The Cyber Police Department of the National Police of Ukraine has confiscated the servers of fs.ro, one of the largest pirate sites in the country.
According to information supplied by the TV channel Ukraine to Broadband TV News, the search was conducted as part of criminal proceedings under part 3. of 176 article (violation of copyright and related rights) of the Ukrainian Criminal Code and was initiated on the appeal of the right holders from the Motion Picture Association of America.
As well as its main address, fs.ro stopped working on its mirror sites fs.ua, brb.to and cxz.to.
Meanwhile, another major Ukrainian site ex.ua has announced that it will close on December 1 and the torrents tracker Torrents.Net.ua closed on November 1.
In October, according to Similar Web, ex.ua was viewed 36 million times and fs.ua 23 million times. Experts estimate that in the same month the earned $1 million and $500,000 in advertising respectively.
Ukraine’s Anti-Pirate Association notes that these sites featured a lot of advertising, including from many famous brands.
Despite the fact that Ukrainian right holders called upon Ukrainian advertisers not to transfer their budgets to websites that violate intellectual property rights, the sales house Admixer officially sold advertising on these sites.
Prices on pirate sites amounted to dumping, costing $0.005 compared to $1 on a legal one per 1,000 video impressions.
A total of 19 people were arrested during the investigation.
The Cyber Police Department will continue to monitor the possible reappearance of fs.ro under a different domain name.
