steven36 Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 Five men who released thousands of movies onto the Internet have been handed sentences totaling more than 17 years. The men, all from the UK and members of release groups including 26K, RemixHD, DTRG and RESISTANCE, were accused of "putting at risk" more than £52m in Hollywood revenues. February 1 2013, was a miserable day for five of the UK’s most prolific online movie pirates. Following an investigation by the UK’s Federation Against Copyright Theft, police raided Graeme Reid, 40, from Chesterfield, Scott Hemming, 25, and Reece Baker, 22, both from Birmingham, Sahil Rafiq, 24, of Wolverhampton and Ben Cooper, 33, of Willenhall. The investigation into the activities of these men had been running for three years as FACT attempted to identify and track the individuals behind several interrelated movie release groups including RemixHD, 26K, UNiQUE, DTRG and HOPE/RESISTANCE. The five men were arrested and by January 2015 all had pleaded guilty to charges of Conspiracy to Defraud. The extent of the infringement claimed by FACT was huge. The anti-piracy group said that between March 1, 2010 and January 1, 2014, the groups had together released more than 9,000 movies onto the Internet resulting in around five million unauthorized views. FACT claimed that around £52m of Hollywood revenues had been “put at risk” – an amount that was detailed in our report last weekend. Following a so-called Newton hearing that began in Wolverhampton Crown Court on Monday, the men finally admitted causing the industry more than £5 million in losses, around £1 million each. Yesterday afternoon in Wolverhampton Crown Court Judge Nicolas Webb carried out sentencing and it’s a dismal result for the men. Sahil Rafiq, accused of uploading more than 880 movies and causing 1.5 million illegal downloads as founder of 26K, was jailed for 4 years and 6 months. Reece Baker, a member of DTRG and the founder of HOPE/RESISTANCE, was jailed for 4 years and 2 months after being accused of causing more than 226,000 illegal downloads. Baker aggravated his circumstances by continuing to release movies online even while he was on bail. Graeme Reid, the founder of ‘RemixHD’ and with connections to ‘UNiQUE’, was accused of causing 1.1 million illegal downloads and was jailed for 3 years and 6 months. Ben Cooper, a member of HOPE and the founder of release groups ANALOG and TCM, was jailed for 3 years and 6 months after being blamed for more than 150,000 illegal downloads. Scott Hemming, who is said to have released around 800 movies online which together were downloaded a minimum of 2.6 million times, received a 2 year suspended sentence. Following their most aggressive private prosecution to date, the Federation Against Copyright Theft is celebrating success. “Today’s sentencing is a great success for FACT as it marks the first time a release group has been criminally prosecuted. Rafiq, Baker, Reid, Cooper and Hemming were all aware that they were engaging in criminal activity. Their actions have now cost them their liberty,” says FACT Director General, Kieron Sharp. “The result of this case sends out a serious message to anyone engaging in online piracy to think twice or face getting caught, prosecuted and sent to prison. A source very close to the case informs TorrentFreak that the sentences would’ve been greater had the men not pleaded guilty early. However, there was still a penalty for those who did not immediately accept FACT’s version of events in the group’s private prosecution. Immediately before yesterday’s hearing, TF was informed that those who did not dispute anything would receive a third knocked off their sentence. Those that did dispute FACT’s evidence would receive only a quarter. However, while the sentences are no doubt extremely aggressive, there could be light at the end of the tunnel. TF is informed that two of the men already had criminal records but the others could eventually, if not quickly, be moved to a low security prison. Yesterday morning, at least one was hoping for decent conditions. “We will all be in an open prison so will probably only do a few months inside then be allowed home for visits. We will then probably be placed on tag [outside prison but monitored] due to the fact three out of the five had no prior convictions at all,” TF was told. The inside track to this case is intriguing and will be detailed in a future TF report. Source Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jordan Posted December 18, 2015 Share Posted December 18, 2015 for one site/group shut down, there are 10 emerging ones. they can win a battle, but they will never win the war. however, years of jail will make people thinking twice before getting involved. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted December 18, 2015 Author Share Posted December 18, 2015 6 hours ago, jordan4x said: for one site/group shut down, there are 10 emerging ones. they can win a battle, but they will never win the war. however, years of jail will make people thinking twice before getting involved. Really there's not there's only a fraction of the p2p groups left that they were in 2013 . 1st they put IMAGiNE in jail in 2011 in the US witch accounted for 90% of prerelease video back in the the day . At lest they used there own sources. Even these guys in the OP who went to jail were nothing but leechers who bottom feed off the scene or any one who would dare to post a source file . they used other peoples work and re-encoded it as there own For 90 minutes of fame and see were it got them. .In p2p anyone with a opensource encoder can be a release group . They have no rules or quality control . These groups were responsible for some of the most horrible poor quality releases on the internet . I never understood it really why risk you're butt posting cams and re-encodes of others work when the scene is going to release high quality files of it anyway. This here is a prime example my friend that people will do anything for 90 minutes of fame. Stuff like this and other factors is why I'm no longer involved in fileshareing very much any more. When the whole web started putting more value in p2p witch is nothing but a honeypot for the Governments of the world plus the Movie and Music industry than they did our safer sharing techniques it was time to find a new hobby . P2P needs to be replaced by newer methods of sharing . Once the whole world bans vpns it most likely will be, the vpn is the only thing that's keeping it alive today its hanging on by a string . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vibranium Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 I certainly hope that the world doesn't ban vpns. That's like cutting off the nose to spite the face. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
steven36 Posted December 19, 2015 Author Share Posted December 19, 2015 Just now, vibranium said: I certainly hope that the world doesn't ban vpns. That's like cutting off the nose to spite the face. There is already talk of them doing it in Canada . https://trust.zone/post/canada-to-block-vpn The workaround would be is use a vpn that uses openvpn that don't have port forwarding that only uses port 443 . Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
vibranium Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 Canada? Sheesh, I thought only oppressive governments blocked VPN. You know who they are. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
haxzion Posted December 19, 2015 Share Posted December 19, 2015 p2p protocol needs to get evolved or we are losing the battle with the masonic dogs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Karabasas Posted December 20, 2015 Share Posted December 20, 2015 Wow, those are "criminals" wow.... :/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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