TorrentFreak

The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

Major Bulgarian BitTorrent Sites Targeted By Police

Following the joint signing of an IFPI / Bulgarian Interior Ministry memorandum declaring a crackdown on piracy, the head of the Computer Crimes Department appeared on TV and said that the country’s two largest BitTorrent sites will be closed down. Both Zamunda.net and Arena.bg are currently in the spotlight but it is feared more could join them in the future.

bulgariaEarlier this week the music industry lobby group IFPI made an announcement which indicated that in terms of Internet piracy, Bulgaria is leading all of Europe.

IFPI’s Frances Moore said that ISPs should be forced to take responsibility for illicit file-sharing and called for changes in the law.

On Tuesday this week, a memorandum was signed by Bulgaria’s Interior Minister and IFPI which effectively declared war on piracy in the country. It didn’t take long for its effects to be felt.

Yesterday Yavor Kolev, the head of Bulgaria’s Computer Crimes Department, announced on TV that he would do everything in his power to crack down on BitTorrent sites. He confirmed that his first two targets would be Zamunda.net and Arena.bg

“We will shut down Zamunda and Arena BG and their servers that supply pirated movies and music and take money from their users via premium SMS. The users of the sites will not be arrested,” he said. “We’ll clean the web from Internet pirates and set up platforms for legal file downloads,” he added.

Cases against both Zamunda and Arena BG have been pending for 4 years but it’s believed that neither site is operated by Bulgarians. It’s claimed that Zamunda is operated by a Syrian and Arena BG a Russian.

Whether or not the authorities in Bulgaria will succeed in their quest is up for debate. Certainly Arena BG has a habit of reappearing quickly every time it encounters trouble.

Related Posts

Previous Post | Next Post

  • Neo Joe

    Good. Shut em down. Stupid thieves.

  • Anonymous

    Everyone posting below this line is getting trolled.
    ———— TROLL LINE ————–

  • Anonymous

    @NeoConJoe

    Yeah – Because everyone will start buying stuff when they do, right?

  • jumping ship

    filesharing is like an agressive cancer… blitz it and it disappears, only to return and spread with a vengeance

  • colorznatalius

    is bulgaria suddenly sponsored by the mafiaa? it’s not that that country has anything important in the world to say, so why should they do so much trouble?

  • sUm1

    They can’t do sh!t about it.. They will just move their trackers to different country if something ‘major happens’ like police raids.. and btw ArenaBG’s tracker is located in the Netherlands, and Zamunda is available only for users in Bulgaria

    This guys are stupid as f*ck..

    Piracy Cannot be stopped!
    greedy C(_)unts!

  • MM

    1. It’s 0.arenabg.com

    2. They aren’t using premium sms or taking any kind of payment. They are making money from ads, so I don’t know what Mr. Kolev is talking about.

  • MM

    @6 You are wrong, zamunda is available to international users, and it has been for a long time (2+ years). It’s my favorite torrent tracker by far, and I’m not from Bulgaria.

  • bubba

    declaring war on piracy – lol

    just like the war on drugs, and where are we with that?

  • CanIHazRoot

    Bittorent is dead
    Source : http://www.rootsecure.net/?p=link&l=26380

  • sUm1

    @8 Yes it has been accesible for international users.. But now it isn’t. It is filtered for IPs only located in Bulgaria

  • Jimmy Jojo

    Wow, pretty sad man. They just wont leave it alone will they?

    Jimmy
    anon-vpn.se.tc

  • denis
  • TPM

    Neither Zamunda, nor Arena.BG are sponsored by premium SMS, they are ad-supported. There was a time, way back when Arena was charging for VIP access, but it hasn’t been the case for at least 3-4 years.

    Anyway, as far as I can remember, Arena.BG has been taken down 4 times, and every time the site reappears after a brief downtime (and it wasn’t always a torrent site – in the beginning it was like a RapidShare with an index).

