The fight against piracy may be about to take a controversial step, but one that some believe is necessary: directly attacking the common user, in addition to the owners of pirate services. Italy has led the way, with fines of up to 5,000 dollars just for watching football matches using pirated IP TV, and other European Union countries are starting to adopt similar measures .
Traditionally, the focus of police and copyright owners has been on those who distribute pirated content, whether by offering films on download sites or accessing services IPTVs that stream content normally behind a paywall. In other words, it was preferable to opt for the “source”. Until now, the user of pirate services was relatively protected by European laws. However, this is changing.
In some countries it is already possible that users face consequences if they access pirated content. For example, in the UK, police recently obtained a list of pirate IPTV users during a raid on an illegal service and “remembered” that they could use it in future legal proceedings. This could soon be possible in the European Union, after the Advocate General published the opinion that it should be possible to identify citizens who use pirated services, even if it “undermines fundamental rights” like life private.
While waiting for the Italian government to detail its proposed fines for IPTV users, there is already one EU country that has “dared” to attack these Internet users: Lithuania. Last summer, an amendment to its Code of Administrative Offenses empowered the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission (LRTK) organization to impose direct fines on people who download copyrighted content ; What is striking is that these sanctions can be applied without the approval of a judge
For now, the main targets of the LRTK have been users of Linkomanija, a torrent file download page with which it is possible to download films and series using a P2P program. Linkomanija is one of the oldest pages, with more than two decades of existence, and has survived all types of attacks, even a direct lawsuit from Microsoft. Some of the keys to its resilience lie in the fact that This is a private page that requires an invitation; and that technically it is not possible to download copyrighted content directly from the page, but rather it is necessary to use a dedicated program to use the Torrent file.
Since they cannot close the page, LRTK now has the power to directly fine its users, in the hopes that they will stop using it and close it on their own. Around thirty people have already been fined 140 dollars each, but they are being considered fines of up to 600 dollars for repeat offenders. LRTK is based on the IP addresses of users who access the private tracker, in addition to information obtained by Internet providers; However, this data is generally insufficient to prove computer crimes. The LRTK defends itself by specifying that before sending the fine, it contacts the user so that they have the opportunity to explain why their IP address appears on the list.
It remains to be seen whether this measure will really help to push Lithuania down from third place among the most pirated European countries. For now, other countries are considering the same thing and, in Europe, some of the biggest rights holders are already demanding fines from users.
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