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posted by Fnord666 on Tuesday December 11 2018, @11:33AM   Printer-friendly
from the what's-next? dept.

Submitted via IRC for SoyCow1984

Three Sentenced For Placing Advertising on Pirate Sites - TorrentFreak

While there are several business models that are able to keep pirate sites up and running, advertising is one of the most popular.

With huge amounts of traffic landing on both torrent and streaming platforms, even with low-quality adverts it’s possible for both site owners and advertising companies to generate decent profits.

Until now, pirate site operators have been the main targets for law enforcement agencies but a recently concluded case in Germany shows that the authorities are prepared to extend their reach when required.

According to Germany-based anti-piracy group GVU, the Leipzig District Court has now sentenced three employees of an Internet advertising agency to prison terms for aiding and abetting copyright infringement.

The investigation was led by the Integrated Investigation Unit Saxony (INES) at the Saxon Attorney General’s Office and supported by the GVU with analysis and insights.

“The defendants had brokered advertising space on well-known piracy portals such as kino.to or iload.to and displayed lucrative banner ads on a large scale,” GVU reveals.

“In this way, they achieved profits of more than 350,000 euros. They were aware that they were involved with structurally infringing sites, which apparently offered almost exclusively copyrighted files for download and streaming.”

The sentences for the trio were considerable, despite not being directly involved in the running of the sites. The manager of the agency received a sentence of one year and eight months, with two programmers each receiving one year and four months in prison. However, since the defendants confessed, all sentences were suspended.

“The verdict sets a significant precedent because up to now no advertising agency in Germany has ever been prosecuted for its support of illegal portal sites,” GVU concludes.


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  • (Score: 1) by easyTree on Wednesday December 12 2018, @12:12AM

    by easyTree (6882) on Wednesday December 12 2018, @12:12AM (#773199)

    The 'gas' station owner has no responsibility to police the rest of society. They sell people 'gas.'