DamnedIfIknow used our news submit to tell us "Hmm....and how many of these names are just plain fake?" Well I wonder about the whole story. Something here is just not right. For one thing, the information given is very sketchy. I can't tell what is meant by "swapping movies and computer games" because I sure don't understand where the 1 million Euros comes from. That is not swapping, that's some kind of sales figure. because no one is going to run ads on a site such as this! Also, I must also agree with Damned if I know- how can the authorities get hold of any names. Surely people were using an alias. There is more to this story than meets the eye.
A spokesman for the state crime office in the eastern region of Thuringia said that an ongoing probe of four Germans had allowed authorities to crack the online address book of the site, unmasking thousands of suspects.
"We don't know yet if we are talking about 8,000 or 20,000 people," the spokesman said, noting that copyright violators could face heavy fines or even prison terms.
The four men at the center of the probe between the ages of 19 and 46 were detained in September. Three have since been remanded in custody.
Authorities believe their Internet site, which was not named, posted revenues of nearly one million euros (1.3 million dollars).
The Hamburg Society for the Prosecution of Copyright Infringements (GVU) said that smashing the ring had wiped out a major part of the German-language Internet piracy industry. |
C'mon! An online address book? This is very strange indeed. What is going on here does anyone know?
Source: Yahoo!
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LOL
