Piracy is dangerous for national security, it seems...
The French military has moved to close down a large Bit Torrent tracker in what is the first recorded use of a nation's armed forces under the control of the entertainment industry.
It seems that the French government used taxpayer funded military personnel to gather information in order to shut down the Snowtigers site.
According to Torrentfreak, French police arrested 10 members of the site's staff and seized more than 20 servers after the military assisted in locating them.
A representative of the French anti-piracy organisation ALPA confirmed that it had "worked very closely with the military" to locate the semi-private site.
ALPA president Frédéric Delacroix managed to convince the military that SnowTigers was a criminal organisation and therefore the use of spy technology in the hands of the military was warrented to shut it down. To make matters worse, it appears that those who donated money to the site could also expect to be dragged off into police custody.
Delacroix claimed that all people who have paid money to the site can now be questioned. Apparently the French government investigation has also been extended beyond the borders of the Republic.
It appears that it will only be a matter of time before the French government turns over its nuclear deterrent to copyright holders in a bid to bring the Scandinavian countries as well as Russia and China back into line.
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Issue: 107 | December, 2009