[size=85:2k2p6sv0]novinite 29 April 2010

Bulgarian Torrent Tracking Sites Under Threat

The two biggest torrent tracker Bulgarian websites, zamunda.net and arena.bg, will be closed down, said the head of Bulgaria's Computer Crimes Department, Yavor Kolev.

In a TV appearenace, Thursday, Kolev explained that the two biggest free Bulgarian torrents sites – zamunda.net and arena.bg – distrubute pirate files and are a rip-off for Internet users as they dupe them into sending sms messages.

“We'll clean the web space from Internet pirates and set up legal platforms for file downloads,” said Kolev Thursday, adding that he has nothing against Internet users downloading movie and music files from the net as long as that does not constitute an intellectual theft.

According to unconfirmed data, a Syrian citizen is the true owner of the Zamunda tracking site while a Russian controls arena.bg.

Kolev reminded that the legal cases that were launched more than 3 years ago against the two tracking websites over intellectual piracy charges have not concluded and that the accused are to stand trial.

In 2007 the Bulgarian law-enforcement agencies cracked down on the two torrent tracking websites. Arena.bg and zamund.net were then taken down, the owner of arena was arrested and there police raids on the offices of known torrent sites in the Sofia capital.

On Wednesday, following a statement made by the European Director of the International Recording Federation, Frances Moore, that Bulgaria ranks first in the EU by Internet piracy, the head of Bulgaria's Crime Department declared that the governemnet will go after the investors in Internet piracy rather than regular Internet users.

Bulgaria's Major Torrent Sites Hacked by Govt


Bulgaria's two prime torrent sites Zamunda and Arena have been rendered inaccessible overnight by an obscure entity dubbed Council for the Protection of Intellectual Property.

At present Zamunda.net is still inaccessible, while Arenabg.com is working under a heavy overload.

The Council for the Protection of Intellectual Property has been created by the Council of Ministers of Bulgaria in 2006 and brings together vice-ministers of culture, justice, finance, interior, energy, as well as representatives of the judiciary and other state agencies.

Sources cited by Dnevnik.bg have stated that the probable cause of the trackers' failure is a hack of Zamunda from the Council, which has led to a blocking of Arena due to overload.

The director Computer Crimes Unit of the Directorate General for Fight with Organized Crime at the Bulgarian Ministry of Interior has stated that at present there is no operation underway against the torrent sites.

In the past the Computer Crimes Unit has brought about several closedowns of Zamunda and Arena.

Novinite

Bulgaria Torrent Websites: We Will Continue to Exist

Bulgaria's two major torrent sites Zamunda and Arena will continue to exist, the administrator of Arena, Eliyan Geshev, has announced.

Last week, the two sites were hacked and were inaccessible. Although the hacker remains unknown, administrators of the two sites believe that the attack came from the Specialized Unit for Combating Organized Crime (GDBOP).

Since Saturday, the opening page of Zamunda.net suggests that Yavor Kolev, Head of Computer Crimes sector at GDBOP, is responsible for the failure in the system. However, the unit has denied the accusations.

In Geshev's words, all interventions against the two major torrent-trackers in Bulgaria were due to pressure by the United States.

"
If this was just a hacker attack, the site would have gone missing on the Internet. But an attack from 50 different IPs seems like a limited budget of some organization. The suggestions point at GDBOP,"
Geshev said.

He has explained that the Bulgarian users of torrent websites do not violate the law in any way.

"
What is forbidden in the United States with a law is a right in Bulgarian and Europe. The state incriminates to people that if they have 1000 copies of a movie that you have not paid for, then you are a criminal, but this is not true,"
Geshev said.

In his words, people could either have 1000 copies of a movie or have a matrix for producing 100,000 copies.

"
I do not know of a user who has 1000 copies of one movie at home. If there is such a user, then he is violating the law,"
Geshev said.

He expressed hope for the future existence of Arenabg.com and said he will fight for it until the end.

"
Unless a court rules that the website is illegal, [Arena] will continue to exist. If it is terminated from the Netherlands, we will launch some of the spare web hosts that are ready and working,"
he said.

[size=55:25wi1bs9]novinite

Bulgaria's Organized Crime Unit Shuts 2 Major Torrent Websites

Anti-mafia police have shut down two of Bulgaria's largest torrent sites in an operation aimed at stemming the illegal distribution of copyrighted music and films.

The officers of the Chief Directorate for Combating Organized Crime raided sites located in Sofia, Pernik and Gabrovo and detained two people identified as the owners, one of them a minor, the Interior Ministry said in a statement on Monday.

The authorities seized computer systems and hardware.

The damages incurred by the sites, which had reportedly been among the top 5 in the country and had been functioning for over three years, are yet to be calculated.

The raid was part of an ongoing campaign of the Interior Ministry against Internet-based piracy.

According to reports of bTV, the raided torrent websites were p2pbg.com and elit-bg.com, both of them using servers based in Germany.

Torrentfreak.com informs that the two sites had a combined userbases of at least 750 000 members.