site.btaLaw Enforcers Halt Rights-Infringing Online Distribution of Trendy Films

105 HOME AFFAIRS-FILM DISTRIBUTION-RIGHTS INFRINGEMENT-ARREST

Law Enforcers Halt Rights-Infringing
Online Distribution
of Trendy Films


August 7 (BTA) - A 44-year-old resident of Sofia was arrested on Tuesday after law enforcers of the Cybercrime Department of the General Directorate for Combating Organized Crime (GDCOC) identified him as the creator and administrator of over 40 online pages on which he distributed trendy films without the requisite rights, the Bulgarian Interior Ministry said in a press release on Wednesday.

The man initially uploaded the movies on part of the websites he controlled and after reaching a definite number of views and generated traffic, for which he was paid by Google, he removed the works and shared them again in part of the other domains. This procedure was repeated four or five times until the sites under his control depleted their capacity. Thus, the man received multiple payments from Google for identical copyrighted material because the Internet traffic addressed different domains.

The GDCOC has blocked access to the online pages used for the criminal activity. Most of the sites were in the cyberspace of one of the largest international cloud service providers in the US. This led the perpetrator to believe that he could not be detected, but an international investigation conducted by the GDCOC and the Sofia Regional Prosecution Office has fully documented his criminal activity, the press release said. IG/LG