BitTorrent Seedbox Provider Handed Criminal Conviction Over Users' Piracy

A man who rented out servers configured for BitTorrent file-sharing use has been handed a three-month suspended sentence in Denmark. Known as 'seedboxes', these pre-configured servers are not illegal per se, but when customers used the devices to break copyright law on known pirate sites, rightsholders held the server provider liable. TorrentFreak reports: Local anti-piracy group Rights Alliance (Rettigheds Alliancen) mitigates all types of piracy but for the past few years, has maintained a keen focus on torrent sites. Working in partnership with the Danish government's SOIK IP-Task Force, Rights Alliance forced several sites to close down and successfully prosecuted site operators, staff members, and users who uploaded content to those sites. In 2021, Rights Alliance targeted specialized servers that not only supply content to torrent sites but also play a role in boosting download times while improving security.

In 2021, news broke that six people had been arrested in Denmark due to their alleged connections to several local torrent sites. Among them was Kasper Nielsen of internet services company HNielsen Networks, a supplier of servers under various brands that could be configured for 'seedbox' purposes. Available information indicated that the servers had been used by an unknown number of users to share content on private torrent sites ShareUniversity, Superbits and DanishBytes. [...] When Rights Alliance filed its criminal complaint against HNielsen Networks, the anti-piracy group referenced the landmark Filmspeler case which involved the sale of piracy-configured media players.

According to statements published by Rights Alliance and NSK (Saerlig Kriminalitet) Denmark's Special Crime Unit, Nielsen was convicted yesterday for selling seedboxes in the knowledge they were being used by others to share movies, TV shows, eBooks and other content, without permission from rightsholders. "On February 28, the Court in Aalborg ruled against the Danish owner behind a seedbox company for, in the period November 2020 to May 2021, having sold seedboxes and server capacity to an unknown number of people, knowing that they were used for illegal sharing of no less than 3,838 copyright-protected works on the Danish and Nordic file sharing services ShareUniversity, Superbits and DanishBytes," Rights Alliance reports. Nielsen was handed a three-month conditional (suspended) sentence and a confiscation order for DKK 300,000 (around $42,600), the amount users had paid his company to access the seedbox servers. The 35-year-old must also pay compensation of DKK 298,660 to Rights Alliance. "Providers of seedboxes have a responsibility to ensure that their services are not used for illegal uploading and downloading of copyrighted content, which the Rights Alliance can clearly see that they are doing," says Maria Fredenslund, Director of Rights Alliance. "Therefore, this case helps to send a signal to other providers that you cannot deliberately sell services to the illegal market."

Since Neilsen took a plea deal at an early stage, none of the claims made by Rights Alliance were needed to be proven in court. "The 3,838 figure and any evidence related to 'knowledge' of infringement carried out by seedbox customers on the sites, were accepted as true," reports TorrentFreak.

That tracks

[tgpo]

People doing illegal things get busted for doing the illegal things. News at 11.

Re:That tracks

[quonset]

All he was doing was helping people share content with 80 million of their closest friends. How is that illegal?

Re:

[Fuck_this_place]

"jfc, how many turns does this rabbit hole take before our profit paradise is realized?!"

Re: That tracks

[Currently_Defacating]

Idk. They're charging him with selling a service he knew could be used to break the law. His service was not illegal.

That's like charging a car salesmen because they know their cars could be used to break the law.

If I sell you a legal good, it's not my burden to know what you will use it for. That's thoughtcrime territory.

Re:

[Joce640k]

That's like charging a car salesmen because they know their cars could be used to break the law.

What if a car salesman advertises a car "for burglars", paints it black, and includes a trunk full of gloves, balaclavas, sledge hammers and crowbars?

Re: That tracks

[Currently_Defacating]

Even if marketed to burglars, cars and servers have legitimate uses.

These seed boxes contained no piracy software, so crowbars, etc included with the car is not analogous.

Re:

[luther349]

he took a plea deal no nothing has been proven,

Re:

[gweihir]

Or like banning crowbars. But this case has some peculiarities that makes it unsuitable as a reference case. The main one is that the accused accepted a plea-bargain, which is a rather rare thing in Europe and specifically does not create precedent. My take is the copyright mafia offered this person excellent terms in order to get a fake victory instead of taking a very real risk of losing their case and creating a reference case. Remember that like any criminal or criminally-minded organization, they mainl

mixed feelings

[bloodhawk]

Not a fan of service or platform providers being held liable for their user bases actions. But their intention here was purely to facilitate piracy so not much sympathy for them.

Re:

[Powercntrl]

Although piracy is pretty much the only check and balance against the greed of streaming services.

Or, I suppose just not watching entertainment. Funny how that never seems to be a very popular sentiment when a streaming service announces a rate hike, though. It's always "Well, back to the high seas!" and never "Maybe I'll download a virtual fishtank app."

Re:

[bloodhawk]

yep, fully guilty of my share of the use of the high seas. But I don't pretend it is justified by the ridiculous prices or fragmentation of the market, it is more my spite kicking in to deprive them of income due to their behaviour. The greedy corporations certainly encourage the behaviour through their anti consumer tactics, but as you say the correct response is just don't buy. For me the issue isn't even price, it is having to sign up to so many god damned services to get each piece of content.

Re: mixed feelings

[LindleyF]

Back in the day we used to pay 3x as much for just one box set, and piracy was a solution for content that wasn't available at all. The situation is much improved these days.

Re:

[bloodhawk]

yep, hence my comment that price is not an issue. Hell we used to share around VHS pirated copies back in the day and amusingly enough the source of those was the local Police Seargent in our small town.

Re: mixed feelings

[TJHook3r]

Piracy was killing the music industry, then Spotify was killing it. Then live events were going to rescue music.... but the big artists decide to sell events at $500+ a ticket! Sure, you could boycott everything you find a ripoff but it's getting difficult to find affordable entertainment, especially in the current economic climate.

Re:

[AmiMoJo]

Service providers can be help responsible if they know the users are breaking the law, they are profiting from that law breaking, and take no action to stop it.

Someone operating a news website or forum would not be affected as long as they took action when they became aware of criminality taking place.

What bothers me is that the criminality is question was copyright infringement. Normally it's not a crime, it's a civil matter between the copyright holder and the person uploading the file. It can be consider

F to pay respects

[Powercntrl]

The whole point of a seedbox is that they get the DMCA nastygrams instead of you. This man took one for the team. The high sees can be rough at times, but stay strong me hearties.

East Choice

[nevermindme]

So plea guilty and pay a fine or spend a ton of money with a lawyer, perhaps get found guilty, perhaps have something you cannot work from home through. Let someone with deep pockets make precedence. The downside with a fixed loss is the way to go every time at that table.