Change in tactics: Danish courts send two digital pirates straight to prison

A landmark case – that’s how observers are calling a decision by Danish courts to sentence two digital bootleggers straight to prison even though they seem to have had no profit motive.

Denmark hasn’t exactly been tolerant of online piracy but, just like in most other EU countries, the courts mostly fined the digital bootleggers. After receiving conditional punishments, they could avoid jail time if they stayed out of trouble.

But now, the crackdown seems to be intensifying. In late March, Danish courts convicted two men for extensive illegal file sharing and sent them straight to prison. These were Denmark’s first unconditional prison sentences for piracy without a profit motive.

First, a 46-year-old who shared 74 terabytes of copyrighted movies and TV shows through torrent sites was sentenced to nine months in prison and ordered by a Hillerød court to complete 120 hours of community service.

In a separate case, Nykøbing Falster’s court sent a 48-year old man to prison for a year. He hosted two servers and illegally distributed content within The Scene, a secretive piracy network. His hardware contained 134 terabytes of copyrighted material.

“I am very satisfied with the sentences handed down,” said Danish Special Crimes Unit (NSK) Prosecutor Jan Østergaard.

“This is the first time that the courts have imposed unconditional prison sentences on file sharers who have no criminal record and have not themselves benefited financially. It is the enormous amount of data of illegally shared copyrighted material that has been the decisive factor for the harsh sentences.”

The anti-piracy group Rights Alliance, which helped authorities shut down Danish torrent sites SuperBits and DanishBytes, welcomed the verdicts.

“Let the verdicts be a wake-up call to the users and perpetrators who persist. Violations of rights can be discovered – and taken seriously when they are,” Rights Alliance director Maria Fredenslund said.

Mediavision, a media industry research company that measures illegal content consumption across the Nordic region, reported in 2022 (PDF) that as many as 580,000 Danes watch films and TV series illegally.

In 2023, Mediavision said that piracy was highest in Sweden, with 25% of all viewers aged 15-74 years old, followed by Norway (22%), Denmark (20%), and Finland (17%).

According to the Danish Chamber of Commerce, the percentage of specifically young Danes who have downloaded or streamed content illegally has surpassed 50%. Moreover, piracy prevalence was actually growing within the age group of 15-29 year-olds.