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The Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission (LRTK) is using newly acquired legal authority to penalize online pirates. This new power has already led to several rulings, and this week the media watchdog upped the ante by issuing more than two dozen monetary fines. All targets were identified through their IP addresses and linked to the private torrent tracker Linkomanija.
This summer, Lithuania modified its Code of Administrative Offenses, which allows the media watchdog LRTK fine pirates, without having to go to court.
This legislative change is the latest attempt to deter piracy in the European country. The idea is that potential fines should make hackers reconsider their habits.
Tracking down pirates
Imposing fines may seem like an effective strategy, but catching online pirates is not always easy. It is usually not possible to know who is using pirate streaming sites or direct download portals, for example, unless the service in question is compromised.
Tracking down BitTorrent pirates just got easier. Torrent users publicly broadcast their IP addresses and this activity can be monitored by outsiders. This is the main reason why almost all lawsuits against individual pirates are directed at BitTorrent users.
The Lithuanian media watchdog is aware of this; he first three fines issued in August was aimed at BitTorrent users. The most unusual aspect here is that LRTK specifically highlighted users of the private torrent tracker Linkomanija.
LinkoManija.net is the largest torrent site in the country and a local legend. The site has been around for over two decades and continues to thrive. While it is officially a private community, many locals have access; that includes the media watchdog's piracy monitoring partner.
25 private tracking goals
This week, LRTK announced that it had fined twenty-five more people who allegedly shared copyright-infringing content through LinkoManija. In all cases, the criminals shared pirated versions of movies owned by local film companies.
โLRTK discovered that copyrighted audiovisual works โ the films โTu mano Deimantasโ, โHypnoticโ and โParadasโ โ were illegally reproduced and made public on the website linkomanija.net without the copyright consent of their owners. IP addresses,โ the watchdog said. grades.
IP addresses do not identify people, so, technically speaking, authorities do not know if those fined are real users of the site. The fines simply target the people who pay the Internet bills, who are not necessarily the pirates.
The authorities do not appear to be affected by these technicalities and issued fines of 140 euros to all identified subscribers, which is half of the maximum penalty allowed. If the same "people" continue hacking, the possible fines can reach 850 euros.
Not done yet
The latest wave of fines is the largest yet. Previously, three people were sanctioned in August and eight more in September, bringing the total to thirty-six currently. All of these criminals were linked to the same torrent tracker.
LRTK warns all Lithuanians, and Linkomanija users in particular, that this is not over yet. The watchdog says it will continue to use its legal powers to monitor piracy activity and reduce the country's piracy rate.
The private torrent tracker remains online, at least for now. A court formerly tidy The country's largest Internet providers blocked the site, but that hasn't stopped people from finding solutions to access it.
