Three Arrested In Connection With ‘Darkside’ File-Sharing Servers
This week Swedish police arrested three individuals on suspicion of copyright infringements. The trio are suspected of having connections to ‘Scene’ warez servers known as ‘Darkside’. According to anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, the servers carried huge amounts of data making the case the biggest so far in Sweden, and possibly in Europe.
During the last decade many countries have been revealed as the locations for so-called ‘Scene’ warez servers, but none so often as the Scandinavian countries, particularly Sweden and Norway. This week it is Sweden’s turn yet again to become the locations for police action against these usually secretive operations.
Following an investigation conducted by anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån, on Wednesday and Thursday police swooped on four individuals. Searches were carried out in Stockholm and at two locations in Västerås where servers were found.
Although one individual was later released, the suspects – all men in their forties – are suspected of having connections to the Scene servers known as “Darkside”.
According to Henrik Pontén of Antipiratbyrån, the three were responsible for servers which are claimed to house 130tb of both Swedish and foreign movies.
“Dark Side has a huge capacity,” Pontén told DN. “This is the biggest case we know of to date, certainly the biggest in Sweden, but possibly also in Europe.”
Antipiratbyrån, who had been monitoring Darkside and gathering IP addresses and other information for some time, handed the investigation over to police in February.
“[Wednesday's] police operation was yet another important step to stop organized piracy. This type of action has a direct and dramatic effect on the number of infringements,” said Pontén in a statement. “By extension, it means that the cultural workers get an opportunity to get paid for their work and we consumers have access to a continuing culture production.”
According to prosecutor Frederick Ingblad, who was recently involved in the numerous raids against Direct Connect users and is part of a new piracy task-force, there have already been some confessions from those arrested.
