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German police make arrests in Piracy Crackdown

17 September 2004 17:11 by James "Dela" Delahunty | 11 comments

German police have arrested a 46 year old Lawyer and two brothers, whom are accused of offering a paid download service at the address Ftpwelt.com for over a year. The site offered pirated games, movies and software through a high speed connection to paying customers. According to the German society for the pursuit of copyright infringements e.V., police dealt a serious blow to the "warez" community. Police have also managed to make a list of 45,000 subscribed customers who paid for the service, and may face legal consequences for knowingly paying for pirated goods.

According to German newspapers, the main suspect, Bernhard S, was in charge of bookkeeping and finances. The three of them offered fileservers in the Netherlands, Russia and the U.S.A. Customers could pay with credit cards or directly through their banks. For $15, customers could download three movies or for $135 they could download all they wanted in a month. Among the movies were Telesync and CAM copies, which are basically movies recorded with digital cameras in theatres; telesyncs would have either direct audio or audio from a DTS theatre disc. The men made over $1 million, most of which went through an offshore company on the Virgin Islands.

The operation was discovered by a curious hacker after gaining access to the fileservers. A list of customer accounts was found and is now in Police possession, more arrests may follow.

Source:
The Register

Permalink to this article

Two German men admit piracy charges (16 February 2007)

German police make arrest in warez bust (2 December 2005)

11 charged over piracy busts (17 September 2004)

Companies move to anti-piracy chips (12 September 2004)

House panel gets tough on P2P piracy and Spyware (8 September 2004)

Australian pirate to be extradited to the United States (7 September 2004)

Despite piracy, BMI posts record year (4 September 2004)

LAPD busts DVD pirates (3 September 2004)

Piracy group resurrects after being raided (3 September 2004)

Department Of Justice raids P2P users homes (25 August 2004)

Major piracy busts in Poland (25 August 2004)

Latest BSA piracy figures: 36% (8 July 2004)

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Discuss this article!
Toiletman (Senior Member) 18 September 2004 9:10
Serves them right. [ + quote]
baabaa (AfterDawn Addict) 18 September 2004 11:16
Agreed............. It's git's like them that keep the prices high for us legal purchasers............ Glad they have been caught, I bet the 45,000 subscribers are shitting themselves right now............Bank details in the hands of the authorities investigating piracy - nicked for sure - the only part of the 'warez' they will be using is shareware - cell sharing............... [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 19 September 2004 10:43
Thing is, if everyone's going to pirate and sell, why not make the knowledge free to everyone? So then, no one will actually buy the goddamn pirated discs! It's a bad way of beating piracy, but it's really the only way I can see that will work 100%, otherwise it's just the cycle of cracking and encrypting forever... Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't. [ + quote]
neewbie (Member) 19 September 2004 22:46
well that sucks. just trying to make some money.... [ + quote]
mystic (Member) 20 September 2004 4:50
In thinking the way of the world dosnt selling the software in the first place make the theift of intelegent property only able to be prociquted once I mean once you sell it dosnt it become an issue of royitise moneys should go to who ever owns the copyright but not to the tune that they pump it up to...... [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 20 September 2004 12:20
Quote: well that sucks. just trying to make some money.... Erm... you support piracy? What the hell? Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't. [ + quote]
neewbie (Member) 20 September 2004 15:36
Nah tolietman im just like saying that i dont care either way about it. I know theres lots of p2p and these guys are bad as well at piracy but i dont care. Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't. [ + quote]
SiD_UK (Newbie) 21 September 2004 10:54
Piracy is one thing, trying to make money off it is another. Even most P2P users think that's pretty discpicable :P Why don't people just pay for the originals if they are paying to download it? [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 21 September 2004 18:33
Maybe because it's cheaper to download it, plus the protection is already off (in most download sites), therefore it is easier to backup/pirate. Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't. [ + quote]
terrier (Newbie) 21 September 2004 21:51
i dont agree with piracy but why should consumers continue to pay over the top prices for goods that could be sold for a third of the price and still make a prophit [ + quote]
Toiletman (Senior Member) 22 September 2004 12:36
terrier, lots of people ask why? Why are things so expensive? Why are those Nike shoes $140? The answer is: Because people continue to buy them. Everyone is entitled to their own true opinion. Either respect that or don't. [ + quote]