The legal representative of the Swedish largest anti-piracy group Henrik Ponten said that the file sharing landscape in the country has shifted: while many sites disappeared, the remaining services have become more professional and very commercial, earning quite a lot from their operations.
Henrik Ponten was deeply involved in the prosecution of The Pirate Bay and made many other enemies since then. The funny fact was that 7 years ago, a bizarre retaliation made headlines when Ponten’s name was officially changed to Pirate Ponten with Swedish authorities without his knowledge.
Today the lawyer says that the trend is that the number of unauthorized services is decreasing. 2 years ago he pursued about 20 Swedish players, but only few of them survived. Those who survived don’t want to cease their operations because they earn good money from them. Ponten explains that the anti-piracy group contacts pirate sites before reporting them to the police, giving them the chance to voluntarily shut down before escalating the case to raids, trials, potential prison sentences and millions in damages. About 50% accept the offer to close, some shut down after lawsuits are filed. Those who ignore the threats are clearly much more persistent.
The lawyer was confronted with the fact that there have been a lot of court cases in the country against portals either run as hobby projects or bringing marginal revenues. He responded there was often a lag of a few years between the filing of complaints and a prosecution. However, today all services that remain in Sweden are explicitly commercial and earn a lot of money.
At the moment, Henrik Ponten is involved in a case against the operator of SwePiracy, an online service that was first raided 4 years ago. Its operator, 24, is accused of ignoring the anti-piracy group’s warnings to close down and currently faces claims for almost $3 million in damages from copyright holders. Ponten also reminded that the prosecution of SweFilmer also lies on the horizon the latter is a service that was raided by police several months ago. SweFilmer’s operator admitted that police had detained him for 4 days.
Henrik Ponten was deeply involved in the prosecution of The Pirate Bay and made many other enemies since then. The funny fact was that 7 years ago, a bizarre retaliation made headlines when Ponten’s name was officially changed to Pirate Ponten with Swedish authorities without his knowledge.
Today the lawyer says that the trend is that the number of unauthorized services is decreasing. 2 years ago he pursued about 20 Swedish players, but only few of them survived. Those who survived don’t want to cease their operations because they earn good money from them. Ponten explains that the anti-piracy group contacts pirate sites before reporting them to the police, giving them the chance to voluntarily shut down before escalating the case to raids, trials, potential prison sentences and millions in damages. About 50% accept the offer to close, some shut down after lawsuits are filed. Those who ignore the threats are clearly much more persistent.
The lawyer was confronted with the fact that there have been a lot of court cases in the country against portals either run as hobby projects or bringing marginal revenues. He responded there was often a lag of a few years between the filing of complaints and a prosecution. However, today all services that remain in Sweden are explicitly commercial and earn a lot of money.
At the moment, Henrik Ponten is involved in a case against the operator of SwePiracy, an online service that was first raided 4 years ago. Its operator, 24, is accused of ignoring the anti-piracy group’s warnings to close down and currently faces claims for almost $3 million in damages from copyright holders. Ponten also reminded that the prosecution of SweFilmer also lies on the horizon the latter is a service that was raided by police several months ago. SweFilmer’s operator admitted that police had detained him for 4 days.
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