Nine addresses were searched on Wednesday morning in a police operation against pirate television.
This is stated by Funen Police and Søik, popularly called the Bagmandspolitiet, in a press release.
These are addresses in and around Odense, and it is mainly men who have been charged with breaking the law on radio and television activities.
They have allegedly done this by unjustifiably gaining access to coded TV signals, including TV packages from Canal Digital, says deputy police inspector in Søik Michael Lichtenstein.
– When Canal Digital broadcasts their TV packages via satellite networks, it does so on encrypted signals. We suspect that someone has gained legal access to it, cracked the encryption and then distributed it to x number of users.
– He or she has sold it to them at a lower price than Canal Digital usually offers it for, he says.
At the addresses, police have found and seized decoder boxes, which are connected to the TV to decrypt the signal.
After police cracked down, the server through which the signal was shared shut down.
– Whether it is because it is one of those we have visited, or whether the rumor that we have been there has gone into the network, which then has pulled the plug, we must have investigated further now, says Michael Lichtenstein.
The investigation began after the police received a report from Nordic Content Protection on behalf of Canal Digital last year.
How the organization working to combat television piracy on behalf of the television industry could know that some have allegedly broken the law, Michael Lichtenstein will not go out with.
– I can not reveal this in more detail, but you often leave digital traces when you go out in the great reality that is right now. Through that, we have identified the addresses we have visited today (Wednesday, ed.), He says.
There is an age range among the accused. While the oldest was born in 1946, the youngest is from 1978, police say.
In the near future, the police will examine the decoder boxes and review the defendants’ bank information to see if and, if so, how long they have paid for the service.
If the nine have had illegal access, they risk a fine and a claim for damages. That requirement will cover the price for the period during which it can be documented that the accused have had unjustified access to the TV packages.
According to the interest group Rights Alliance, there is an increase in illegal TV consumption. It estimates that up to 250,000 in Denmark in 2018 watched pirate TV.
A man was briefly arrested on Wednesday, but it was not due to the alleged TV piracy. He had a small skunk laboratory in his home with 189 hemp plants, police said.
Source: The Nordic Page