Russian Police Make Arrests In First Ever BitTorrent Raid
Written by enigmax on June 01, 2009Russian police have carried out what is believed to be the first raid against a BitTorrent tracker. Prompted by the MPA, police arrived at the site’s Moscow office and arrested the owners and several staff. As is so often the case, the arrests failed to close the site, which is currently still operating from The Netherlands.
Up until now, Russia has been considered somewhat of a safe haven for BitTorrent sites. While the copyright climate there can be uncertain, on occasion things can happen to prompt the authorities to spring into life. In this case it is believed that the MPAA (through the MPA) were pressing for action behind the scenes.
So Tuesday last week, May 26th, the Russian Federation Ministry of Internal Affairs Investigation Committee under the Ministry of Internal Affairs conducted a raid against the founders the Interfilm BitTorrent tracker.
During the raid on the site’s Moscow headquarters, the police arrested the founders of Interfilm, a married couple known online as ‘Ripper’ and ‘Nadezhda’ and several site staff. The authorities claim that the Interfilm tracker is a major source of cammed movies and also has an arrangement with piracy groups outside the country to exchange the latest releases.
Russian anti-piracy group RAPO (a founder member of the MPA) claims that the site carried advertising and although users had free access to the site, higher download speeds could be achieved by making a payment to the site’s owners.
Although Interfilm reportedly went down after the raid, it is now apparently fully operational, hosted by LeaseWeb in The Netherlands.
Russian media is speculating that the owners of Interfilm are facing up to six years in jail and a fine of 500,000 rubles (approx $16,200) if convicted under Part 3 of Article 146 of the Criminal Code.
According to lawyer Victor Naumov, a legal loophole which saved the owners of AllofMP3 is unlikely to help the operators of Interfilm. “In the past there were different interpretations of legislation in the field of copyright, but now if a distributor of films or music is not in a licensing agreement with the rights holders, the violation is right there,” he said.
Following the arrests, the Producers Guild of Russia says it intends to push for changes in the law which would force ISPs to prevent illegal file-sharing.
Previously: Nielsen Hugely Underestimates BitTorrent Traffic
Next: Movie Industry Wants “Speed Bumps” for Pirates
73 Responses
ouch, another safe zone gone
RAPO is an appropriate name.
wow that’s horrible!
In soviet union… RAPO rapes you!
“In this case it is believed that the MPAA (through the MPA) were pressing for action behind the scenes.”
*sigh* of course…
what about china… does it host torrent sites?
“Following the arrests, the Producers Guild of Russia says it intends to push for changes in the law which would force ISPs to prevent illegal file-sharing.”
Where have I heard THAT before… *rolleyes*
higher download speeds could be achieved—
Bittorrent doesn’t work that way.
Hahahaha oh wow. RAPO/MPAA… learn to lie next time.
Too bad :(
What safe countries are actually left? China? Ukraine? maybe North Korea? (that TPB’s 1st-april joke maybe isn’t a total bullshit)
@4 – I was waiting for that!
Russia, you say? Bah, pay some money to the judge, the mayor of the city, the local priest, and the local mafia boss and you’ll be absolved and kissed in the forehead.
long live Putin! ROFL!
Come and join the short and easy game mybrute:
http://burpnassker.mybrute.com
The game takes less than 5 minutes to play!
push for isp’s to prevent illegal file sharing? how would they do that not like they isp knows what you are xfering and if its illegal or not?? throw on encryption and they don’t really have a clue what it is
I suppose they needed a LOT of bribe money to make the russian police do that.
Isn’t interfilm the source for many of the R5’s for teh Scene?
I’m sorry to say that but Russia is corrupt to the core and therefore it’s a perfect ground for all MAFIAA-like entities. Bribe here, bribe there and there you have it. Expect more bad news from Russia.
well these bribes seems not to work on the biggest and the “baddest” private tracker in the world :)
maybe they offer more then MAFIAA :)
i’m with #16: organized crime runs the show. any perspective should include this fact.
@15: lolno.
Wow they don’t even do that in the states and they are heavy on P2P
“Following the arrests, the Producers Guild of Russia says it intends to push for changes in the law which would force ISPs to prevent illegal file-sharing.”
Maybe they meant the ISP-operated FTP and other hosting services that allow users to download pirated material at LAN speeds. Currently, every other Russian ISP offers those.
First Luxembourg, now Russia … jeeez we’re really running out of safe havens = /
Btw lulz @ moving to LW, safe BT host since mid 2007 ;)
Interfilm hahah nice move, fuckers !
fools
Nice! Great work by the
Russia joins the cancer.
