In the final days of 2020, the last Danish anchored piracy services shut down. It is the culmination of many years of focused work to fight illegal services.
The reactions have been many. Some say piracy is over, others point out that new services are popping up, ready to take over distribution. Among the now “homeless” users of the services, the reactions are also divided. Some continue their activities on foreign services, while others have had enough, and have stopped their illegal consumption.
So, what does the closure of the ‘Danish scene’ mean for the mechanisms of the illegal market, what does it mean for the content distribution and the rights holder’s in the future, and how does it affect the work of protecting rights in general? The Danish Rights Alliance will focus on this in the future, and so this post is a short introduction based on the first reactions to the effects. There is no doubt that we will become wiser in the coming months.
The structure of the illegal market
The illegal market for movies, series, music, books, and articles is very fragmented today. The image below illustrates the structure of the illegal market:

At the top of the illegal market in Denmark are the closed networks. They are the source of the open networks of illegal content. The closed networks are characterized by having “rules” for their users. Users are required to participate in the sharing of content themselves or contribute financially to the operation of the network. You can not just consume content without giving something back to the other users and thus be part of the network. It is also strongly encouraged that you as a user anonymize yourself by using aliases and that you use a VPN connection.
In addition to being dedicated to the distribution of illegal content, closed networks also have a social purpose. They are a place for like-minded people, where rationales about why this behavior is ok are cultivated: “the music company directors eat caviar for breakfast”, “the film industry is a dinosaur”, “I still pay for my Netflix subscription”, “I’m just a small fish” etc. Therefore, the ringleaders are also successful in getting their users to donate money to the networks, for example by using cryptocurrency.
The four Danish closed networks that have now been shut down, DanishBits, NordicBits, Asgaard, and ShareUniversity, are estimated to have had more than 50,000 Danish users. The networks have first and foremost been a marketplace for content targeted at Danish consumers. I.e. Danish sound and text content, and it is without a doubt these services that have done the most damage to the Danish rights holders – both because the Danish content has been published here before official legal publication, and because the Danish content has had a particularly prominent place.
However, it is important to keep in mind that according to the analysis company MediaVision, a total of 370,000 Danes consume illegal content and that with the closure of the four closed networks “only” are the 50,000 of those who have now become ” homeless”.
In addition to the closed networks, there are a massive number of open services that are also dedicated to distributing content illegally. They live primarily on advertising revenue and are operated from abroad without any special connection to Denmark. Also, there are legal services, such as social media such as Facebook and user-generated platforms such as YouTube, where legal content is shared, but where the illegal content increasingly also finds its way.
We must ensure that illegal sharing of Danish content does not find new ways
What is epochal in the shutdown of the aforementioned four closed Danish services, is that for the first time we have closed all the Danish-anchored services at once, i.e. that there is no obvious alternative where the illegal activities can continue unnoticed. The IP Task Force under the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime (SØIK) has proved its worth – they are able to investigate, shut down services, and hold ringleaders accountable. It requires special technical and legal skills and dialogue with us in the Danish Rights Alliance, who know the market intimately. You must therefore now be a risk-averse criminal to open a new Danish service. Someone will do this. But we are now getting them closed so quickly that they will not have time to gain a foothold among users.
In the Danish Rights Alliance, we will continue our presence on, and investigation of, any illegal services that may arise to hold both ringleaders and hard-core users accountable. Therefore, I do not think we will see new Danish services on the illegal market – it has become too risky.
Just as important as the shutdown of the Danish services is also the indication given by the IP Task Force in a press release that it is willing to hold the users of the services accountable. So, one must now also be a risk-averse user, to continue his illegal activities on these services.
And so, we have turned a corner in the fight against piracy, as it is no longer risk-free to be neither the culprit nor the user. One of our many tasks in the future is to ensure that illegal sharing of Danish content does not find new ways for Danish users, now that the closed networks, the top of the distribution pyramid, have been shut down. Experience shows that the criminal perpetrators get creative when they face adversity, but in Denmark, we already have a good grip on blocking the open foreign illegal services, which we in the pyramid call the open networks. We do this in collaboration with the telecommunications companies and the Ministry of Culture. In 2021, we will also focus on how the content spreads on legal platforms, such as Facebook and YouTube, and ensure that we can make an effective effort here.
Director of the Danish Rights Alliance, Maria Fredenslund