The sole purpose of the covert-operation was of course to gather information from SMÁÍS on the ongoing investigation on TVB (Icelanders only) and Torrent.is, two Icelandic BitTorrent trackers. “Me and an administrator at TVB were pondering one morning about what Smáis actually got on us, and I had this idea to contact Snæbjörn and set up a meeting,” Unnar explained.

To gain the confidence of Snæbjörn and the other investigators, 15 in total, Unnar led them to believe that the TVB staff was threatening him. “I was called in for another meeting and I told him that I had been assaulted because somebody knew I was going to witness against TVB, I made my friend give me some bruises.” Undy told TorrentFreak.

The investigators fell for it, and believed that they finally had an insider on their side, so they started to share confidential information. The cover story had worked, and this Friday Unnar was called in for a meeting where they showed 1000 pages of evidence against TVB. In addition they told Unnar that they were plotting a criminal case against the tracker, not a civil case as the one against Istorrent.

“I was shown screenshots of admin profiles on TVB, which showed information only available to administrators. I asked how they got this information and if somebody else was snitching, but they replied ‘you can do everything on the internet’,” Unnar said. The most likely scenario is that SMÁÍS used an exploit or some other hack, to gain access to the tracker.

At that point they still thought Unnar was going to testify against the people behind TVB, so they showed him all the info they had gathered on the tracker, and which users they would go after, if it would come to that. “They gave me the usernames of two persons who where responsible for 90% of the Icelandic material on TVB,” Unnar said. “After the meeting I gave this information to those users, so they could take evasive action.”

“The most interesting part about this is that I said at the beginning of the meeting: “No offense, I can help you convict some administrators, but the website isn’t going down just for that,” to which Snæbjörn replied “It doesn’t matter if we win or lose, we will still bankrupt you.” This shows that they are simply using their money to force the trackers to go offline.

All in all Unnar thinks that he has gathered enough information to have a significant advantage in court. This Friday he publicly shared his covert-ops experiences with other users at TVB, but up until now, he hasn’t heard anything from SMÁÍS.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

This did indeed happen, and today, the Supreme Court announced a ruling (Icelandic) in favor of torrent.is, awarding it an additional 400,000 ISK ($5025 US or 3250 Euros) on top of the 500,000 ISK awarded in March.

The case was dismissed because of legal formalities. It would appear that some of the plaintiffs in the case were found to have no legal grounds to pursue an injunction. When the prosecution team tried to switch plaintiffs in order to save the case, the Supreme Court flat out dismissed it.

Speaking to TorrentFreak, Torrent.is owner, Svavar Kjarrval, said he was “very happy with the decision,” adding he hopes to have the site open on the 16th. “However, the executive of one of the plaintiffs [SMÁÍS] claims he will use any means available to stop the site from reopening. I don’t know if that will succeed or not.”

A spokesman of SMAIS was quoted by mlb.is as saying “This verdict is sad, and it is incredible to deny copyright holders seeking their rights. This is an unnecessary adherence on legal formalities in this case, rather than taking on the subject as it should. There still has not been a formal verdict in this case and it seems to be hard to get a judge to review the facts of the case itself, that is, the copyright laws themselves.”

However, before people rush to host torrent sites there, Svavar has a warning. “This ruling doesn’t state that torrent sites are legal so there is still no certainty as to their legality” Hosting a BitTorrent site still is in the “grey zone” for now, but that doesn’t stop Torrent.is from reopening.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.

However, justice works swifter in Iceland than it does in the US, and after only 4 months, the case has been to court.

The decision, however, was as surprising as it was swift. Instead of deciding for or against the defendants, the court simply dismissed the case. It is likely, however, that the plaintiffs will appeal the decision to the Icelandic ‘Supreme Court’ (Hæstiréttur).

The verdict, (available in Icelandic here) seems to hinge on the fact that under Icelandic laws, searching for files, or providing accessibility to them, is legal, as long as the files provided by the service are not themselves copyrighted. Torrent files, are not themselves copyrighted, but are instead metadata , data about data- describing copyrighted material, as indeed are reviews.

Svavar Lúthersson, owner of torrents.is, told TorrentFreak in a response to the court ruling “I’m very glad they came to this decision although it came as a surprise for myself and the plaintiffs. I will have to consult with my lawyer as to what this decision means regarding the preliminary injunction but currently it’s still in effect.”

The preliminary injunction seems likely to stay in effect until an appeal is heard, so the site won’t be back up yet. However, the plaintiffs were ordered to pay the court costs of Istorrent ehf (Pltd), the company behind Torrent.is, and its owner Svavar Lúthersson in the amount of 500,000 Icelandic Krona (approx £3320UK / $6700US / €4250 Euro)

SMÁÍS was asked for their comment on the ruling, but their contact email address was automatically bouncing as failed.

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.