Two Polish citizens detained earlier on suspicion of attacking Russian opposition figure Leonid Volkov in Lithuania

A Belarusian national has been detained in Poland on suspicion of ordering the attack on a top Russian opposition leader, Leonid Volkov, on Moscow’s behalf, the Polish prime minister, Donald Tusk, has announced.

Volkov, a close aide of the late opposition leader Alexei Navalny, was briefly admitted to hospital last month after he was ambushed and attacked outside his house in Vilnius , the capital of Lithuania. The assailant smashed open Volkov’s car window and repeatedly struck him with a hammer, breaking Volkov’s left arm and damaging his left leg before fleeing the scene.

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Police say assault on Leonid Volkov was probably done by Moscow to stop Russian opposition influencing presidential election

Lithuania has blamed Moscow for the bloody overnight hammer attack on a longtime aide to the late Russian opposition leader, Alexei Navalny, outside his home in Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.

Leonid Volkov, 43, was briefly hospitalised after being attacked with a hammer by an unknown assailant late on Tuesday.

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Photos published by late dissident’s team show Russian citizen covered in blood after assault outside his home in Lithuania

Leonid Volkov, a longtime aide to the late Russian opposition leader Alexei Navalny , has been attacked with a hammer outside his house in the Lithuanian capital, Vilnius.

“Volkov has just been attacked outside his house. Someone broke a car window and sprayed teargas in his eyes, after which the attacker started hitting Leonid with a hammer,” former Navalny spokesperson Kira Yarmysh wrote on X late on Tuesday.

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While streaming piracy dominates in many parts of the world, quite a few Lithuanians prefer sharing content using BitTorrent instead.

Private torrent tracker Linkomanija is often the top choice. The site has been around for two decades and has weathered many storms, including a high-profile lawsuit from Microsoft.

The tracker’s users have also been called out repeatedly. Fourteen years ago, local anti-piracy outfit LANVA reported the IP-addresses of 106 Linkomanija users to the police with a request to take action. In response, the tracker’s operator reported the anti-piracy group to the police for illegally accessing its tracker.

As far as we know, these early moves didn’t result in prosecutions. LANVA’s boss was eventually jailed for drug trafficking , but that had little to do with the group’s anti-piracy efforts or its support from rightsholders.

Today, there’s no trace of the infamous anti-piracy group, but that doesn’t mean that Linkomanija and its users are no longer at risk. The private tracker is currently blocked by Lithuania’s largest ISPs and its users are still being tracked.

€140 Piracy ‘Fines’

A breakthrough came last summer when Lithuania amended its Code of Administrative Offenses, allowing media watchdog LRTK to fine pirates, without going to court. In the months that followed, dozens of fines were handed out, almost exclusively to Linkomanija users.

The targets were first time offenders and all received the minimum fine of 140 euros. For repeat offenses, fines can potentially reach 600 euros.

According to our calculations, thirty people have been fined so far. However, a local news report from LRT mentions “around 50 people.” What’s clear, however, is that users of the ‘private’ torrent tracker are being watched.

“We can see them and their IP addresses and we cooperate with internet service providers to obtain information,” Vadimas Gasperskijus, spokesman for the Lithuanian Radio and Television Commission told LRT.

Those caught will get a chance to explain why their IP-address is showing up in these ‘pirate’ swarms. After taking in that information, the commission decides whether a fine is appropriate.

Piracy Reduction?

The Lithuanian system is fairly unique and, on paper, it should act as a reasonable deterrent against some casual downloaders. But will seasoned torrent tracker users go legal too?

Lithuanian lawyer Andrius Iškauskas, who represented several copyright holders in court, believes that the current measures are sufficient to put a dent in the country’s high piracy rates.

“The government has made it very clear to its citizens that no, we do not tolerate piracy,” Iškauskas says. “And I think that, alongside other measures, it was a logical step that fits well into the overall anti-piracy effort and will reduce piracy.”

This positive outlook isn’t directly backed up by numbers. According to a recent report from the EU Intellectual Property Office, Lithuania remains in the top three pirating countries. However, these data were gathered before any fines were issued; the next version should provide more clarity.

Linkomanija vs. Netflix

There are some other public stats we can use as an early gauge though. Looking at the number of visits to Linkomanija between September and November last year, we see little change.

