Demanding $45 million in damages, Microsoft accused the site and its operator of assisting in the illegal distribution of Office 2003 and 2007. The software giant failed to shut down the site through the courts, but the main trial against LinkoManija’s operator and his company is still ongoing.

Luckily, however, there are also copyright holders who see the BitTorrent tracker as a useful means to promote and distribute their works. Today, the independent movie production company Iron Cat announced that it has partnered with LinkoManija to distribute their upcoming film Barzda (The Beard), both in Lithuania and abroad.

The film will be distributed in collaboration with other torrent trackers to gain maximum exposure. Previously, Iron Cat experimented with sharing a movie on Linkomanija and this turned out to be a great success. The film “Knygnešys” (The Book Smuggler) was downloaded 25,000 times in the first day alone, generating a lot of press and positive comments from the public.

“We have been using Linkomanija for quite a while, so when an opportunity for mutually beneficial cooperation presented itself, we did not hesitate to take it. Of course, the popularity of Knygnešys was an important factor in this decision,” Bardza director Jonas Trukanas said, commenting on the news.

Linkomanija says that it will ensure that users notice the upcoming release.

“Our objective is to make the film accessible to the widest possible audience,” Linkomanija’s owner said in response to news of the unusual partnership.

If anything, the deal illustrates that BitTorrent trackers are more than the piracy havens they are often portrayed as. For many independent artists obscurity is still a bigger problem than piracy, but it’s a problem that BitTorrent can solve.

In the near future Linkomanija and Iron Cat hope to experiment further with new ways to finance and promote Lithuanian cinema.

Outside Lithuania, BitTorrent’s potential as a promotion, revenue generating and publishing platform for filmmakers has been illustrated best by the Vodo project. Through this BitTorrent powered project, several filmmakers have already reached an audience of hundreds of thousands of viewers, and today two major new releases (P1 episode 4 and Zenith part 2) were added to this list.

It may not be in the interests of the MPAA and the major movie studios, but it appears that BitTorrent does indeed democratize culture and media, whether they like it or not.

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

With approval from their United States headquarters, Microsoft went after the largest BitTorrent site in Lithuania, LinkoManija. Microsoft accused the site and its operator of assisting in the illegal distribution of Office 2003 and 2007 and filed a lawsuit in January.

Hoping to recoup some of the claimed losses, Microsoft demanded $45 million from LinkoManija’s alleged operator Kestas Ermanas and his company. Microsoft further asked the court to close the tracker and seize the assets of Kestas.

Both requests were granted and the assets of the site’s operator and his company were seized and associated bank accounts frozen. The site, however, remained online as Kestas and his company said that they were no longer operating LinkoManija. Kestas told TorrentFreak that he handed the operation over to a third party early 2009.

The decisions were immediately appealed by Kestas and his legal team, who have now informed us that the Appeal Court overturned both. According to the ruling the site should not be closed before there is a verdict in the full trial, and Kestas has also regained access to his personal bank accounts.

This is not the only setback for Microsoft in Lithuania. It previously lost its court case against a user of LinkoManija who they claimed had shared Windows 7 Ultimate illegally. The man was on trial in March and walked free due to a lack of evidence.

The main trial against LinkoManija’s operator and his company is expected to start in the near future although no official date has yet been set.

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

The self-proclaimed investigators evidence consisted of a screenshot of peers as listed by uTorrent. The evidence was gathered in conjunction with a local police officer, but none of the parties involved was authorized to conduct an investigation of this kind.

LANVA nevertheless took one of the 106 users to court, hoping to set a favorable precedent that would allow them to go after other alleged copyright infringers. The case went before the courts and the verdict handed down today was not the one the anti-piracy outfit had hoped for.

Citing faulty evidence, the District Court judge closed the case and fully acquitted the sole defendant Sergej Bernotas. The judge stated that LANVA had no right to collect and use the information they gathered. In addition, the judge ruled that such evidence gathering techniques have to be approved before they can be used.

