Archive notice: This article was originally published on July 17, 2007. Links and embedded videos are preserved as part of the historical record.
The organization is thus taking targeted criminal action against those people who stand at the beginning of the distribution chain and enable the millionfold distribution of pirated copies on relevant file-sharing networks. A camcorded version of HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX in German appeared for the first time on so-called “file-sharing networks” during the night from Friday to Saturday – two days after the official cinema release and around four days after the first public previews.
“With our action against first uploaders, we are concentrating on the interface with the mass market”, Jan Scharringhausen, Head of the Legal Department of GVU, explains the strategy. One hundred so-called “First Seeders” have come into GVU’s sights in recent months. The organization has already filed criminal complaints against a large proportion of these first uploaders, and law-enforcement authorities carried out several searches.
Christian Sommer, Chairman of the Executive Board of GVU, expressed pleasure at the intensified cooperation with cinema operators as well as with law-enforcement authorities. Through the membership of Hauptverband Deutscher Filmtheater (HDF KINO e.V.) since May of this year as well as “DRIVE-IN Autokino Deutschland” since 2006, cinema owners had become more sensitized and attentive, Sommer said. Through close contacts with law-enforcement authorities, GVU was able last Wednesday to react quickly to an anonymous tip according to which an illegal recording was planned in a cinema. Within the shortest time, this information put the local police on alert.
