A court in La Rochelle has sentenced a man aged 28 to six months suspended sentence and ordered him to pay more than two million euros in damages to US studios.
The man, an inhabitant of Rochefort (Charente-Maritime) was prosecuted for “making software publicly available for watching protected works.”
The investigation showed that between January 1 2012 and April 15, 2014, nearly three million downloads were made. Some 242,279 films, 240 concerts and 2,240 music albums had been made available illegally.
The creator of the site earned revenues through advertising on the site and user donations. The site was hosted in Hungary and the Czech Republic.
The man in question left France and started to live in Budapest in 2013, when the case was brought to light by SFre inch authors rights organisation ACEM in August 2013. He contacted investigators July 18, 2014 indicating that he had no intention of returning to France to be heard.
The Rochelle court ordered him to pay EUR158,130 to Columbia Pictures, EUR242,735 to Disney, EUR221,575 TO Paramount Pictures, EUR11.010 TO Tristar Pictures, EUR228,785 TO 20th Century Fox, EUR172,560 TO Universal and EUR470,205 to Warner Bros.
Other plaintiffs in this lawsuit include SACEM, who will receive EUR564,762, Syndicat de l’Edition vidéo-numérique (EUR5,000) and la Fédération nationale des distributeurs de films (also EUR5,000).