For now, uTorrent and for that matter all other BitTorrent clients remain uncertified as proper evidence collection tools. To be used as such, the developers would also have to give their approval, something that obviously didn’t happen in this case.

At the court hearing it also became clear that the police officer involved had no IT experience and simply carried out what LANVA told him to. When the policeman was asked what tools he used to gather evidence he replied “a computer” resulting in laughs from the audience.

Aside from the action against several LinkoManija users, the alleged operator of the site is also facing legal action from LANVA and Microsoft. In January software giant Microsoft sued the alleged operator, demanding $43 million from the defendant and his company for assisting in the illegal distribution of Office 2003 and 2007.

The case against the operator is still ongoing, but today’s ruling makes it unlikely that LANVA will be successful in pursuing the site’s users. The anti-piracy outfit does have the option to appeal, but if they do the case won’t be heard before the coming winter.

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

This week, Microsoft joins the fight as the software company announces that it will pursue LinkoManija’s alleged operator Kestas Ermanas and his company in court.

The action against Lithuania’s largest BitTorrent site, which is in the top 10 of the most visited websites in the country, has been approved by the US headquarters of the software giant.

The defendant and his company are accused of facilitating copyright infringement of Microsoft’s Office 2003 and 2007 through their involvement with the BitTorrent tracker.

Together with local anti-piracy outfit LANVA, Microsoft has requested 107 million Lithuanian litas ($43 million) in damages at the Vilnius Regional Court. However, under Lithuanian law Microsoft can get up to $53,000 in damages at maximum.

In response to the demands from Microsoft, the assets of Kestas Ermanas and his company were seized and associated bank accounts frozen.

TorrentFreak briefly spoke with the defendant who is pretty shaken up by the news, but is claiming Microsoft sued the wrong people. We were told that as of 2010, he and his company no longer run LinkoManija. Kestas and his company operated the site until December last year.

Kestas further told us that Microsoft’s move surprised him, as the company has never sent a torrent takedown request to the popular BitTorrent tracker. “We informed them that we wanted to cooperate with them, they just had to give us the links to the infringing torrent files,” Kestas said, adding “they never wrote back to us.”

In addition to Kestas and his company, Microsoft is also pursuing legal action against LinkoManija’s users. In November last year, 106 users of the site were reported to the police and one of them will go on trial next month.

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

Like all respected anti-piracy organizations, LANVA holds accounts at all the popular private torrent trackers, including LinkoManija. For a long time their account remained inactive, but this week LANVA claimed a small victory as it reported the IP-addresses of 106 users of the site to the police.

According to the anti-piracy outfit, the reported users were caught sharing a copy of the newly released Windows 7 Ultimate operating system. As evidence the self-proclaimed investigators submitted a screenshot of peers listed by uTorrent.

The owner of LinkoManija was not impressed by LANVA’s actions. “Anyone can copy a peer list, but it doesn’t prove that anyone downloaded the full file or actually uploaded anything,” Kestas told TorrentFreak. “It can’t be used as serious evidence,” he added.

LANVA disagrees and hopes that the police will track down the identities of the accused infringers. If this happens the users will face fines of up to several hundred dollars, plus additional damages Microsoft’s lawyers may call for.

In a response the owner of LinkoManija has reported LANVA to the police. People who are affiliated with an anti-piracy group are not allowed to use LinkoManija according to the site’s disclaimer, and Kestas has asked the police find out whether LANVA broke the law.

“We contacted the police and asked them to investigate how LANVA obtained the information, because we did not give them permission,” Kestas told TorrentFreak. The police informed him that they would look into the case.

If any of the reported users faces legal action, Kestas says he will help them out with legal support. “We told our users that we will be fighting for them if they get in trouble, because it’s a fight for the freedom of us all,” he said. “Our users are our strength,” he added.

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