Police raid shutters Swedish file sharing site
Swepiracy, one of Sweden's largest file sharing sites, has been closed down following a coordinated raid by authorities in Sweden and the Netherlands.
Last week, police in Norrköping in eastern Sweden raided the home of a 20-year-old man suspected of running Swepiracy, a BitTorrent tracker site founded in 2006.
At the same time, police in the Netherlands confiscated Swepiracy servers located there.
"Swepiracy has tried to shield its operations by placing servers in the Netherlands but Swedish and Dutch police have, through coordinated raids, been able to secure evidence of [copyright] infringement," Sweden's Anti-Piracy Bureau ( Antipiratbyrån) said in a statement.
According to the group, Swepiracy was one of the most important outlets for the distribution of pirated copies of Swedish movies and had been warned to cease activities which violated copyright laws.
Instead, the man behind Swepiracy attempted to protect the operations by shifting servers to the Netherlands, prompting the police raid.
Prosecutor Henrik Rasmusson told the local Folkbladet newspaper that the 20-year-old is believed to have operated Swepiracy, which reportedly has nearly 30,000 members, for at least two years.
Rasmusson added that the man is believed to have earned "large sums" of money through fees charged to Swepiracy members to give them access to pirated films.
"Maybe as much as one million [kronor] ($150,000)," he said.
The 20-year-old was arrested and his computers confiscated, but he was later released after being questioned but remains under criminal suspicion of having violated copyright laws.
"He admits that he ran the operations, but he doesn't believe doing so was a criminal act," Rasmusson told the paper.
The Anti-Piracy Bureau also warned that it planned to take action against similar "illegal" services offered on sites like Theinternationals, SceneAccess and Sparvar.
At the same time, police in the Netherlands confiscated Swepiracy servers located there.
"Swepiracy has tried to shield its operations by placing servers in the Netherlands but Swedish and Dutch police have, through coordinated raids, been able to secure evidence of [copyright] infringement," Sweden's Anti-Piracy Bureau ( Antipiratbyrån) said in a statement.
According to the group, Swepiracy was one of the most important outlets for the distribution of pirated copies of Swedish movies and had been warned to cease activities which violated copyright laws.
Instead, the man behind Swepiracy attempted to protect the operations by shifting servers to the Netherlands, prompting the police raid.
Prosecutor Henrik Rasmusson told the local Folkbladet newspaper that the 20-year-old is believed to have operated Swepiracy, which reportedly has nearly 30,000 members, for at least two years.
Rasmusson added that the man is believed to have earned "large sums" of money through fees charged to Swepiracy members to give them access to pirated films.
"Maybe as much as one million [kronor] ($150,000)," he said.
The 20-year-old was arrested and his computers confiscated, but he was later released after being questioned but remains under criminal suspicion of having violated copyright laws.
"He admits that he ran the operations, but he doesn't believe doing so was a criminal act," Rasmusson told the paper.
The Anti-Piracy Bureau also warned that it planned to take action against similar "illegal" services offered on sites like Theinternationals, SceneAccess and Sparvar.
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