    There have been several such “crackdowns on piracy” throughout the years in Bulgaria, and it always has been just smoke in the eyes of the MAFIAA. You know – they uhm… sweet-talk some officials into fighting piracy; said officials bust a few people; some sites go down; in 2-3 months everything is right back on track. :)))

    And I doubt ISPs are going to look kindly on this, after all the investments they’ve made – it took them just 15 years to go from the old 56kbit modems to Fiber-to-the-home connections (almost every major metropolitan area offers these now; the slowest connections in the country are 10 mbit/s), and there is only one valid reason a person gets 50, 70, or 100 mbit line. Do you honestly think the ISPs are going to allow the copyright industries to steal their business? I think not.

  • duane

    Politicians in countries like Bulgaria are cheaper to buy than politicians in, say, the UK. The precedents set this way can later be used to put pressure on the trickier countries — it’s a basic rule of haggling.

    This is clearly a case of politicians not doing what is best for their citizens: Are any labels in Bulgaria part of the IFPI? Doubt it. Is the Bulgarian media industry developed enough to claim massive losses due to piracy? Probably not. Do Bulgarian citizens benefit from open access to culture and knowledge, to an unprecedented degree throughout the country’s history? Most certainly.

    What would it take to BAN the operation of the companies in the IFPI, on the grounds of corruption, bullying, unfair commercial practices and for limiting consumer choice?

  • Resoned Mind

    I hope Bulgaria has the death penalty for pirate scum. We must defend Hollywood’s degenerate artists at any cost, even if people have to die for it.

  • Doink

    Off Topic:

    Yarr! Election pits pirate vs pirate, freetards in the rigging – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/30/pirate_v_pirate/

    Pirate Bay co-founder hopes it will die, BrokeP on neo-Nazi links, Hans Pandeya and the ‘big, bad’ record industry – http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/04/30/pirate_bay_brokep_interview/

  • jumping ship

    wait for broadband to proliferate throughout the third world… would be cool to have torrent sites hosted in Somalia :)

  • MM

    @11 I’m from Macedonia, and I’m browsing Zamunda right now.

  • sUm1

    @16 Trolls are not allowed to post comments here, so STFU! -_-

  • sUm1

    @18 Macedonia is Bulgaria! :D

  • Reasoned Mind

    I’m sorry for my comment earlier as my boyfriend left for work and I didn’t get time to give him a happy-ending before work……& I was molested as a kid so I figured I would try and take it out on pirates as it was a guy in a pirate costume who molested me at chuck-e-cheeses when I was 3. That’s why my opinion is so wack towards pirates, I’m sorry!

  • Resoned Mind

    Sorry about my hate towards pirates and my negative comments on torrentfreak.com, I was molested by a guy in a pirate costume at chuck-e-cheeses when I was a kid and I have a very small peenis so I hate the world! I’m sorry for being a ginger-kid pirate hater

  • Anonym

    Take my hands of from my provider. Idiotic Brein.

  • Donnie

    Quote@jumping ship

    wait for broadband to proliferate throughout the third world… would be cool to have torrent sites hosted in Somalia :)

    Or maybe Nigeria:)!!!

  • Anonymous

    “Bulgaria is leading all of Europe.”

    These entertainment parasites and liars should get their stories strait.

    Last week they claimed that it was Italy.

  • RIP

    @16 they don’t but they could find one especially for you…

    @17 Now that would be a truly pirate tracker :D

  • ou

    firing up bittorrent client in 5 minutes :-)

  • Delacroix

    What is your problem with Bulgaria ?

  • anon

    how many have died from smoking after seeing hollywood stars promote the habit ? 100million 300million? how many died from speeding drivers again influenced by hollywood car chases ???
    what about the drug taking??? the violence??? films have done so much damage to society so when piracy causes willsmiths pay to drop from $20m a movie to $18m a movie many people are happy

  • Ninja

    “We’ll clean the web from Internet pirates and set up platforms for legal file downloads,” he added.

