This week a man from Sweden was arrested after police discovered a huge haul of pirate movies stored on a server in his basement.
After being held in custody for a day, the 33 year old from Västerås was later released on charges of copyright infringement. During his interrogation he said that he had no knowledge of the movies, instead believing the server to contain only games.
The police who carried out the raid were acting on a tip from Sweden’s Anti-Piracy Bureau (Antipiratbyrån) who said they believe the man could be part of a larger network, probably within the notorious ‘warez scene’, although at this stage no other arrests have been made. Antipiratbyrån also says the server has links to another investigation carried out in Norway.
Antipiratbyrån lawyer Henrik Pontén is now claiming that the server contained around 10,000 movies totaling some 88 terabytes – a huge amount to be contained on a single server.
“We regard the man as one of the leaders in the warez scene,” said Pontén, adding, “A number of respected release groups were able to connect to the server.”
Pontén is celebrating the seizure as the biggest ever in Sweden and “probably one of the largest in Europe.”
Antipiratbyrån feels that the haul will seriously disrupt material becoming available on The Pirate Bay. Similar claims have been made in the past but have proven hollow.
The copies of the movies on this server will all have been copied from other places, and they too will be copied and distributed via other means. They will appear via The Pirate Bay and other torrent sites in the unlikely event they haven’t already – and that’s guaranteed.
