The anti-piracy campaign affects another company.
December 9, the official web site of the company “Datagroup” released information on a search conducted at its Dnepropetrovsk office by the officers of the squad from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kirovskiy district of Dnepropetrovsk.
“The Dnepropetrovsk office of “Datagroup” is blocked
December 9, 2015 at around 1:00 pm the Dnepropetrovsk office of the national telecommunications operator “Datagroup” was blocked by the officers of the squad from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kirovskiy district of Dnepropetrovsk.
The law enforcement officers presented a court order to conduct a search upon the petition filed by the “Ukrainian Anti-Piracy Association” on illegal distributing content owned by the “Universal City Studios LLLP”. The IP address of the web site distributing illegal content belongs to the “Global Telecommunication Systems” (GTS).
GTS is owned by the operator “Datagroup”. Both legal entities are located at the same address.
The subject of the lawsuit is the IP address of the violating web site. “We tried to explain to the investigators that the IP address could not be the subject of a claim and it was impossible to seize it, as required by that court order. All information could be stored on servers. Unfortunately, the investigators were hard to get in touch with”, as commented by Maxim Smelyanets, CEO at “Datagroup”.
At the moment, all the office rooms keep on subject to illegal searches, seizure of accounting documents and confiscation of equipment, including computers of the staff. The management of the “Datagroup” has repeatedly declared its availability to cooperate with law enforcement authorities in defending copyright holders’ interests, but just in the legal framework.
As at 5:00 pm, the staff was allowed to go, and at the office there remained only management of GTS, “Datagroup” and the investigators of the squad from the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Kirovskiy district. At the same time the violating web site http://torrentz.pp.ua/ goes on functioning”.
The law enforcement officers presented the court ruling provided by Igor Mikhailov, the Vice-President of the “Ukrainian Anti-Piracy Association”. The reason for the search was to find the IP-address of the resource distributing unlicensed content owned by the “Universal City Studios LLLP”.
We shall recall that upon the petition of Mr. Mikhailov the search was also conducted at the premises of the Divan.TV Company, when the law enforcement officers illegally confiscated office equipment and servers, and the provider’s operation was suspended for some time.
As alleged by the Anti-piracy Association, the unlicensed copies of movies (including the leaders of the international release like “Dracula”, “Ex Machine”, “Minions”, “Jurassic World”, “Unbroken” and others.) were uploaded to the resource “torrentz.pp.ua” form the IP-address belonging to the “Global Telecommunication Systems” (“GTS”). We shall point out that the offices of both companies share the same building.
According to Sergey Varfolomey, GTS’ founder and former employee at the “Datagroup”, the law enforcement officers did not seize any servers, confiscating only computers and also trying to take away personal mobile phones of the searched company’s staff. As a proof of those actions, he posted a video on his page in the social network:
“Collecting phones of the DATAGROUP staff.
P.S. The new police officers are deadly similar to the previous cops. In form and content.)))))”
