Slashdot Mirror
Police Raid Pirate Site, Seize 60 Servers Following MPAA Complaint (torrentfreak.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from TorrentFreak: When it comes to shutting down pirate sites, few groups have a longer history than the Motion Picture Association of America. The Hollywood organization has dozens of pirate scalps under its belt and today is able to claim another. Serving more than a million users every day, FS.to was one of Ukraine's largest pirate sites. Ranked the country's 21st most popular site overall, the movie-focused platform attracted the attention of the MPAA and local rights holders alike. That has resulted in one of the biggest raids ever seen in the country. According to the cyber crime division of Ukraine's national police, an operation shut down the platform Monday following a complaint from Hollywood. The authorities say that 19 people suspected of running the site via a network of local and offshore companies were arrested. The operation to shut the site appears to have been significant. Raids took place at the offices and homes of the suspects, plus datacenters where equipment running the site was installed. Thus far around 60 servers have been seized from a range of local ISPs but the operation is still ongoing so the tally could increase. Local sources indicate that the authorities have linked local Internet company Ferazko Holding Inc. with FS since it owns several of the site's domains including FS.to, BRB.to and FS.ua.
They had a ton of films and TV shows streaming on demand, with a good ratings and comment system. They streamed everything themselves and made money by embedding ads inside the streams. Their player had multiple language subtitles for many films. There was also an enormous list of serials/cracks that was much better than the putrid remains of astalavista. Sample page for a movie listing.
Neither part constitues copyrighted work, but:
a) try explaining this to the police raiding Your servers,
b) MPAA/RIAA doesn't care -- they will charge You with copyright infringement anyway,
c) same thing had been argued about torrent files and the pirate bay, and look where the founders are now.
Once You get a lawsuit, even if You are ultimately found not guilty, it costs You money, time and effort to defend against it, and takes You off the Internet. That's the point.
The current Ukraine coup junta was installed when neonazi groups supported by the EU/US forcibly removed the ligitimate government. And I'm not making up the neonazi part, they are actually marching through the streets with swastika's. So they have to do their masters bidding, wether their own population agrees or not.