TorrentFreak

The former moderator of a now-defunct torrent site has just earned the dubious honor of becoming the most prolific BitTorrent uploader ever to be charged by authorities. The man, who was arrested in 2011, is said to have uploaded around 500 movies and TV shows to a private BitTorrent tracker over a two-and-a-half year period. The quantity of uploads is almost ten times more than the previous record in a case of its type, leading the prosecutor to warn of a looming jail sentence.

Following an undercover police investigation, the Vice President of Lithuanian Anti-Piracy Association LANVA has pleaded guilty to drug trafficking charges. Vytas Simanavicius, known for his efforts to curb online piracy in the Baltic country, faces up to eight years in prison. Because of the looming incarceration, his role as an expert witness in a Microsoft court case against a local BitTorrent site has become uncertain.

In a filing just submitted to a U.S. federal court Megaupload is using the Government’s own words against it, hoping to get the case against it dismissed. Megaupload points out that the Department of Justice is trying to change the law to legitimize the destruction of Megaupload. The DoJ wants to amend the law so that it’s possible to serve foreign defendants, while it previously argued in court that the authorities didn’t require such power.

With a budget of $10 million and under $2 million in domestic grosses, the movie “Killer Joe” didn’t provide the box office successes its makers had hoped for. To make up for disappointing sales, movie studio “Killer Joe Nevada” is now turning to alleged BitTorrent users. The company sued a few dozen people at a federal court in Delaware this week, and aside from subscribers of residential ISPs their list of defendants also includes VPN users.

Citing an Interpol investigation underway with the cooperation of Mastercard and Visa, Czech-based payment processor iKoruna discontinued service to file-hosting sites this week. The target of the investigation was not announced but transaction information was handed over to Interpol and all remaining funds have been frozen. The news comes soon after an Italian prosecutor announced a major crackdown on file-hosting sites, including some iKoruna clients.

Finland’s largest ever Internet piracy case has come to an end with six men standing trial for running a so-called ‘topsite’. Two were cleared by the court but four others were found guilty of distributing movies, music, TV shows, software and other media. They received suspended jail sentences of up to six months but rightsholders are disappointed after their six million euro damages claim – 900,000 euros from Microsoft alone – was reduced to just 45,000 euros.

When it comes to online piracy, copyright holders have an obsession with Google. Every month the search engine is asked to take down links to millions of URLs to help stop the unauthorized distribution of their work. Strangely enough, many copyright holders fail to target the root of the problem as they don’t make the effort to send takedown requests to the originating websites.