Slashdot Mirror
FBI Helps Shut Down Piracy Sites In Romania
An anonymous reader writes: The FBI has taken a major role in the shutting down of at least two popular piracy-torrent sites in Romania, according to a report from Romania's High Court of Cassation and Justice. The popular torrenting domains serialepenet.ro and fisierulmeu.ro are now offline after a series of raids on individuals and companies, including a hosting company in Bucharest thought to have some involvement with the pirate operation.
This doesn't strike me as a massive crackdown, but it may pave the way for future actions. "serialepenet.ro" looked like a very dodgy attempt to set up an incredibly illegal pay-per-view online system for pirated material. I feel like it's the sort of thing that would be taken down instantly if it had been set up anywhere else than the backwoods of Eastern Europe. Plus, "fisierulmeu.ro" was likely just a free file hosting site that became popular for sharing pirated media (much like the defunct megaupload).
The cynical view would be that this just an attempt to kill off competitors in preparation for launching a similar service. Something very similar happened a few years ago, when they took down the massively popular "vplay.ro" (essentially a free youtube clone that featured all the popular TV shows). Only a few days later, one of the local media moguls launched his own site "voyo.ro" providing the same things vplay had before, only now requiring a monthly subscription.
Meanwhile, private torrent tracker "filelist.ro" is still alive and kicking, and it's gotten so immensely popular everyone's grandma and their dog have an account for it. This action will affect the most PC-illiterate pirates, but won't likely make a dent in overall piracy.