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12 November 2020CopyrightRory O'Neill

Europol shuts down €1.9m piracy operation

Europol and national law enforcement agencies have shut down a Swiss piracy operation which earned €1.9 million ($2.2 million) from illegal streaming boxes.

The joint operation targeted a Swiss company selling multimedia boxes, which allowed users to access more than 82,000 copyright-protected films and TV series. The company had sold 20,000 boxes, according to a preliminary investigation.

Swiss police shut down the website used to stream the illegal content, supported by copyright complaints from US film studios and TV channels. National police forces also seized eleven servers in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Switzerland. The operation resulted in three arrests and the seizure of eight Swiss bank accounts.

Streaming boxes are now a major front in authorities’ fight against piracy. In June, a former UK police officer was sentenced to one year in prison for selling Internet Protocol Television (IPTV) devices, which Greater Manchester Police said cost rights owners more than £2 million.

The Premier League has also supported criminal investigations, targeting the sale of IPTV boxes offering access to live football. These include so-called ‘beoutQ boxes’, linked to the Saudi-based pirate channel.

A 39-year old man in north-west London was found guilty of selling the boxes last September, after an investigation jointly-backed by the Premier League and the Federation Against Copyright Theft (FACT).

“The message is now unequivocal; if you sell a device that provides access to content that is not licensed or owned by you, you will face a criminal conviction,” said FACT chief executive Kieron Sharp.

The Alliance for Creativity and Entertainment (ACE), a coalition of film and TV companies including Amazon, Comcast, Netflix and Sky, have also pursued the sellers of IPTV set-top boxes in Australia, resulting in the shutdown of more than 30 illegal services.

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More on this story

Copyright
4 June 2020   A former police officer has been jailed for selling illegal devices that bypassed paid-for TV content and cost legitimate service providers more than £2 million.
Copyright
8 October 2019   A man has been found guilty by a UK court of distributing illegal streaming devices that allow access to pirated sports content including the Premier League on the beoutQ channel.
Copyright
9 July 2021   A consortium of several of the world’s largest media companies, including Disney, Netflix, Amazon and Universal, have filed a lawsuit against “serial-mass infringer” Jason Tusa, the alleged operator of several pirate TV subscription services.