Greek police close website that pirated music, film, games and books

Athens, 11th March 2010 - Police in Greece have closed down, pending trial, the BitTorrent index and tracker site Gamato.info that had been used to facilitate large-scale copyright infringement of music, film, games and books.

The closure follows raids in Athens, Salonika, Larissa and Aridaia that led to the arrest of six individuals connected with the administration of the site.

Officers acted after tip-offs from IFPI Greece, which represents the local recorded music industry and MPA, which represents the film industry internationally.

Gamato.info, a BitTorrent tracker, was estimated by alexa.com to be the 13th most visited website in Greece before its closure. Statbrain.com calculated that 155,000 users visited the site daily.

The site had previously closed in January, following the arrests of the administrators of greek-fun.com, another infringing website, but reopened a few weeks later.

Evidence presented to the police showed the site was hosting links to more than 35,000 infringing music albums and collections, 13,000 movies, 6,500 games and 6,500 books.

Jeremy Banks, director of anti-piracy at IFPI, says: "Gamato.info was facilitating the illegal distribution of music, film, games and books. It is the perfect illustration of how such illegal operations are damaging a wide range of creative industries in Europe.

"The Hellenic Police swiftly recognised this was not a victimless crime and took action against those who sought to shamelessly profit off the back of others' creative work. This skilfully executed action by a highly knowledgeable police force should act as a real deterrent to others in Greece considering engaging in online piracy."