Found on: RespectP2P.org

ShareConnector and Relases4U taken down

Posted 14.12.2004 20:52:52 by Simon Moon in Legal

The dutch authorities have taken action against the owners and operators of ShareConnector.com and Releases4U.

The details below, in a translation from BadM:
(By Laurens Verhagen)

Investigation agency FIOD (FIOD-ECD, tax and economic crimes police) closes large edonkey sites

Tuesday, december 14th 2004 - After complaints from Brein, the FIOD has seized the server that run the edonkey sites Releases4u and Shareconnector.

Tuesday morning the fiscal investigation agency FIOD-ECD seized 4 servers in Rotterdam that hosted the 2 biggest edonkey sites in Holland, Brein has declared. In 9 places a total of 8 people were arrested and 11 computers were seized.

Releases4U and ShareConnector offered links to illegal files that were checked for content and quality, especially the latest movies, games, music and other content. Brein had been talking with the people behind these sites for a while now, but these talks yielded no results. "Our patience was up, after which we went to the authorities", says Tim Kuik, director of Brein. According to him this is the first in a series of moves against "services that play an essential role in the exchange of illegal files".

These files aren't offered from the abovementioned sites itselfm but are hosted on the computers of the users of p2p service edonkey. "Illegal files in good quality are often hard to find", says Brein.

"Not Illegal"

The 8 persons were arrested for suspicion of committing copyright infringement and accessory to that crime.
SC and R4U offered about 10.000 links to illegal files for about 50.000 registered users, and a multitude of that of consumers. The people behind the sites told Webwereld a while ago that there is nothing illegal about so called ed2k links.

The hostingprovider of the 2 sites, Mindlab, earlier refused to take down the 2 sites. "As long as offering these links is not a crime, we will let them run their sites", Zefanja Nafzger declared to Webwereld earlier.

Millions in damages

The damage of this kind of illegal practice can reach significant amounts, Kuik says. He points out that the owner of the site Film88.com recently was convicted to paying $23,8 million in damages. Brein will hold not only SC and R4U responsible for the damages, but also Mindlab, the provider. Kuik estimates the damages sought to be "several millions (of Euros)".

Besides that the OM (prosucutor's office) is likely to start a criminal procedure against the site owners. The maximum penalty is 4 years in prison, according to Kuik.
Kuik says that services like SC and R4U hide behind "false reasoning that illegal files are actually hosted on different servers and that the actual exchange doesn't take place on their own servers". "However, it is clear they are the ones responsible for the illegal spreading of these files", Brein concludes.

And here another small article about it:
FIOD-ECD throws internetpages offline

Submitted 14th of December 2004 15:58

The Hague - The FIOD-ECD closed down 2 Dutch internet pages on tuesday. The pages offered links to illegal copies of movies, games and music. On 9 spots in the Netherlands computers, servers and administration were seized. The police carried out a total of 8 arrests.

According to the police the Dutch pages shareconnector.com and releases4u.com hosted thousands of links to files for approximately 40.000 members and a multitude of users. Several suspects were part of the exchange network DVD Europe that offers movies, games and music illegaly, often even before the legal store release date, according to the police.

Earlier the police and justice departments in Germany and Switzerland closed down similar sites. It's the first time sites like these are taken down in Holland.


Bad news all over...


Greetings


Drakh

edit: same with svcdplaza.com!!!

weren't they @ station51 too?

hmm... think we should pull a 'FH', close it to guests and close the registration? =)

I don't know, i f svcdplaza.com were on station51, but try:

http://www.ed2k-it.com/

and read...

The only one of the bigger sites I can reach at the moment is
shareprovider.com.


Greetings

Drakh

Given ed2k-it size, it may have been that site that was 'targetted', either way.... ed2k links are no longer available on station51. ed2k-it will probably be in the same situation of host searching, if they decide to continue in their current form.

station51.net wentthrough and was auditing sites with material in breach of their terms and conditions, which is why ed2k-it will be down.

I've gone through and totally disabled all ed2k links and links related to ed2k site, so there's nothing relating to whatever content they are bothered about. This allows us to make sure you know whats happening without panicing or anything I hope , whilst making clear there's no ed2k content here.

I'm not aware of shareprovider.com being taken down, however, if you want you can post a thread in general section regarding whether sites are up and down. I don't see any harm in doing that.

If your a fh user, there is information in the general board there too.

I didn't want to start a panic...

Just found this info on RespectP2P.org posted by Simon Moon and thought it may be of interest for you.


Greetings


Drakh

yup, already check that site
There's also slyck.com and zeropaid.com who run a larger filesharing news based discussion site.



Holly: Well, I don't want to spread any panic or alarm...
Lister: Whaddya mean "don't wanna spread panic or alarm"?
Holly: Well, you've always had this thing against tarantulas, haven't you?

"Everything is ok, there's no need for panic. By the way, is there any passenger here who knows how to fly an airplane?"

John_Doe, LOL
Bill, thanks for all you have done for this cool horror scene

Yeah thanks for everything, Bill. We all understand why you had to do this

ditto!!!

it's a shame that so much time, effort and money is not ploughed into fighting real crimes, jus think we can have jails full of nice peaceful filesharers or we could have them full of murders, muggers, rapists etc and be able to walk the streets safely.................

Ahh but do not forget according to the MPAA/RIAA/FACT et all as file sharers we are involved in human traffic and drugs and everything else, so we are incitng muggers to pay for the drugs that we are eventually supplying.

Total bollocks, but there you go.

Thanks for hosting Bill. I'm sure Spud will think of something.

Hey Polityk!

Where ya been

Thanks Bill.

I echo the comments about using there time and resources going after real criminals, but hey, while I am being mugged/gang banged/murdered atleast I will be happy knowing the movie fat cats are getting bigger limo's.

AAAAHHHHHH thats the real reason!!!!!

they gotta let the real crims stay loose cos lets be honest making a movie bout p2p/movie sharers aint gonna be real interesting is it? i dont usually get involved in car chases in my day to day life, chased to the end of a pier where we battle it out kung fu stylie over the lastest Argento flick......

sly, arnie n willis etc would b outta jobs cos we all thin pale skinned druggie geeks

I am no geek LOL maybe a bit of a stoner from time to time, but that is it.

My everyday life is just like a movie, why only the other day I fought off a horde of flesh eating zombies to get to the till in my local Co-op. The following day I was a serial killer.

Oh yeah, today I am trying to protect a pregnant woman who is carrying Jesus mk2 from the forces of evil, it's all go lately

I know this may sound simple but looking at it logicly if you remove the things on the posts which infringe copyright, which I presume are
1 The ED2K link
2 Screenshots
3 poster ?
4 IMDB link ?
you are left with
1 Title
2 Specs ? ( surley it's not illegal to post specs)
Could you then not put the title into the search in the mule ?

What worries me most about all this is that its attacks the basic right to share information of whatever nature privatly. The illegal files thing is just a sham the only people not making money out of this are people like us. And the most disturbing of all is it's acheived through fear.

I always make a point of taking my kids to see films at the flicks and will always go myself if I really think it gonna be worth it, because I thiink it's the best place to see a film, but I'm not gonna pay over and over to see the same film.
Hollywoods losing money because they make crap films and the record industry is just the same. Thats why they are losing money not because of us.

That may work but I'm sure Spud's got better things to do with his time, it'd take forever. AFIAK IMDB links aren't a breach of copyright. I know they don't like people linking their posters but a link is a hit to their site and therefore desirable I guess.