TorrentFreak

The place where breaking news, BitTorrent and copyright collide

Pirate Movie Indexing Site Operator Sentenced To Five Months Jail

The former operator of an unauthorized movie linking site has been fined and sentenced to jail by a court in Italy.

The Court of Arezzo found that the 43-year-old man had operated Vedogratis, a site that supplied links to movies on streaming portals.

The site was founded in 2008 and was said to have generated ad revenue from its 20,000 to 100,000 users per day.

Rather than providing its own content, it was claimed in court that the site pulled videos from Hong Kong-based servers operated by the now-defunct Megavideo.

The man was sentenced to five months in prison and ordered to pay a 5,000 euro fine.

He was also ordered to pay compensation of 15,000 euros to the Italian Society of Authors and Publishers (SIAE).

This post is from the News Bits section of TorrentFreak where we present stories from around the web in a concise summary format. Full TorrentFreak articles can be found here. If you have a tip please let us know. News Bits have their very own RSS feed
  • SonicB00m

    well, if he really got more ad revenue than he needed to operate his servers, then…

    • Guest

      Even if he earned from advertisements, hhe did not host the content.

      if I create a service telling people the addresses from where they can get something, I have not made available the content.

      • SonicB00m

        so by your logic:

        if I create a service telling people where to find kiddies to fuck, I have not made available the kiddies.

        see the flaw in dat matrix?

        • downunder

          also a logic flaw is one is a real crime that society has chosen to punish people harshly for and the other is only a perceived income lost (after all it may of increased sales diue to awareness of the material) thats not really a crime in many peoples eyes after all people still have to act on the info they are told and the info maybe even false or fake or not real. and that leads to the real joke.. that some that put up a link to a possible show gets as much jail time as someone that murders or destroys someones life in a real crime.. and also less space in the prisons to put the real harden crims cos stupid law decision class it in the same league,,and yes its the dsame as any search engine.. im sure you can find many links on sex thats not legal.. ans yes you can make some good money from advertising if you got many visitors and sale top ad spots for $1000 a week but no deals were given. a sensible court would had the guy home detention as well not jail time. and fines are only realistic if they can be paid back.. really link sites shouldnt be got… they doing a service letting the media industry know where to find the hosters.. how lame shutting down the link sites and engines.. its a tool works both ways :)

        • Great Logic

          Let’s see Movie Indexing Site that likes to Copyright protected links = site pointing to Kiddies Fiddlers Paradise is that what your saying ?

          Because if you are I say lay down the pipe because whatever your smoking is destroying your capacity to discern

          In Movie Indexing Site that likes to Copyright protected links we have a presumable profit lost and remark that I say presumable because there’s no proof to actually confirm the profit loss

          In site pointing to Kiddies Fiddlers Paradise we actually have a thing that will cause Physical and potential Psychological harm to Kiddies that’s been proven and confirmed

          Yes now I see your vision we should arrest all those that go against Italian Society of Authors and Publishers (SIAE) and their brothers and sisters letters organizations and fill the jails of the world with the so called “Pirates” (by them) instead of actual criminals that make Physical and potential Psychological harm, because profit trumps anything

    • Guestz0r

      It’s Megavideo, which had no affiliate program. Besides, don’t expect to earn much from traditional advertising. CPM, CPC, CPA, they all convert horrible so yeah, most likely it was enough to pay for server(s).

  • cuntholemcfuckstick

    linked to videos on other servers, you fucking assclowns. LIKE GOOGLE DOES!

  • Andrew Lee

    Luckily for him he was not here in the USA because if he were he’d most likely be locked up for the next 200 years.

  • Pingback: Pirate Movie Indexing Site Operator Sentenced To Five Months Jail | DDL Pros - Internet News

  • downunder

    They should of paid him for making MPAA job easier to find the content to take down.. not fined.him or jailed (they should of hired him and paid hiom more money then he would of got from the site ads!). its really lame to class these link sites are copyright infringement.. and really really lame to target them when they are a great source to aid them in fighting said Copyright.. LOL what are these people thinking .. comes across low IQs to me

  • Dude

    Google is still up. They are making money shut them down!!!!
    Oh wait you idiots only pick on the little guy.

  • stinky

    guy links some stuff.. goes to jail.. bankers steal billions and then they are given more money by tax payers.. makes perfect fuckin sense..

  • Jay

    One thing that these assholes at MPAA don’t realize: download a movie, a tv series, a software or music is the best ‘free of charge’ advertising they could ever have. Let me explain: I used to download tons of mp3 from torrent and cyberlockers because I love music and i love to discover new stuff…. in that process I begin to like some bands that I would probably never would have heard before….some years later when one of these bands would announce that they are releasing a new album I bought their complete set for $100 and again and again…and this is true i really did it. I also spend a lot of money buying concert tickets of these bands…the same principle applies to any media….my friend who used to download a lot of movies on torrent became a big fan of lord of the rings…he ordered the complate DVD set for a lot of money….I firmly believe that this principle not only applies to me but to many other people… it is thanks to pirates that may of the bands out there are filling their concerts and movie studios filling cinemas…..

  • Pingback: Pirate Movie Indexing Site Operator Sentenced To Five Months Jail - 420Files

  • http://nejtillpirater.wordpress.com/ Nejtillpirater

    Ridiculously low number of months in jail and the same with the fine.

  • BTGuard - BitTorrent Anonymously

NewsBits

Even more news...

  • 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...

  • Pirates Can Be Identified Despite Sharing IP Addresses, ISP Claims

    Carrier-Grade Network Address Translation is a network mechanism through which many Internet subscribers can share the...

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.