Man Arrested After P2P Distribution
16 November 2012
A man was arrested in Hong Kong for allegedly distributing two copyrighted movies using a BitTorrent peer-to-peer file sharing program, Hong Kong’s Customs and Excise Department said April 28.
According to Customs officials, the 38-year-old man uploaded seed files of two movies onto a local internet forum and distributed them over two separate periods of time. Members of Customs’ Anti-Internet Piracy team detected the seed files with the help of the department’s Lineament Monitoring System, which it launched in March 2007 to monitor illegal file sharing. This case is the second detected by the monitoring system.
Customs officers seized a computer and related peripheral equipment worth an estimated HK$10,000 (US$1,300).
Under Hong Kong’s Copyright Ordinance, anyone who distributes an infringing copy of a work without license of the copyright owner faces up to four years in prison and a fine of HK$50,000 per infringing copy.
