A massive international investigation has led to the arrest of many people suspected of film piracy.
Led by Homeland Security and Europol and in cooperation with law enforcement authorities in 18 countries, the investigation focused on a movie piracy ring, better known as Sparks Group. The Group allegedly facilitated the illegal distribution of blockbuster films.
"Dozens of servers controlled by the Sparks Group went offline today around the world, from North America to Europe and Asia," the US Department of Justice said in a statement. Press release. The Sparks Group used these servers to illegally store and distribute copyrighted content to members around the world.
"Sparks Group members reproduce and distribute hundreds of movies and TV shows ahead of their release date, including nearly every movie released by major studios includingtreatments, causing millions of dollars in losses to the film and television industry," said Homeland Security's Peter Fitzhugh.
To make unreleased movies, Sparks members reportedly presented themselves as DVD retailers and Blu-Ray in order to trick legitimate distributors into giving them movies before their release dates. And while the pirates promised not to distribute the content before the release dates, they removed any copyright protections and released it on various streaming services and torrent sites.
The Sparks Group included large well-known groups (SPARKS, DRONES, ROVERS, GECKOS, SPRINTER, ALLiANCE, DEMAND, HD4U, LAZERS, FTP) from Scene but also from the p2p community.
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.542949/gov.uscourts.nysd.542949.12.0.pdf
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.529663/gov.uscourts.nysd.529663.5.0.pdf
https://www.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.uscourts.nysd.542945/gov.uscourts.nysd.542945.9.0.pdf
According to Europol, officers seized more than 60 servers operated by Group Sparks in various countries, including Canada, the Czech Republic, Denmark, France, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, South Korea and many more.