    Wow, that’s one hell of a comedian. Two sarcastic comments in the same sentence is a job for professionals.

    O wait, he’s serious about “cleaning piracy from the internet” and “providing legal downloads”?

    Heh…

  • BG

    Don’t worry, Zamunda.Net will not be closed down!

  • The Crimson Binome

    HO HO good one matey!

  • Feeding The Trolls Is Not Advised…

    @ trolls

    NB – A famous quote of John Gilmore about Internet censorship: “The Net interprets censorship as damage and routes around it.”

  • Bamboocha

    In Bulgaria children are kidnapped from the strees and they care about inet pirates. Big lol.

  • Antoni

    If they want the people in Bulgaria to buy original products they should consider the income of the bulgarian people.This has already been done in China.Its insane to think people can afford them if 3 computer games = a sallary !

  • nfjvdvnvo

    man i uses ta use zamunda.net n it was an amazing site with amazing download speeds, but now i cant access it from the US, whatev

  • MAFIAA

    RARBG is next! mwuahahahaha!!1

  • Anonymous
  • neostyles

    I got so mad at the pirates today that I punched a couch cushion really hard.

  • Rice Cakes

    @27 You are correct!
    Smoking causes cancer, so lets just leave the pirates out of this necessary propaganda and just go after the tobacco companies.

    Sue them to hell for selling narcotics to our children.

  • Rice Cakes

    Whoops! I meant to say “Un-necessary”
    Those damn corporate tobacco mongols are trying to hack my environmental friendly keyboard again.

  • neostyles

    I doubt anyone just watched a movie and then went “I never liked smoking before, but yeah, it definitely seems like great idea.”

  • gorehound

    They will never stop us !!!!
    LOL

  • Whatever

    So does anyone has some insight on Bulgaria and how the country works ?

    It seems to me that Bulgaria is much like Estonia, it may be dangerous to the IFPI there to mess with the wrong people.

  • Matthew

    @1 you troll

  • Jeff

    Geez, the fake trolls posting here are almost as annoying as the real ones. But I have to admit, they’re often much funnier.

  • Anonymous

    It says in the article that the torrent sites are providing the copyrighted stuff. What a fool I am I thought it was the uploaders.

    It shows how ignorant the general public is. We all know the only thing the servers contain are links which are quickly posted elsewhere.

    This whole noise over torrents is an exersize in futility. I have yet to hear anyone say I couldn’t find a torrent so I went out and bought it. What the gd movie industry doesn’t seem to get is that are making all the money that is possible right now. Shutting down the internet would likely reduce profits not increase them. If there was no internet 95% of the stuff I would never hear about so i could not possibly want and therefore would not buy even if I had the money.

    So just what the hell are these MPAA or IRAA f#cks thinking?

  • Anon

    @40 re @29 no sue Hollywood for promoting smoking , they are as guilty as tobacco companies in killing hundreds of millions of people , Hollywood studios need to be sued ! If Hollywood sues you for downloading countersue them for making you or family I’ll from smoking etc

  • Bud

    screw em.

    Adult Movies@

    http://www.cherrytorrents.com

  • jose

    @48 the solution is to legalize marijuana on all fronts see Emperor of Hemp (This would save the world)

  • Mike the TV

    It’s BUCKET O NOTHING!
    Surprise your friends! Amaze your family! Annoy perfect strangers!
    It’s absolutely nothing.
    FREE! For only 9999.99!!!

  • zenith

    @ bamboocha
    What u talkin bout booch? First I have heard about this. I have lived all over Europe and Bulgaria is the place I feel safest walking down the street.

    @ sUm 1
    Macedonia is not the same as Bulgaria, though there is a part called that. Macedonia is a sovereign state.

    Bulgarian politicians are known as the mostly corrupt and easily bribed in Europe (and cheapest). What this amounts to is that they will take the bribe, make a public stand and then build another house with it. Clean up piracy though? I don’t think they could be bothered…

    I don’t know if Bulgaria is leading in terms of piracy, but I can tell you that with an average wage of 250 Euros a month, the last anything anyone will be paying for is legal downloads.

