Stories about anti-piracy groups and media companies chasing down illegal file sharers have become almost too familiar. Well here’s another, but this one’s got a few unique twists that certainly make it worth noting.
Last Friday, the link-sharing forum Filmowisko.net was raided in a coordinated effort by the Foundation for the Protection of Audiovisual Creativity (FOTA) and the Polish police. You read it right; the site was being run out of Poland. Not exactly the first place that springs to mind when you think about intellectual property rights enforcement, right?
Almost more extraordinary than the exotic locale are the ages of the individuals arrested. Two teenagers and a 21-year-old computer science student were hauled off for questioning and two were charged with copyright infringement. The youngest of the group, who is only 16, will be tried in the presumably more lenient family courts.
On a more technical note, the site did not actually host any of the contraband material. It merely served as a forum where users could post links to sites like RapidShare and MediaFire. So while functionally similar to torrent sites like The Pirate Bay, Filmowisko.net is one of the first of its kind to be targeted by the authorities. Will this case mark a turning point in the fight against illegal file sharing? Unlikely. Will it encourage the “digital pirates” to develop new methods to avoid prosecution? Perhaps.