They should host them in cyprus
The only safe heavens are countries which hate US like Cuba, Venezuela, China, Japan, North Korea, Ukraine etc..
@31
wrong.
cuba/venezuela/china = rubbish bandwidth to the rest of the world
japan – when did USA hate japan?
N.K – wouldn’t happen.
ukraine – don’t even try it, expecially if you are a citizen, they will just extradite you to the USA (they have a standing agreement apparently.)
wow @ “but now if a distributor of films or music is not in a licensing agreement with the rights holders, the violation is right there,” he said”……….. so if they sold a second hand dvd or gave it as a christmas gift they would be charged for distributing ? talk about dictatorship
Better Off Dead Than Red
Buy your way into some shitty african country, promise them 50% of the sites revenue if they let it run from there. Success!
this type of thing will continue to happen until such time as all torrent sites and trackers are shut down. once that happens, the music and movie industry people will then step in and offer EXACTLY what is being offered now. the only differences being that
1) they will now be in control
2) all downloads will be available at a price
3) the cost will be exactly the same as buying on physical media from the shop, but actually costing more when the price of a person’s internet connection is added on as well.
4) the internet will be under their complete control ie no more net neutality
5) personal privacy will disappear straight out of the window along with all individuals legal rights.
They should quit screwing around and do something about the Russian Business Network(RBN).
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_Business_Network
Nigel
Using enoughrt money you can always corrupt someone to do anything you want even in Russia. The MPAA knows that.
We must increase the boycott of the movie industry. Once their business is on the ground they will not be able to afford any corruption bills.
Because of the way our Russian law enforcement and media presented this event, many have misunderstood what really happend.
People arrested are just some of the staff,not the owners, and they are most likely arrested and will be charged for camming and uploading movies, not for operating interfilm.
Interfilm is up and fully operational after about three days of downtime. It is, and was, hosted at leaseweb for a long time already. Not in Russia. Also, Interfilm staff insists that the downtime had nothing to do with the arrest. Well, its hard to beleive that, but in the end – who cares?
And the most funny thing is, that just like with TPB, because of the massive media attention(and especially because of the claims that site was closed, while it was not) here in Russia, interfilm is getting a lot of traffic & new users. They even disabled invite-only registration process for some time.
Downside about there site is that it allows all visitors to see which movies are uploaded and detailed info as well. If they make it more “private” then there would be much less issues.
this article is by far a promo of interfilm no more
@ 11 : Oh, like in the USA then ?
@ 12 : someone should invent a machine that can stab people through the internet, so the people who spam with mybrute links could die. painfully, if possible.
@ writer : “Guild” : sounds to me like they are learning spells and stuff, besides the film making.
yeah it’s called a shakedown…must have pissed off the Russian Mob…
Guess the admins didn’t have a few hundred in their pockets for the police.
FIR5T !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! !!! XD
Who says torrent or file share is illegal ?
If i download Fast & Furious from piratebay link then it will cost me slight less than actual DVD.
I spent $100 for broadband,$100 on electricity and many hundreds for computer.
If MAFFIA wants money then they should charge it from ISP’s ,computer manufacturers etc.
I’m not doing anything illegal because I’ve paid for the content which I’ve recieved.
the Russians are coming the Russians are coming
They aren’t going to run out of countries to host. Sooner or later Torrent sites are just going to pull the same trick the scene has been pulling for decades.
They are going to start ping-bouncing and ip-masking and get good at it.
“If i download Fast & Furious from piratebay link then it will cost me slight less than actual DVD.
I spent $100 for broadband,$100 on electricity and many hundreds for computer.
If MAFFIA wants money then they should charge it from ISP’s ,computer manufacturers etc.
I’m not doing anything illegal because I’ve paid for the content which I’ve recieved.”
—————————
you’re an idiot.
i suppose you’d expect free food if you bought a refrigerator?
or free gas if you bought a car?
get real.
GNUNet, Omemo, Retroshare.
I like those because they have no JAVA(Bullet Time language) in it.
Why people don’t use LUA on mobiles?
yaar… bring on the Dark Net
Interfilm was promoted by its russian translation of new movies. There is unhealthy race for releasing translation in Russia.
An IF was releasing it realy fast.
BUT their translations were absolute abomination. They were slaying movies.
And only for that they should be destroyed.
Of course, condolences to tracker users.
