Denmark’s Rights Alliance and Denmark’s State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime (SØIK) reported that two major Danish pirate file sharing networks – DanishBits ** and NordicBits – were taken down after several years of investigation. The National Cyber Crime Center of the Danish National Police assisted.
Rights Alliance said that DanishBits had functioned as a closed file sharing network for about 10 years; hosting ‘thousands of films, TV series, books, newspaper articles and games. Some films were made available before their official commercial release. One of the pirates associated with DanishBits was arrested in Morocco in October, and the process of extraditing him back to Denmark is underway.
DanishBits ** granted users access to the site if users helped share the site with other consumers, or by paying for access via cryptocurrency. The site was estimated to have about 40,000 users and had 2 million visits per month; more than HBO Nordic and Trustpilot.
NordicBits was estimated to have about 5,000 users. One of its operators was arrested in Spain in September, with the assistance of Spanish authorities. After he admitted to participating in the piracy venture, he helped shut down the service.
** Note: Press releases by SØIK and Rights Alliance have referred to DanishBits in press releases in 2022 and prior. Starting later in 2022, it has been referred to as DanishBytes. A search for DanishBytes produces results; DanishBits does not.
Read the Rights Alliance press release
Read the press release from the Danish State Prosecutor for Serious Economic and International Crime (SØIK). Translated from Danish to English by Google Translate.
Why it matters
According to SØIK, Denmark’s Chamber of Commerce reported earlier in 2020 that 12 percent of Danish residents had downloaded or streamed illegal content during the past 12 months. These take-downs are hoped to reduce this percentage.
Both of these cases were investigated by SØIK’s special IPR unit (Intellectual Property Rights), which is a national unit that investigates and prosecutes violations of Denmark’s Trademark Act, the Copyright Act, the Design Act, the Patents Act and the Radio and Television Act.
