xcute

Three years ago the Hellenic (Greek) police armed with warrants for search/seizure/arrest stormed some people houses and arrested 8 people and charged 7 regarding copyright violations through the famous website gamato.info.
The first trial of the case took place in Thessaloniki (date)
The user was charged with criminal copyright infringement under Greek law 2121/94 par 66-3b.
First witness to the trial was the EPOE representative the same person that filed the lawsuit.
He claimed (unchallenged!!!) that the defendant was high in the hierarchy of the website, without torrents there is no piracy and to seed a torrent you need just a computer on.
During the trial it was noted that 850000 users maybe did infringement, and that might have been 15 mil euros damages, and that means about 6000 euros per user (the damage done).
The defendant said only few things in his testimony, he knew he was breaking the law by uploading (something he didn't refuse, even though there was no evidence) but he didn't care and the same was done by 850000 users and most of the users download stuff that will never spend money to go see in the movies, or buy the record.
The public prosecutor suggested 3 years imprisoment (suspended) with 10K fine, but the decision of the court was 2 years suspended sentence with 5K fine.
The prosecutors requested even higher compensation something that was quickly dismissed by the court.
I wanted to write what really took place in the court as there are many propagandist 'news' coming out lately.