TorrentFreak Email Update

Dad Faces Massive Fine for Pirating Bambi, Lion King, and More

Posted: 07 May 2014 03:50 AM PDT

piracy-crime The Belgian Anti-Piracy Foundation (BAF) is demanding tens of thousands of euros from six men who shared copyrighted material on two local file-sharing sites.

The file-sharers all appeared in court this week. Among them is a 39-year old bus driver who pirated several Disney movies such as Bambi, Sleeping Beauty, 101 Dalmatians and The Lion King. The man reportedly shared the films to entertain his three kids, and wasn’t aware of any wrongdoing.

“I did not think I did anything wrong, because many of these children’s films are available in full on YouTube,” he said in a comment.

The man’s actions weren’t limited to Disney classics alone though. According to the anti-piracy watchdog he was one of the most prolific sharers on the “Belgium-scene” forum.

In total, the father is accused of sharing 253 films, 64 computer games and 22,000 music files, for which BAF demands 37,714 euros ($52,550) in damages. The amount is based on the number of files that were shared, with a music track costing 1 euro and a movie 15 euros.

Another member of the same file-sharing forum shared even more files than the dad and he risks damages totaling 60,000 euros ($83,600). “I did it because it was cheaper than buying a CD or DVD,” the man said in a comment.

In addition to the damages demanded by BAF, the prosecutor has also requested an additional 4,500 euro fine for each of the six members.

Belgium-scene was a private forum where users could share links to a wide variety of pirated content. The site was closed last year and nine homes of people connected to the site and another forum were raided at the time.

Several of the founders avoided prosecution by paying settlements of between 10,000 and 25,000 euros. The pirating dad, however, lacked the funds to pay a settlement. His case and those of the five others will be decided by the court later this year.

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

Game of Thrones Makes History With 200,000 Strong Torrent Swarm

Posted: 06 May 2014 11:05 AM PDT

thrones Game of Thrones has been the focus of many piracy discussions in recent years, and for good reason.

The HBO hit series has a following of millions of “pirates” who prefer to watch the show through unauthorized channels instead of paid subscriptions.

Some TV-industry insiders closely connected to the show see it as a compliment, or believe the show may even benefit from these rogue followers. On the other hand, however, HBO is cracking down on fans and sites who spread the show without permission.

The pirates themselves are also divided in the reasons why they pirate. Some have no other option, as Game of Thrones is not available where they live, while others simply find the legal options too expensive.

In the midst of all these different view points there is one stable factor. The demand among pirates is growing year after year. During the first season in 2011 the most popular episode was shared 3.4 million times during the entire year, a number that’s now reached in just a few days.

Game of Thrones is particularly popular on torrent sites and this week BitTorrent pirates broke the magical record of 200,000 simultaneous sharers.

A few hours after the first torrent of the show appeared on torrent sites, the Demonii tracker reported that 207,054 people were sharing one single torrent at the same time. 163,496 were sharing a complete copy of that particular torrent while 43,558 were still downloading.

These are mind-boggling numbers that we've never seen before. The latest record was set just a few weeks ago, also for a Game of Thrones episode.

Record-breaking 200,000+ simultaneous sharers

This Game of Thrones torrent isn’t the only one that is widely shared. There are several copies of the show available in varying qualities which also have thousands of people downloading.

Counting all the different releases it's estimated that the latest Game of Thrones episode was downloaded more than 1.5 million times during the first day. This makes the show the likely candidate to be crowned the most-downloaded TV-show at the end of the year.

As previously revealed, Game of Thrones downloaders come from all over the world. Data gathered by TorrentFreak previously revealed that most downloaders came from Australia, the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada and the Netherlands.

It will be interesting to see if the current record will be broken again later this year. For now, however, there are no signs that the pirates’ interest is waning. This means that, unless a miracle happens, Game of Thrones will be crowned the most torrented show for the third consecutive year.

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