Romanian court closes down illegal movie website

Romanian website serialepenet.ro, which used to illegally broadcast international TV series, was closed down by the Romanian authorities. The Romanian prosecutors have seized the domain which is now part of a criminal investigation. The site had been registered in October 2010, according to RoTLD, which sells .ro domains. On Tuesday, the Romanian police raided a firm’s headquarters and several private homes in Mures county, as part of an investigation related to illegal content distribution. The prosecutors took two people in for questioning and seized several computers and data storage devices. The authorities are investigating several suspects for uploading pirated content (music and movies) on streaming websites. The suspects apparently charged money from the people who accessed the websites. The crime group is also investigated for tax evasion and money laundering, which generated an estimated damage of RON 500,000 (some EUR 110,000). In 2012, Romania’s audiovisual regulator CNA filed a complaint to the police against 42 websites that were streaming illegal content. The complained came after Romanian TV station PRO TV asked CAN to take action against these websites. PRO TV has its own paid streaming platform, voyo.ro, which legally broadcasts movies, TV series and TV shows. Many of the 42 websites were closed, but some of them are still online. Romanian audiovisual watchdog notifies police of illegal movie websites in Romania High piracy rate forces Universal Channel out of Romania editor@romania-insider.com