A man has been arrested in North Wales on suspicion of leaking unreleased Hollywood films online.<\/p>\n
The man, aged 47, was arrested on suspicion of copyright offences at his home in Penmaenmawr, near Conwy, on April 29 by officers<\/a> from the Police Intellectual Property Crime<\/a> Unit (PIPCU) at City of London Police<\/a>, the force said.<\/p>\n He is suspected to have obtained thousands of films, TV series and songs without the necessary licence or permissions from copyright owners and then distributed them through a file-sharing torrent site, according to police.<\/p>\n The content included two recent Hollywood films that were leaked before their official release dates, the force added.<\/p>\n Officers shut down the site and seized two laptops and several hard drives for further examination. A quantity of discs were also seized.<\/p>\n The arrest<\/a> came after an investigation<\/a> by PIPCU and the Motion Picture Association.<\/p>\n The man has since been released under investigation, City of London Police said.<\/p>\n Detective Constable Jason Theobald, from PIPCU, said: \u201cThis operation serves as a warning to anyone thinking of uploading copyrighted material to pirate sites.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a crime that diverts funds away from the creative industries, money that not only supports artists, but thousands of technical and support staff working in this sector.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s estimated that this type of criminal activity contributes to around 86,000 job losses each year alone. PIPCU is committed to working with partners, nationally and internationally, to take action against those involved.\u201d<\/p>\n Karyn Temple, senior executive vice president and global general counsel for the Motion Picture Association, said: \u201cThis operation stands as a powerful testament to the impact of close collaboration between law enforcement, the creative sector and industry partners.<\/p>\n \u201cWe commend PIPCU for their leadership and dedication \u2014 their unique role in tackling intellectual property crime is essential in today\u2019s digital age. Together, we are delivering meaningful results in the fight against piracy.<\/p>\n \u201cAs technology continues to evolve, so do the threats to creative content. This decisive enforcement action reinforces the message that piracy is not a victimless crime \u2014 it damages creators, disrupts legitimate businesses, and endangers consumers.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are proud to stand with PIPCU and our partners to protect creative industries and ensure audiences around the world can enjoy stories in a safe, legal and secure way.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has been arrested in North Wales on suspicion of leaking unreleased Hollywood films online. The man,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":123148,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7757],"tags":[748,35706,393,4884,54756,54757,257,54755,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-123147","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-london","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-city-of-london-police","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-hollywood-films","13":"tag-intellectual-property-crime","14":"tag-london","15":"tag-motion-picture-association","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114552790273429651","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123147","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=123147"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/123147\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/123148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=123147"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=123147"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=123147"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}