In a visit to his home at 7:00am he was greeted by bailiffs and representatives of anti-piracy group Antipiratgruppen who wanted to know all about his connections with a well-known private BitTorrent tracker.

Laeborg was the admin of EliteBits and this week the 19-year-old’s work there cost him a considerable amount of cash. Despite him being “a poor student” the Court of Kolding ruled that Laeborg has to pay compensation to rights holders totalling $18,500.

“We are obviously happy because the judgment emphasizes the gravity of what is happening on such a service,” said Maria Fredenslund, lawyer for Antipiratgruppen.

“When you establish and operate a service in order to share movies and music that you do not have the rights to, then you are obviously responsible for what is happening,” she added.

The compensation amount payable by Laeborg could’ve been a lot worse – rightholders wanted nearly $300,000 – but due to Laeborg’s financial circumstances the amount was reduced. Interestingly, though, the court also had difficulty assessing exact rightsholder losses, but not for the usual reasons.

The judge said that since he could not assess the quality of the movies being offered via the site – including whether or not they possessed Danish subtitles – it was difficult to know whether to award full compensation for each piece. The implication here is that the lower the quality of the product shared, the less compensation rightsholders should get.

Fredenslund says that the reverse should be true, that rightsholders should get more money when people share poor quality product.

“We are obviously not happy to hear that,” said Fredenslund. “Rightholders lose goodwill when distributed films are in poor quality.”

Despite the positive outcome in the case for Antipiratgruppen, the anti-piracy group and bailiffs made significant errors in their investigation.

Laeborg’s lawyer, Per Overbeck, said that when bailiffs and lawyers arrived at his client’s home in January 2010 they correctly asked him if he wanted a lawyer. However, without waiting for one to arrive, they wrongfully began their questioning of the then 18-year-old.

“So they began to interrogate him, and they should not have done,” Overbeck told Comon.

Making the situation worse, bailiffs then stood by while Antipiratgruppen, a private company, went through and seized Laeborg’s personal possessions.

“The bailiff made a mistake when they let Antipiratgruppen lawyers collect evidence instead of the bailiff’s IT experts. It’s computers, floppy disks, DVDs and the like. They should not have done so. It’s illegal,” Overbeck explained.

Furthermore, Antipiratgruppen are still illegally in possession of Laeborg’s property.

“For more than a year they have had his stuff. It is not legal,” said Overbeck.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

In early January ‘Laeborg’, the Denmark-based administrator of the EliteBits BitTorrent tracker, was confronted at 7:00am on his doorstep by a man from the enforcement court accompanied by three men from Johan Schlüter Advokatfirma, a law firm that works with Danish anti-piracy group, Antipiratgruppen.

They showed Laeborg, real name Jonas Laeborg, screenshots from EliteBits while revealing information on the bank account used to collect site donations. In their possession was a warrant which they said gave them authority to gather evidence to show that Laeborg was involved in the illegal distribution of copyright works.

After accessing Laeborg’s computer and his admin account on EliteBits, screenshots were taken of all the staff profiles, the site’s Top 10 downloaders, Top 50 uploaders and uploaded torrents lists.

That case has now progressed to the point where 18 year-old Laeborg has been hit with a cash claim totaling some 1.6 million kroner ($261,150) from Antipiratgruppen. But he won’t face this battle alone.

Laeborg apparently has insurance which will cover his legal costs while fighting this demand but his policy has an excess on any claim. Pro-sharing group Piratgruppen has announced it will donate an amount to cover this excess charge to help ensure the case gets heard.

“We believe it is extremely important that these cases come to trial, and that you can not just give in to these unreasonable claims, therefore we have paid a sum to cover costs associated with litigation,” Piratgruppen spokesman Troels Møller told Comon.

The case will be handled by regular Piratgruppen lawyer Per Overbeck but no dates have yet been set for a hearing.

The attack on EliteBits represents a new strategy against file-sharing in Denmark. Previously local anti-piracy outfit Antipiratgruppen had maintained a policy of going after individuals but its inability to gather solid evidence resulted in the loss of several prominent High Court cases. This prompted an announcement that it would stop its pursuit of petty file-sharers and instead go after larger targets.

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.

Known by his nickname ‘Laeborg’, the Denmark-based admin had a knock on his front door at 7:00am on Friday. There he was confronted by a man from the enforcement court, accompanied by three men from Johan Schlüter Advokatfirma, a law firm that works with Danish anti-piracy group, Antipiratgruppen.

After producing screenshots from EliteBits, information on the bank account used to collect site donations and a warrant, they explained that they had come to secure evidence to show Laeborg was involved in the illegal distribution of copyright works.

The man from the enforcement court contacted lawyer Benny Thomson to represent Laeborg, who was told not to use his phone on concerns he could use it to destroy evidence.

“The collection of evidence started when they asked me to turn on my computer which I did,” Laeborg explains. “They asked me to go to elitebits.org where they took screenshots of my profile and screenshots of the statusbar that says: “Welcome, Laeborg (Owner).”

They went on to take screenshots of all the staff profiles, the Top 10 downloaders, Top 50 uploaders and various other lists, including uploaded torrents.

A list of donors who contributed via bank transfer was discovered and screenshots of all their profiles were taken. Laeborg was informed that he had been traced via the bank account used to accept these donations from site members.

After taking screenshots of hashes and NFOs linked to a pair of torrent files, Laeborg was asked for the user database. He explained that he couldn’t provide it and they would need to speak to host Netdirekt.

Various “non-legal” CDs and DVDs were seized from Laeborg’s office for destruction, with an assurance that the contents wouldn’t be examined. The evidence was copied to a USB drive and the group left.

“My lawyer stayed and we talked the whole thing through,” Laeborg recalls. “I told him the basic concepts about the site. He says that they won’t have enough evidence to make me pay for the all the stuff shared, but it is possible that they will take down EliteBits.org.”

Source: TorrentFreak, for the latest info on copyright, file-sharing and anonymous VPN services.