If I could I would but is not realistic to expect a finite resource to be available for free as for music and films that are in infinity supply hell yeah.
By the way I saw a power generation station for houses in japan that produces hydrogen so in a way free gas will be in the future maybe LoL
Until the next post.
After the last post.
Torrent is near it’s end, we need something more secure to take over.
“If I could I would but is not realistic to expect a finite resource to be available for free as for music and films that are in infinity supply hell yeah.”
—————————
there is not an infinite supply of movies. you will find that out the hard way if piracy continues to gain in popularity while paying what you owe continues to decrease.
and the creation of said movies requires no less sweat or toil than it does to grow food or mine oil. work is work. the only real difference is how exploitable the end result is to anonymous basement warriors and that’s a pretty small distinction to hang your moral hat on.
dirty, stupid and corrupt as hell.
Wow, that’s pretty scary. Anyone know of a a decent safe haven? NL is screwed, UA is shitty (from what I heard (though that’s where Demonoid is hosted)), what about EG?
@56 Canada is screwed.. Ukraine seems ok egnough.. Demonoid is working again is it not? Canada wasn’t the best choice lol..
Worse of all it amazes me Russian authorities waste their time going after a torrent site vs all the massive cyber criminal networks out of russia.. The MPAA must of paid them alot of cash because the criminal networks certainly would have to stop the raid lol..
@54:
Can you prove that is not an infinite supply because I doubt very much that TVs will stop making films, of true artists will stop making anything for something so small as money did you heard the guy that wowed Cannes with his zombie movie of $70?
@ Nigel
RBN is running a number of file sharing sites too so their time will come.
@ 46 Jun 01, 2009 at 22:33 by Anonymous
But he did buy the gas equivalent (electricity). What you are saying that if he gives a friend a ride to work then he’s stealing from the TAXI companies. Or maybe he shouldn’t expect free scenery on the way to work? No, you’re the idiot. The problem you seem to have is that the freely distributed content is better than the crap the industry tries to peddle. So I guess your solution is to close a viable distribution method so that people will be forced to only get content from major media corporations?
FTD legal? Probably not
http://futureofcopyright.com/index.php?page=news&id=391
“But he did buy the gas equivalent (electricity).”
so what? should he then be allowed to do whatever he wants with his metaphorical car? run over pedestrians? use it for drive-bys on rival gangs? a getaway car for bank robbers? what exactly is your point? do you even have one?
“What you are saying that if he gives a friend a ride to work then he’s stealing from the TAXI companies.”
————-
i’m not saying that at all. i don’t think anyone said that.
“Or maybe he shouldn’t expect free scenery on the way to work?”
——————–
what a ridiculous analogy. the scenery did not take thousands of people and millions of dollars to make but the movie he pirated did.
“No, you’re the idiot.”
—————–
LOL, coming from you, that’s a compliment.
“The problem you seem to have is that the freely distributed content is better than the crap the industry tries to peddle.”
——————-
uh, the movie he pirated was “fast and the furious” which qualifies as “industry crap” not “freely distributed content”. have you been paying attention at all? are you high on something?
“So I guess your solution is to close a viable distribution method so that people will be forced to only get content from major media corporations?”
——————
no. i have no problem with p2p distributing legal things released under creative commons, linux distros, blizzard patches etc. it’s the piracy that needs to be stopped.
YAY!! DOWN WITH THE FREETARDS!!!
cool story bro :)
well, go to
torrents.ru
Best Russian Torrent Tracker – download anything. But first you will need to use Google Http Translator:
http://translate.google.com/translate?prev=hp&hl=en&js=n&u=torrents.ru&sl=ru&tl=en&history_state0=
go by the link, register, and download any good software (don’t forget to check for language of software)
Free software:
sourceforge.com
About free software blogs:
http://www.ghacks.net
http://www.freewaregenius.com
http://www.freewaregenius.com
Corruption is not the only popular thing in Russia. They also like to shoot everyone who stands on the way of their business. And Piracy in Russia IS a very serious bisuness.
This InterFilm takedown is just a payed show and not to become a trend. But if somewhow it will, nothing good will happen. Money are effective but not as much as bullets are.
have the tracker for half of the file in one country, and the other half in another. Which tracker do you go after?
??? ?? ????!
“higher download speeds could be achieved by making a payment to the site’s owners”
Its LIE
[quote]wow that’s horrible![/quote]
I know! Someone who was prompting theft got caught! It’s frightening to think that people are actually responsible for their actions now.
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