Sweden seems to be the place to avoid at the moment.