A group of hard-core users is stubbornly holding on to their illegal sharing and consumption of films, series, literature, and articles, despite police interference on several occasions. The Danish Rights Alliance, therefore, intensifies its focus on these hard-core users.
Criminal activities should not pay off.
This has been the aim of the Danish Rights Alliance for many years. But just a few years ago, a lot of people had the attitude that it is not ”seriously” illegal to share content without the consent of the rights holders. The internet was a kind of ‘wild west’ and there were no sanctions from police and authorities against rights violations. This resulted in great frustrations among Danish rights holders, including Danish film producers, who saw their films being pirated thousands of times even before the films had their official release.
Based on this, the Danish Rights Alliance launched several initiatives targeting a regulated internet, where offenses are sanctioned and where piracy is not considered legitimate. Initiatives that are partly based on cross collaborations with the Danish Ministry of Culture and the Telecommunications Industry, to be able to block access to illegal websites through the Share With Care collaboration, and partly a strategy to be able to hold the perpetrators behind the illegal services accountable.
Towards a more regulated internet
But even though the Danish Rights Alliance’s approaches proved effective in combating the Danish illegal market, there was a lack of involvement from the police and authorities in getting the perpetrators to stop their criminal activities. Therefore, the Danish Rights Alliance worked to set up a permanent IP Task Force under the State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime (SØIK) that could take care of Internet-based crime, which became a reality in 2018.
The IP Task Force’s skilled work culminated in the epochal shutdown of all closed illegal networks anchored in Denmark in December 2020 – networks that are hotbeds for the illegal spread of Danish content to other, foreign services. The Task Force’s actions were prompted by reports from the Danish Rights Alliance based on its investigation.
Thus, December last year became a milestone in the work of enforcement against criminal perpetrators, who systematically exploit the Internet’s opportunities to violate rights. A milestone that has laid the groundwork for focusing on the hard-core users who stubbornly stick to their illegal activities.
SØIK: No one is safe
With the closure of Asgaard, which was one of the closed Danish networks, a total of seven people were arrested and charged with illegal file sharing. In the prosecution’s press release regarding the case, SØIK had a clear message: “no one is safe” – not even the users. We thus see that SØIK also focuses on the hard-core users, which is very important in the further work of securing the content of Danish rights holders on the Internet.
Even though the closure in December already seems to have reduced the number of users on the closed illegal services by more than 75 percent, there are still the last 25 percent, those who are considered to be hard-core users. These are users who time and time again see the police intervening and making arrests, but who still choose to continue their illegal activities.
With the IP Task Force behind it, technical insight, and access to the illegal services where the Danish hard-core users have been moved to, it is now possible to actively sanctioning them. Whether users are trying to hide behind a VPN connection or not, the Danish Rights Alliance has the tools to identify them.
In the forthcoming period, the Danish Rights Alliance’s activities will be focused on the perpetrators and users of the newly established Danish services, including NorTor, which is trying to establish itself after the closures in December.