In Taiwan, prosecutors have just indicted 5 men suspected of having created a vast traffic in illegally downloaded films. They first fetched movies as legally as possible, then made them available on BitTorrent, and then ended up blackmailing users of the p2p network.
It all started in early June 2022, when Taiwanese media reported the sordid story of a former ultra-marathon runner, Kevin Lin. The man is also an entrepreneur, political critic and freshly graduated in law. According to the investigation conducted by the local police, Kevin Lin set up a company called “Truth Intellectual Property Consulting Co”, once he graduated. Thanks to her, he obtained licenses allowing him to stream movies legallyand therefore recovered the films in question.
But distributing these works legally was obviously not the objective of Kevin Lin’s company. Because these films as soon as obtained, they found themselves on the BitTorrent networks. By tracing the IP address at the origin of the sharing of these films, the investigators discovered that the source was none other than Kevin Lin’s company.
All this for a very specific purpose: the investigators also discovered that the users, who downloaded these films, had received legal threats emanating from Truth Intellectual Property Consulting Co. Kevin Lin’s company was actually trying toextort sharing network users by demanding cash payment.
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They offered movies for illegal downloading to extract money from pirates
Hundreds of copyright infringement threats have been issued by Truth Intellectual Property Consulting Co. In total, since August 2021, the company has filed 937 lawsuits. But only 25 cases were successful, and allowed him to extort just under 900,000 NT dollars (about 29,000 euros).
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Kevin Lin is not the only one involved: he would have benefited from the help of four other accomplices, including a lawyer. The principal concerned defends himself from these accusations. According to him, the investigation is politically motivated, because of his support for the opposition and criticism of the handling of the Covid-19 pandemic. Prosecutors are demanding a heavy sentence for the 5 defendants, but have not yet specified which one.
Source: Focus Taiwan