  • Ivan

    oh, that’s it – if they’re realy serious about the “war on pirates” – not like the last few times that is – offices will be burnt

  • Zamunda user

    If they take them down even for a long time it’ll be just a matter of time for other trackers to appear…

    If they block worldwide torrent traffic – it’s just a matter of time another technology to be used for file sharing…

    Free access to information – that’s the idea of the Internet.

    Boo ya to da damn trollz!

  • Brandon

    Hey Seasoned Brain, There is NO Trolling or spamming on here! Read the disclaimer little bitch…

  • cb3rob

    Bulgaria is leading all of europe in CORRUPTION.

    Someone please check the bank accounts of the minister of internal affairs as well as this “Yavor Kolev” figure for suspicious donations.

    Bulgaria cannot even make sure our people do not get kidnapped by mafia when they are over there.. (the real one, with one a ;) appearantly corruption is quite common too.. what are they doing in the EU again?

  • Raesoned Mind

    You’d hate pirates too if you were raped by a salty sea dog :-(

  • Pingback: Mini Website/Sales Letters. | Wireless Router Reviews

  • BULGARIAN

    Hi, I will try to explain the situation in Bulgarian politics + I will tell you some additional info that is not mentioned in the article above.
    First of all, most of the parties in the parliament have a good number of ex-cops and/or ex-communist secret service agents among their members.
    The prime minister and the internal affairs minister are ex-cops themselves and the president is believed to be and ex-communist secret service agent (although this has not been proven).

    It is true that in the past 20 years our country has been famous for corruption and organized crime. That is why, as the present leaders are former cops, they are making a lot of police operations, arresting a lot of people and all that stuff is extensively covered in the media. However, they use these as pure PR. They do not collecting effective evidence, the Bulgarian courts to release the arrested, and this fact is exploited as a reason to blame the courts for being corrupted (as they also have a bad reputation) and to pass various changes in legislation in order to limit the power of the courts and extend the power of the police and fuck any idea of human rights. There is a great campaign for absolute police power and anyone who raises a voice against such laws is declared to be “advocating the rights of the criminals against the rights of society”. But as the police, politicians and mafia have been working together for all these 20 years, a lot of people realize now that this absolute police power means also absolute mafia power.
    I am explaining all this stuff to show you why the Bulgarian politicians have interests that coincide with these of large copyright lobbying groups.

    In my opinion, the specific story covered in this article began several days earlier when the cited Yavor Kolev received an award by book-copyright lobbyng groups, then, on 26.04 the Bulgarian minister of culture was given an award by the American ambassador and last, on the meeting on 27.04, the internal affairs minister was given an award by IFPI – all of these awards for “fighting piracy”. The American ambassador supports IFPI and BSA.
    It is not true that Bulgaria is the greatest pirate country in EU – it is not even in the infamous list 301 of pirate countries, while other EU counties are.
    A very important fact, not mentioned in the article, is that the memorandum signed is SECRET – there was a great announcement and extensive media reports about its signing, but not about the contents. So, Bulgarian filesharers know of the measures IFPI wants to impose against piracy only form the anouncements of Frances Moore – that ISPs should monitor and send two warnings to alleged “pirates” and the third time there should be “penalty” (not sure whether financial fines or disconnecting from the net – different sources cite both possibilities). Another very important fact, that was overlooked by Bulgarian media, is that they want the ISPs to do that voluntarily, without any law or court decision. And IFPI thretens to DEMAND a change is legislation to put this measures in a law in case the ISPs refuse.
    Members of the Bulgarian Pirate party have requested the exact text of the memorandum, based on a law for access to public information (because this is a document that should be public according to Bulgarian legislation), currently there is no answer from the government.
    The next day was announced that a special government agency would be created, to perform the warnings and penalties. And then came this interview with Yavor Kolev who made a very different announcement – that the police is not going after the “users” but after the tracker, that should be shut down.
    Also, a day after his interview, the owner of arenabg also appeared on TV, declaring that the site is not owned by a Russian.

