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Italian investigation finds link between piracy operation and supposedly legit cyber-locker

By | Published on Monday 7 July 2014

DDLStorage

A cyber-locker service called DDLStorage has been blocked in Italy amidst allegations the file-storage business exists primarily to assist in the distribution of unlicensed content via a link up with a file-sharing community.

According to anti-piracy group FPM, an investigation by the Italian Fiscal Police found that the operators of the piracy operation, which linked to unlicensed music, movies, TV shows and games stored on DDLStorage, generated revenues of 1.3 million euros in just fifteen months.

Investigators also claimed that only 3% of users on the cyber-locker platform uploaded files, because while the company did offer legit file-storage facilities, its primary business was the hosting and delivery of unlicensed content. Obviously similar allegations have been made against the former file-transfer service that was MegaUpload.

Confirming a web-block injunction had now been secured, meaning Italian internet service providers must block DDLStorage, Luca Vespignani of FPM told CMU: “This is a really important case for the anti-piracy battle: for the first time in Italy we can unequivocally reveal the presence of a direct and illegal connection between a pirate website and its cyberlocker. It is essential to investigate the organisation of these structures to seriously disrupt digital piracy”.

Speaking to Torrentfreak, a spokesman for DDLStorage played down the impact of the Italian investigation and resulting web-block, saying: “We are not in Italy, we are not an Italian company. We are online without any problems. We are working to resolve this problem with the Italian users”.



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