The traffic numbers for Lithuania’s most popular torrent site, as reported by SimilarWeb, are steady at around 1.7 million visits per month. That’s a sizable number since the country’s population is under three million.

While it makes sense that the thirty or fifty ‘fined’ users are no longer openly downloading content from Linkomanija today, there’s certainly no mass exodus visible at the site.

Luckily, there are some positive numbers for rightsholders as well. The use of legal streaming services is on the rise in Lithuania. The number of Netflix subscribers, for example, increased from 84,000 in the first half of 2022, to 90,000 a year later.

Then again, Linkonanija has more than 300,000 users according to the most recent count we’ve seen, so there is still some progress to make there.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

This summer, Lithuania amended its Code of Administrative Offenses, allowing media watchdog LRTK to fine pirates, without going to court.

This legislative change is the latest attempt to deter piracy in the European country. The potential fines should make pirates reconsider their habits, the idea goes.

Tracking Down Pirates

Handing out fines may sound like an effective strategy, but catching online pirates isn’t always straightforward. It’s typically not possible to know who is using pirate streaming sites or direct download portals, for example, unless the service in question is compromised.

Tracking BitTorrent pirates is easier. Torrent users broadcast their IP-addresses publicly and this activity can be monitored by outsiders. This is the main reason why pretty much all lawsuits against individual pirates are targeted at BitTorrent users.

The Lithuanian media watchdog is aware of this; the first three fines issued in August targeted BitTorrent users. The more unusual aspect here is that LRTK specifically singled out users of the private torrent tracker Linkomanija.

LinkoManija.net is the largest torrent site in the country and a local legend. The site has been around for more than two decades and continues to thrive. While it’s officially a private community, many locals have access; that includes the media watchdog’s piracy tracking partner.

25 Private Tracker Targets

This week, LRTK announced that it had fined twenty-five additional people who reportedly shared copyright-infringing content via LinkoManija. In all cases the offenders shared pirated versions of films owned by local movie companies.

“LRTK found that audiovisual works protected by copyright – the films “Tu mano Deimantas”, “Hypnotic” and “Paradas” – were illegally reproduced and made public on the linkomanija.net website without copyright consent from their IP addresses,” the watchdog notes .

IP-addresses don’t identify individuals so, technically speaking, the authorities don’t know whether those fined are actual users of the site. The fines simply target the people who are paying for the Internet bills, who are not necessarily the pirates.

The authorities don’t appear to be impacted by these technicalities and issued 140-euro fines to all identified subscribers, which is half of the maximum allowed penalty. If the same ‘people’ continue to pirate, potential fines can reach 850 euros.

Not Done Yet

The latest wave of fines is the largest thus far. Three people were previously penalized in August and eight more followed in September, bringing the total to thirty-six now. These offenders were all linked to the same torrent tracker.

LRTK warns all Lithuanians, and Linkomanija users in particular, that it’s not done yet. The watchdog says that it will continue to use its legal powers to monitor piracy activity and reduce the country’s piracy rate.

The private torrent tracker itself remains online, at least for now. A court previously ordered the country’s largest Internet providers to block the site, but that hasn’t stopped people from finding workarounds to access it.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

A few weeks ago, Lithuania amended its Code of Administrative Offenses, allowing media watchdog LRTK to fine pirates, without going to court.

This legislative change is the latest attempt to deter piracy in the European country. The potential fines should make pirates reconsider their habits, the idea goes.

Monitoring Pirates

While this plan may be sound on paper, there are some challenges to overcome. Tracking pirates isn’t always possible. Outsiders can’t easily see who uses a pirate streaming site, for example.

Tracking BitTorrent pirates is easier, but not straightforward when the largest torrent site in the country, LinkoManija.net, is a private community. The torrent site is relatively unknown in most parts of the world but it’s a local legend. LinkoManija has been around for more than two decades and continues to survive.

Although the torrent site is not openly accessible, many Lithuanians are members, as evidenced by the fact that it’s one of the most visited sites in the country. The site’s members include some piracy investigators too, it appears.

Watchdog Fines LinkoManija Users

This week, media watchdog LRTK announced that it had fined three LinkoManija users. The people in question were tracked down on July 27, presumably by their IP-addresses. All three shared a copy of the locally produced film “ Tu Mano Deimantas “.

