FPM - Italian Cyberlocker Blocked After Link To Pirate Website Proved

New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ IFPI) A long and complex investigation driven by the Italian Fiscal Police has ended with the disclosure that the operators behind a pirate website and associated cyberlocker generated illegal revenues of more than €1.3 million in just 15 months.

The DDLStorage cyberlockers, ostensibly established to allow the legal exchange of files and documents, was in fact developed by a network of professional criminals who were making available copyright infringing films, games, music and TV programmes.

Just 3 per cent of users on the platform uploaded files and only 0.2 per cent were receiving revenues for the content they uploaded. Uploaders were paid the more their content was downloaded by other users, with individual payments running up to €40,000 per year.

The cyberlockers was initially created in Italy, but it was powered by 120 servers located in France and later the Netherlands.

The illegal distribution of copyright infringing material through such services causes significant damage to the licensed film, games, music and television industries.

Luca Vespignani, FPM (Music and Multimedia Antipiracy Federation) General Secretary says: "This is a really important case for the anti-piracy battle: for the first time in Italy we can unequivocally reveal the presence of a direct and illegal connection between a pirate website and its cyberlocker. It is essential to investigate the organisation of these structures to seriously disrupt digital piracy."