German police raided file-sharing locker Skyload.net last week, and arrested it’s operator, along with the guy who provided hosting for the site, according to Networld.
The Dresden Attorney General’s office initiated the raid in response to a complaint led by the German copyright agency. Skyload.net is accused of putting more than 10,000 movies on to Kino.to, under a paid affiliate program. Kino.to has a file-sharing model similar to what MegaUpload had, and was also recently raided, in one of the largest anti-piracy busts in history.
TorrentFreak reports that authorities have arrested Maik Pätzold, a.k.a “Maik P,” owner of the Skyload.net domain. Also arrested was Marcel Edler, who was listed as operating Skyload’s hosting provider, Virtuell-host.de, though it is uncommon for a hosting provider to be charged for the actions of their clients. Authorities have said that even though Kino.to was shut down, files are still being moved through other sites like KinoX.to. The Kino.to main administrator was recently sentenced to 3 years in prison, after that site was raided last June.
As with the recent takedown of MegaUpload, the halting of Skyload likely did little to affect the rate on online file-sharing. According to a study conducted by DeepField Networks, the Megaupload takedown did almost nothing to stem file-sharing traffic, which is typically web use indicative of piracy. Pirates just quickly move to other services, and will likely continue to do so.