    To sum up, it is not clear what the measures against piracy will be, but the media announcements have raised the anger thousands of Bulgarian internet users and the public opposition of several ISPs. Some forum posts even suspect that by financially penalizing filesharers, the government wants to collect money to fight the budget deficit. At the same time, it wants to rise tha value added tax, which is a very unpopular measure. On the other side, the governement cares about the rating, so no one knows what exactly they will do.

  • dannyboy

    BREIN’S brains are in theis ass every time they sit sown they make shit of them!! hahahahaha wheres the rum i’m thirsty for more downloads, these american wanna rule the world corp’s can kiss my ass!! and the funny thing is there no difference between their ass and the one on their shoulders!!

  • dannyboy

    BREIN’S brains are in theis ass every time they sit down they make shit of them!! hahahahaha wheres the rum i’m thirsty for more downloads, these american wanna rule the world corp’s can kiss my ass!! and the funny thing is there no difference between their ass and the one on their shoulders!!

    sorry for the double post… i spelt down wrong…

  • dannyboy

    we all live in america…coke cola its wunderbar!!!

  • Name

    lolz @23

  • Borderline Voter

    Yavor Kolev, the head of Bulgaria’s Computer Crimes Department has stated that they “We’ll clean the web from Internet pirates and set up platforms for legal file downloads,”

    Why is it the job of Bulgaria’s Computer Crimes Department to setup a legal file download service? Surley it would need to be the Movie/Music industry that would need to setup a legal file download service to entice people to pay and download.

    Perhaps the Bulgaria’s Computer Crimes Department needs to make money and see this as an opportunity.

  • bg

    Long Live Arena and Zamunda!!!

  • Senji

    The politicians in Bulgaria can best be summed up as all those people you read about in conspiracy theories in the western world, only really that corrupt and immoral. If not worse :/

  • Pingback: Inside The Bulgarian BitTorrent Crackdown | We R Pirates

  • Pingback: P2PTalk » Inside The Bulgarian BitTorrent Crackdown

  • Matt

    I fount this Facebook group that support Arena and Zamunda – http://www.facebook.com/Support.for.Arena.and.Zamunda

  • Pingback: Inside The Bulgarian BitTorrent Crackdown | InstantIdiocy

  • Pingback: Inside The Bulgarian BitTorrent Crackdown @ blog.idtorrent.org

  • Pingback: Bloodstudios.com » Blog Archive » Inside The Bulgarian BitTorrent Crackdown

  • Pingback: Inside The Bulgarian BitTorrent Crackdown « BloodStudios.com

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

NewsBits

Even more news...

  • The Pirate Bay Isn’t Down Completely, Just Having a Few Issues

    Twitter and Facebook, not to mention the TorrentFreak inbox, are currently alive with complaints that The...

  • Pirate Bay Founder Gottfrid Svartholm on Freedom of Speech

    Freedom of speech is a highly valued commodity, but should people be allowed to say whatever...

  • Blu-ray Anti-Piracy Tech Stops Discs and Promotes Purchases

    An anti-piracy system present in all official Blu-ray players since 2012 has received a fresh update...

  • Foxtel Breeds Pirates by Locking Up Game of Thrones

    One of the main reasons why people turn to piracy is the lack of legal alternatives....

  • UK Student Admits Breaching Sony Copyrights With Leak of PS3 SDK

    Last year an Internet user known as El Nomeo leaked version 3.70 of Sony’s Playstation3 SDK...

MostDiscussed

Below are TorrentFreak's most discussed articles of the past month. Join the discussion if you like.

CopyQuote

Left Quote

“The Pirate Bay has been one of the most important movements in Sweden for freedom of speech, working against corruption and censorship.

Peter Sunde Left Quote

PopularArticles

A selection of some TorrentFreak's classics dug up from our archives.