LRTK says this is the first time it has issued administrative fines for copyright violations carried out by individual pirates. These fines are presumably directed at the Internet subscribers associated with the pirating IP addresses.

Under the updated law, the consumer watchdog can fine online pirates up to 600 euros per offense. In this case, the three LinkoManija users were fined 140 euros each.

The scale of the fines is relatively mild and may not stop the most determined pirates. However, the authorities likely hope that by showing that people can indeed get caught, that will act as a deterrent. Meanwhile, the LinkoManija website remains up and running, as it has done since 2003.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

Numerous reports published by the European Union over the past decade have linked higher levels of content piracy with lacking availability of legal content.

Restricted access to legal offers fuels the perception among citizens that piracy is an acceptable option, which in turn leads to higher levels of pirated content consumption. One way to combat that is by making content available and raising awareness, through the EU’s Agorateka platform , for example.

Member State Lithuania has faced criticism for its high piracy rates, including an EU finding in 2022 that 43% of young people mainly access movies from illegal sources. However, when Agorateka sends citizens to the country’s “Buy Legally” portal which doesn’t appear to exist , that doesn’t help when the same EU report ( pdf ) found that 50% of people said they would stop pirating content if it was made available legally.

Filmai – A Pirate Movie Service Like No Other

Filmai is the most famous movie and TV show piracy site in Lithuania. Founded in 2009 when access to legal content was exponentially worse than it is even today, Filmai is no ordinary piracy platform.

So that Lithuanians can access and enjoy international movies, the site hires translators and voice actors to create Lithuanian language streams and downloads. Since this costs money, Lithuanian visitors mostly pay to access the service. In 2021, it was revealed that Lithuanian officials were Filmai users.

At the same time, two alleged administrators of the site were under criminal investigation. Filmai had been infiltrated by anti-piracy investigators posing as translators. The team reportedly earned 111.17 euros for their work, and payment was sent to their PayPal account. The fates of two alleged operators of Filmai were announced yesterday.

One Conviction, One Acquittal

Following a legal process that took more than five years, relating to the activities of two men between 2010 and 2017, the Kaunas District Court handed down its decision last Friday. One of the defendants was acquitted of all wrongdoing but the other wasn’t so lucky.

The Lithuanian man, who hasn’t been named, was ordered to pay almost 50,000 euros in fines to rightsholders including 38,000 euros to the Lithuanian Copyright Collective Administration Association (LATGA) and 11,000 euros to All Media Lithuania (TV3 television).

The most significant component of the sentence is a confiscation order. Assets worth almost 200,000 euros will be seized from the defendant, who is also required to compensate LATGA for its legal costs.

LATGA Celebrates Win

In a statement issued yesterday, LATGA welcomes the district court’s verdict since it also serves as a reminder that takedown notices and ISP blocking are not the only anti-piracy options available to rightsholders.

“The legal acts also provide for the possibility to apply for the application of criminal liability to specific persons who administer illegal websites and receive financial benefits from such activities, at the same time claiming against them claims for compensation for property damage,” says LATGA director Laura Baškevičienė.

“This court decision only confirms that copyright violations are taken seriously and can lead to serious legal consequences.”

Filmai Appears to Be Thriving

While Filmai has suffered some downtime over the past few years, the site appears to be thriving. During the last three months of 2022, Filmai.in received around 1.8 million visitors per month, despite the site’s domains being blocked by internet service providers. Legal competitor Go3.lt receives around 1.9 million visits per month.

Also of interest is the significant amount of traffic Filmai attracts from abroad. Around 38% of the site’s total traffic comes from outside Lithuania, with the United Kingdom (19%), Norway (7%), Sweden (4%) taking the top spots according to SimilarWeb stats.

For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, visitors from Ireland recently increased by 78% and now account for 3% of Filmai’s overall traffic. All of this helps to maintain Filmai’s position among the top 120 most-visited sites in Lithuania.

Finally, it appears that Filmai also shared some of its spoils with the state. The entity behind the site paid around 287,000 euros in VAT over the years and between 2015 and 2017, declared another 56,000 euros in VAT as payable. That in itself doesn’t render the site legal but it does suggest demand in what appears to be an underserved market.

From: TF , for the latest news on copyright battles, piracy and more.

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