Greek authorities have taken down the large torrent tracker Gamato.info, accusing the site of facilitating copyright infringement of music, games, movies, and books.
Six admins of the site were also arrested in raids of their homes in Athens, Salonika, Larissa and Aridaia.
The police officials were working on tips from IFPI Greece, the local branch of the industry group.
Gamato.info was a top 20 most visited site in Greece, with an estimated 155,000 daily visitors. The site had around 13,000 movies, 6500 games and over 35,000 music albums available.
Says Jeremy Banks, director of anti-piracy at IFPI: “Gamato.info was facilitating the illegal distribution of music, film, games and books. It is the perfect illustration of how such illegal operations are damaging a wide range of creative industries in Europe. The Hellenic Police swiftly recognized this was not a victimless crime and took action against those who sought to shamelessly profit off the back of others’ creative work. This skilfully executed action by a highly knowledgeable police force should act as a real deterrent to others in Greece considering engaging in online piracy.”
Result for: creative industries
British Government culture secretary Andy Burnham has recommended that copyright terms for sound recordings should be extended to 70 years, from the current 50 years.
The announcement has brought joy to record labels and UK musicians who had been campaigning for years to have the copyright terms extended. Until recently however, the campaign had fallen on deaf ears.
Burnham added that the new decision should bring “maximum benefit to performers and musicians.”
Horace Trubridge, of the Musicians’ Union, was ecstatic over the decision. “The MU has always argued that term of protection should not run out during a performer’s lifetime, and we would support any proposal that supported this principle and was of direct benefit to performers.”
Feargal Sharkey, CEO of trade organization U.K. Music added: “At this critical time of change, the creative industries have never been more vital to this nation’s future prosperity. The announcement regarding term extension is a clear sign that government, like everyone in our industry, is committed to ensuring that U.K. music retains its status as the very best in the world.”
Result for: creative industries
One of the largest BitTorrent sites on the Internet, TorrentValley.com, has been shut down in a raid by Bulgarian authorities. The so-called Cyber Crime Unit got tipped off by the Bulgarian Association of Musical Producers (BAMP).
“Torrentvalley was a major international source of copyright infringing material. This site was a gate towards more than 5 000 torrent-trackers from all over the world. The decisive action by the authorities shows that Bulgaria is no haven for copyright abuse in Internet and makes efforts to protect the rights of those involved in the creative industries,” said the BAMP representative Ina Kileva.
The press release by IFPI estimates that TorrentValley aided the distribution of more than one million copyright infringing files.
This is not the first time Bulgarian authorities have acted against BitTorrent sites. In 2006 police arrested the admin of Arenabg.com, who was soon released due to lack of evidence.
